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Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1854,  by 

JOHN  P.  JEWETT  AND  COMPANY, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


C  A  ]M  r,  R  I  D  G  E  : 

ALLEX    AND    FARXHAM,    miNTERS. 


PREFACE. 


The  design  of  this  work  being  to  present  a  just  and  true 
account  of  the  personal  character  and  public  services  of  Robert 
Rantoul,  Jr.,  I  have  given,  in  illustration  of  his  principles  and 
the  objects  at  which  he  aimed,  his  own  Speeches  and  Writings, 
and  the  circumstances  which  called  them  forth,  as  well  as 
whatever  information  could  be  gathered  from  those  who  knew 
him  most  intimately  from  his  birth  to  his  death.  I  have, 
besides,  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
him  from  the  commencement  to  the  close  of  his  public  life ; 
and  if  I  have  not  succeeded  in  forming  a  just  estimate  of  his 
character,  I  may  have  been  misled  by  the  sentiments  of  respect 
and  affection  with  which  its  noble  traits  and  excellences  never 
failed  to  inspire  me.  For  I  will  not  deny,  that  if  a  sincere 
admiration  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  private  and  public  character  be  a 
disqualification  for  editing  this  work,  its  success  must  be 
particularly  affected  and  hurt  by  it.  To  speak  of  him  as  he 
was,  is  to  praise  him.  Let  the  reader,  therefore,  pardon  me  if 
he  find  sober  narrative  sometimes  uttering  the  warm  language 
of  eulogy.     It  could  not  otherwise  have  been  true. 

The  biographical  sketch  of  Mr.  Rantoul  in  his  earliest  years, 
and  up  to  the  time  of  his  graduation  at  Harvard  College,  is 
from  the  accomplished  pen  of  his  kinsman  and  friend.  Rev. 
A.  P.  Peabody,  D.  D.,  of  Portsmouth.  This,  with  the  extracts 
from  the  letters  of  Doctors  Ray  and  Torrey,  and  the  three  short 
poems,  which  are  thrown  in,  not  so  much  to  show  his  poetical 
talent,  as  the  delicacy  of  his  sentiments,  and  the  tenderness  of 
his  personal  character,  constitutes  the  first  Chapter. 


iv  PREFACE. 

I  am  also  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr., 
Esq.,  for  a  full  and  accurate  report  of  the  Sims  Case,  in  which 
Mr.  RantouPs  service,  as  counsel  for  the  alleged  fugitive  from 
slavery,  was  so  honorable  to  his  ability  as  a  constitutional 
lawyer,  and  to  the  humanity  and  justice  of  his  sentiments. 
To  C.  L.  Woodbury,  Esq.,  I  am  also  under  obligations  for 
information  in  relation  to  what  is  known  to  lawyers  as  the 
New  Bedford  Bridge  Case,  and  to  Mr.  Rantoul's  practice  in 
trials  for  infringement  of  patent  rights.  Of  whatever  else  in 
this  work  appears  as  editorial,  I  take  the  exclusive  responsi- 
bility ;  and  that  responsibility  will  appear  sufficient  to  any 
one,  who  considers  how  many  important  subjects  are  touched 
upon,  and  how  much  one,  who  does  his  own  thinking,  hazards, 
in  these  times  of  panic  patriotism,  when  republican  America, 
in  her  pretty  innocence,  babbles,  like  the  old  despotisms  of 
Europe,  of  finalities ;  and  a  free  word,  spoken  by  free  lips,  is 
freighted  with  magic  thunder  to  shake  the  pillars  of  the  Con- 
stitution. Freedom  must  be  at  its  last  gasp,  when  such  a  man 
as  was  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  can  be  excluded  from  a  democratic 
convention,  for  holding  fast  the  sacred  rights  of  opinion  and 
discussion,  —  rights  essential  to  liberty  and  manhood,  and 
hostile  only  to  tyrants.  But  in  the  cause  of  human  rights  he 
spake,  and  "  though  dead,  he  yet  speaketh ; "  and  could  the 
voice  of  all  the  friends  of  freedom  united,  give  to  the  dust  that 
rests  upon  its  native  Atlantic  shore  its  former  vitality,  the 
restored  could  not  speak  with  more  effective,  if,  '•  miraculous, 
organ"  for  truth,  liberty,  and  the  happiness  of  the  people,  than 
he  has  spoken  in  the  works  here  republished. 

If  they  shall  enkindle  in  one  human  soul  a  new  and  more 
earnest  sentiment  of  humanity,  a  profounder  respect  for  justice 
in  political  institutions  and  laws,  and  a  higher  reverence  for 
the  majesty  of  virtue  in  private  and  public  life,  the  editor  will 
feel  that  his  humble  service  is  a  thousand  times  rewarded. 

EoxBURY,  June  17,  1853. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Parentage  and  birth.  Home  influences.  Permanent  traits  of  character  early  dis- 
played. His  first  school  teacher.  Extract  from  his  Journal  -when  eight  years  old. 
Phillips  Academy,  Andover.  Testimony  of  a  class  mate,  Dr.  Ray.  Habits  of 
study.  Harvard  College  entered,  1822.  Character  as  a  student.  Industry.  Tlie 
subjects  "which  interested  him.  Choice  of  companions.  How  regarded  by  those 
who  knew  him.  Public  spirit.  Valedictory  poem.  Interest  in  Lyceums.  Dr. 
Torrey's  letter.     Summary  view  of  his  early  character.    Poems,         Page  1  to  15 


CHAPTER   11. 

Commenced  the  study  of  law  in  1826,  with  Mr.  Pickering.  Continued  it  with  Mr. 
Saltonstall.  Literary  tastes.  Love  of  history  and  politics.  Admitted  to  the  Bar, 
1829.  Trial  of  the  Knapps,  1830.  Effects  of  independence  in  discharge  of  duty. 
Lost  the  patronage  of  wealth  by  it.  Married,  1831.  Left  Salem  for  South  Read- 
ing. Lived  there  two  years.  First  of  his  published  political  addresses.  Removed 
to  Gloucester,  1833.  Resided  there  five  years.  A  representative  in  the  Legisla- 
ture four  years.  Opened  an  office  in  Boston,  1838.  Obstacles  to  his  success  and 
advancement.  His  democratic  opinions  injuriously  affect  his  professional  practice. 
It  was  so  in  the  case  of  Story.  Genius  finally  triumphs.  Several  important  cases 
mentioned.  "  Journeymen  Boot-Makers'  Case,"  from  Democratic  Review.  The 
Rhode  Island  Trials.  Circumstances  which  led  to  them.  Account  of  Mr.  Ran- 
toul's  argument  from  "Providence  Express."  Appointed  Collector  in  1843,  Dis- 
trict Attorney  in  18-44.  Vindicated  great  principles  of  constitutional  law.  New 
Bedford  Bridge  Case.  Learned  argument.  The  Spitfire  Case,  (a  slaver).  The 
Crafts  Case  of  fraudulent  wrecking  a  ship.  Great  length  of  tliis  trial.  Extracts  from 
Journal  of  Commerce  and  Boston  Times.  In  1835,  on  the  Committee  for  Revising 
the  Statutes.  In  1836, 1837,  1838,  one  of  the  Judiciary  Committee.  Extract  from 
his  Journal,  written  1835.  Found  the  advantage  of  journalizing  not  Avorth  the 
trouble.     Codification  of  the  Common  Law ;  for  his  views  of,  see  Chapter  IV.,  in  his 


vi  CONTENTS. 

Oration  at  Scituate.  His  unexpected  call  to  defend  an  alleged  fugitive  slave. 
Report  of  the  Sims  Case,  by  R.  II.  Dana,  Jr.,  Esq.  Mr.  Rantoul's  argument  never 
answered,  and  unanswerable, 16 — 66 


CHAPTER  III. 

His  love  of  knowledge  prompt  liis  labors  in  the  cause  of  Education.  His  estimate  of 
the  value  of  knowledge.  Theme  of  one  of  his  earliest  addresses  on  Education. 
The  worth  of  knowledge  determined  by  the  moral  character  of  its  possessor.  The 
highest  office  of  the  Teacher.  The  cultivation  of  the  moral  sentiments  the  best 
part  of  education.  Illustration  from  his  own  character,  which  was  as  pure  and 
elevated  as  his  love  of  knowledge  and  facility  of  acquisition  were  great.  Hence 
his  unaffected  interest  in  the  cause  of  Moral  Reform.  Labors  in  favor  of  Temper- 
ance, and  his  view  of  the  means  of  promoting  it,  (see,  also,  on  this  subject.  Chapter 
V).  Made  numerous  Speeches  not  published  or  wi-itten  out.  Plymouth  county 
Normal  School  Convention.  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education,  Mr.  Rantoul  an 
active  member  six  years.  Lectured  often  before  Lyceums.  Article  of  his  pub- 
lished in  the  North  American  Review,  here  reprinted.  Also  his  Address  before  the 
American  Institute  of  Instruction, 67 — 140 


CHAPTER  IV. 

His  political  principles  early  matiired.  Originated  in  his  natural  character,  and  love 
of  historical  and  statistical  knowledge.  Believed  in  the  progress  and  improve- 
ment of  the  race,  and  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  right  and  the  true.  Regarded  gov- 
ernment as  an  evil  to  be  borne  because  necessary ;  and  to  be  dispensed  with  as 
fiu-  as  possible.  The  world  governed  too  much.  Held  to  the  strict  construction  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Frank,  explicit,  and  consistent  from  first 
to  last  in  avowing  his  opinions.  Extracts  from  his  writings  of  1834  and  1851, 
compared,  proving  identity  of  opinion  at  those  two  periods.  Advocated  a  system 
of  equal  rights,  equal  burdens,  and  free  trade.  Wrote  much  for  the  press.  Char- 
acter of  the  "  Gloucester  Democrat  and  Workingmen's  Advocate,"  Ably  sup- 
ported Jackson's  Administration,  Extracts.  Unavoidable  responsibility  imposed 
by  republican  institutions.  Vigilance  necessary  to  preserve  them.  He  acted  up 
to  his  principles  fearlessly  and  ftiithfully.  Sought  the  public  good.  His  princi- 
ples consistent  and  homogeneous,  Superior  to  mere  party.  Above  selfish  con- 
siderations. Always  boldly  on  the  side  of  freedom.  Oration  at  South  Reading, 
1832,  Oration  at  Gloucester,  1833,  as  published  in  Workingmen's  Library,  vol,  I,  ; 
Chief  Justice  Marshall's  opinion  of  this  Oration,  Address  to  the  Workingmen  of 
the  United  States,  Oration  at  Scituate,  1836,  Extracts  from  Oration  at  Lenox, 
1838,  on  the  true  basis  of  free  governments, 141 — 307 


CHAPTER  V. 

Position  and  influence  in  the  Legislature,  Representative  from  Gloucester  the  first 
time,  1835,  Eminent  qualifications  for  that  office.  His  aims  as  a  representative. 
The  character  of  his  constituency.     Opposition  in  the  House,     Effect  of  his  bold 


CONTENTS.  vii 

and  skilful  assaults  on  special  legislation.  Though  in  a  small  minority,  his  wis- 
dom and  eloquence  often  carried  the  House.  Incomparably  the  ablest  debater  in 
that  body.  Made  himself  master  of  every  siibject  upon  Avhich  he  spoke.  The 
whole  whig  talent  of  the  house  was  no  match  for  him.  Unfair  means  on  the  part 
of  the  majority  sometimes  used  against  him.  His  course  in  debate  singulai-ly 
clear,  direct,  logical,  and  free  from  all  injustice  towards  his  opponents.  Forgot 
himself  in  the  subject  of  discussion.  An  evident  earnestness  and  directness  of 
purpose  distinguished  him.  His  purpose  always  well  considered,  his  words  ready, 
apt,  and  suited  to  his  meaning.  Historical  and  statistical  knowledge  ;  facts 
were  the  well  used  weapons  of  his  oratory.  His  personal  appearance.  Extract 
from  New  York  Evening  Post.  Speech  on  incorporating  the  Boyden  Iron  and 
Steel  Company.  Danger  to  liberty  from  incorporations.  Extract  from  Boston 
Advocate  in  reference  to  this  speech.  Remarks  on  the  Tavern  Bill.  Warren 
Bridge  Question.  Speech  on  this  subject  September  8,  1835,  in  the  House. 
Remarks  at  the  Bridge  Celebration,  March  2,  1836,  in  Charlestown.  Remarks  on 
the  Remonstrance  against  the  passage  of  Mr.  Cambreleng's  Bill  for  reducing  reve- 
nue from  imports.  Protection.  Eree  trade.  Extract  from  New  York  Evening 
Post  on  monopoly  in  Massachusetts,  and  Mr.  Rantoul's  opposition  to  it.  Oaths, 
Mr.  Rantoul's  views  of  them.  Superior  to  party  and  sectarian  prejudice.  Extract 
from  Gloucester  Democrat  on  the  burning  of  the  Convent  at  Charlestown.  Vin- 
dicated the  rights  of  the  Catholics,  February  25,  1835,  by  a  speech  in  the  House. 
Maintained  liberty  of  conscience.  Sunday  travelling.  Views  of  the  means  of 
promoting  the  temperance  cause.  His  speech,  February  23,  1837,  on  the  Witness 
Bill.  Extract  from  Gloucester  Democrat  on  Ten  Million  Bank  Question.  Mr. 
Rantoul's  speech  on  the  same,  March  22,  1836.  Public  opinion  concerning  this 
speech.  Governor  Hill.  Decision  of  the  Speaker  and  Mr.  Rantoul's  Remarks, 
January  17  and  18, 1838,  concerning  stockholders'  rights,  etc.  Oration  at  Concord, 
Union  Celebration, 308—424 


CHAPTER   VI. 

Capital  Punishment.  Mr.  Rantoul  advocated  the  repeal  of  the  death  penalty  in  all 
cases.  His  principles  early  imbibed  concerning  it.  His  fatlier,  in  1809  and  ever 
after,  favored  this  reform.  Brief  history  of  Massachusetts  legislation  on  this  sub- 
ject up  to  1833.     R.  Rantoul,  Jr.,  first  reported  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  law  of 

.  Capital  Punishment,  1835.  His  reports  elaborate  and  of  the  highest  authority. 
That  of  1836  quoted  with  great  applause  throughout  Europe,  where  the  subject  has 
been  discussed.  His  Speech  in  support  of  report.  His  report  here  republished. 
Also  letters  on  the  death  penalty  to  Governor  Briggs,        .         .         .         425 — 515 


CHAPTER   YII. 

Opinions  on  Banking  and  the  Currency,  and  his  efforts  to  correct  some  prevalent 
errors  on  these  subjects.  Gave  great  consideration  to  the  effects  of  Banking  Insti- 
tutions. Constantly  watchful  for  facts.  His  writings  full  of  knowledge  on  the 
subject.  One  of  the  ablest  supporters  of  General  Jackson's  course  against  the 
Bank.  The  evils  effected  and  intended  by  that  institution  a  warning  to  the  coun- 
try.    Supported  the  Veto.     Removal  of  the  Deposits  by  speeches  and  the  press. 


viii  CONTENTS. 

Law  of  paper  money  fluctuations  defined  by  liim,  rredicted,  in  1835,  the  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payments  which  took  place  in  1837.  Repeated  it  in  1836,  in  his 
speech  on  Ten  Million  Bank.  Made  several  speeches  in  support  of  the  Sub-Treas- 
uiy  in  1838  —  only  one  ever  printed.  Extracts  from  "  Gloucester  Democrat"  on 
suspension  of  specie  payments,  etc.  Speech  delivered  in  Salem,  March  31, 1834,  — 
effects  of  paper  money.  Oration  at  Worcester,  July  4,  1837.  United  States 
Bank  lessons.  Debate  on  Mr.  Rantoul's  Order  for  inquiring  into  the  banking  sys- 
tem in  the  House  of  Representatives,  INIarch  17,1 838.  Remarks  on  Resolves  against 
Independent  Treasury,  March  22, 1838.  Mr.  Webster's  ideas  revived.  Speech  on 
said  resolves.  Remarks  on  Report  upon  the  mode  of  keeping  public  money,  March 
24,1838,     .        , 51G— 675 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Opinions  on  Commerce  and  Trade.  Demanded  for  those  interests  the  greatest  free- 
dom. Wrote,  in  support  of  his  views  of  free  trade,  for  the  Salem  Gazette  in  1827, 
1828,  and  1829,  various  essays.  His  opinions  ever  remained  unchanged  on  this 
great  subject.  He  did  as  much  by  his  pen  and  his  eloquent  addresses  as  any  man 
of  his  age,  to  diffuse  information  on  the  tme  principles  of  commerce.  Singular 
for  the  great  extent  and  accuracy  of  his  statistical  information.  Repeatedly  aided 
the  highest  officers  of  the  government  by  furnishing  information  which  few  pos- 
sessed. Ahvays  ready  to  meet  and  answer  the  arguments  of  the  friends  of  restric- 
tion and  a  high  tariff  on  imports.  Often  proved  the  inherent  injustice  of  such  a 
mode  of  raising  a  revenue.  He  went  before  and  beyond  his  party  for  free  trade. 
Advancing  knowledge  and  civilization  favorable  to  the  speedy  triumph  of  his  prin- 
ciples. Numerous  as  were  his  speeches,  few  of  them  published.  His  full  and 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject  induced  him  to  speak  without  written  preparation, 
and  sometimes  without  notes.  Faneuil  Hall  Speech,  October,  1844,  referred  to  as 
illustration.  Speech  at  Salem,  1848,  in  full.  Speech  on  the  interest  of  the  old 
States  in  Westeini  avenues  of  intercourse  in  United  States  House  of  Representatives, 
February  18,  1852.  Speech  in  favor  of  limiting  the  liability  of  ship-owners,  in 
United  States  Senate,  February  26,  1851.  Speech  on  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill, 
in  United  States  Senate,  March  1,  1851,  .         .         .         ...         676—717 


CHAPTER   IX. 

Opinions  of  Mr.  Rantoul  on  Slavery  in  the  United  States.  Discussions  Originated 
under  British  rule.  The  colonies  protested  against  it  in  vain.  Inconsistent  with 
republican  principles.  Denounced  by  the  fathers  of  the  United  States  Constitution. 
Hateful  in  itself  as  an  evil  and  a  Avrong.  Seen  to  be  so  by  the  civilized  and  intel- 
ligent everywhere.  Mr.  Clay's  declaration  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Perfectly 
true,  buj  inconsistent  Avith  his  previous  political  course.  Mr.  Rantoul  lived  up 
to  liis  avowed  opinions  on  slavery.  They  were  the  same  in  1832  as  in  1852. 
Mr.  Rantoul  not  a  disorganizer  or  agitator,  but  an  honest  and  true  vindicator  of 
freedom  of  opinion  and  discussion  for  himself  and  others.  The  consequences  of 
this  fidelity  to  reason  and  conscience.  His  reply  to  questions  of  an  Anti-Slavery 
Convention  in  1838.  Speech  at  Lynn,  April  3,  1851,  on  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 
:Speech  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  in  the  United  States 
House  of  Representatives,  June  11,  1852, 718 — 769 


CONTENTS.  ix 


CHAPTER   X. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  brief  congressional  career.  Baltimore  Convention,  etc.  Mr.  Ean- 
toul's  peculiar  fitness  for  j^olitical  life,  both  from  the  character  of  his  taste  for 
several  branches  of  knowledge  and  his  great  acquisitions.  The  natural  justice  and 
philanthropy  of  his  disposition.  His  fame  to  live  and  flourish  while  his  character 
and  principles  shall  be  studied,  surviving  party  feuds  and  memories.  His  native 
county.  The  obstacles  before  him.  The  prevalent  hostility  to  the  democratic  party 
and  measures.  The  federal  or  whig  party  vastly  most  numerous.  He  could  have 
had  any  office  in  their  gift  by  surrendering  his  principles.  But  joined  the  minority 
and  labored  to  organize  the  friends  of  democratic  principles.  His  political  life  a 
series  of  victories.  Lived  to  be  the  most  popular  and  influential  man  in  New 
England.  Tirst  nominated  for  congress  in  1838  ;  many  times  since  unanimously. 
Elected  in  1851.  Previously  filled  Mr.  Webster's  place  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  How  received ;  objected  to  him  that  the  opponents  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  supported  him.  How  that  was.  No  excuse  for  injustice  to  him.  Spoke 
but  a  few  times,  and  briefly,  in  the  Senate.  Extract  from  his  speech  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  June  11,1852.  Comments.  Always  has  been  a  panic  party 
in  the  United  States.  The  Slave  Law  a  result  of  panic.  Mr.  Rantoul's  speech, 
January  24,  1852,  in  answer  to  Mr.  Davis's  attack.  His  speech,  March  9,  1852, 
on  Coalition  in  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Rantoul  regularly  elected  by  the  unanimous 
vote  of  the  democrats  of  District  No.  2,  a  delegate  to  the  democratic  United 
States  Convention  at  Baltimore.  By  infamous  injustice  and  tyranny  deprived  of 
his  seat  in  that  body.  His  district  disfranchised,  because  he  claimed  freedom  of 
thought  and  speech.  Was  this  democratic  ?  Proceedings  of  the  Baltimore  Con- 
vention.    Mr.  Rantoul's  Speech  at  Salem,  July  5,  1852,  .         .  770 — 846 


CHAPTER  XL 

Mr.  Rantoul's  sudden  illness  and  death.  Everywhere  mourned  by  the  leading  men 
of  the  country  as  a  national  loss.  The  rare  elements  of  true  greatness  blended  in 
him.  Moral  purity  and  worth,  intellectual  activity,  earnest  benevolence  and  phi- 
lanthropy. Great  quickness  of  apprehension  joined  with  unsurpassed  industry. 
Singularly  utilitarian  in  the  application  of  knowledge,  yet  modest  and  unobtru- 
sive. Everything  had  to  yield  before  his  sense  of  duty.  His  personal  appear- 
ance referred  to.  Singular  character  of  his  illness.  His  death  painfully  shocked 
the  nation.  Greatly  beloved  by  those  who  best  knew  him.  Mourned  by  multitudes 
as  a  public  benefactor.  His  family.  His  great  worth  conferred  on  his  name  an 
undying  celebrity.  Extract  from  Mr.  Rantoul's  Eulogy  on  Judge  "Woodbury  just 
in  application  to  himself.  Proceedings  of  Congress,  in  the  Senate  —  in  the 
House.  Hon.  Horace  Mann's  speech,  extract.  Hon.  Charles  Sumner'*  speech. 
Resolutions  of  the  House  —  in  Beverly — in  Salem  —  in  Lynn  —  in  Charlestowai 
—  in  Worcester  —  in  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  1853.  Account  of  his  Fune- 
ral.   Sentiments  of  the  public  press, 847 — 864 


SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


OF    MR.    RANTOUL,    CONTAINED    IN    THIS    WORK, 


Page. 

Address  to  the  "Workingmen  of  the  United  States, 219 

"         to  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction, 112 

Article  on  Education  from  North  American  Review, 73 

"        on  Oaths,  from  "  Gloucester  Democrat," 337 

"        on  Suspension  of  specie  payments  by  Banks,  from  do.,     .        ,         .  674 

"        on  Ten  Million  Bank,  from  do., 350 

Extracts  from  articles  in  Gloucester  Democrat  on  distinctive  principles  of  the 

two  great  parties, 143 

"        on  Jackson's  Administration,  from  do., 148 

"        from  several  legal  arguments, 26 

Letters  to  Governor  Briggs  on  Capital  Punishment, 492    "r 

Letter  to  Anti-Slavery  Convention,  1838, 722 

Remarks  at  the  Eree  Bridge  Celebration,  Charlestown, 326 

"        on  incorporating  a  Tavern  Company, 320 

"         on  legislating  to  prevent  Sunday  travelling, 337 

"        on  the  License  Law,  and  the  means  of  promoting  Temperance           .  340 

Oration  at  South  Reading 157 

"        at  Gloucester 184 

at  Scituate 251 

"        at  Worcester 557 

"        at  Lenox             296 

"        at  Concord 392 

Report  on  Capital  Punishment 436   "^ 

Speech  on  Capital  Punishment 429  " — 

"       on  Corporations,  Iron  and  Steel  Company 313 

"      on  Ten  Million  Bank 352 


Xll 


CONTEXTS. 


SrEECii  on  Warren  Bridge  Question 

on  Remonstrance  against  Cambrcleng's  Bill     . 

on  AVitncss  Bill 

on  Decision  of  the  Speaker,  January  17  and  18,  1838 

delivered  at  Salem,  Anti-Bank  Meeting     .... 

on  Interest  of  the  old  States  in  western  avenues  of  intercourse 

on  limiting  liability  of  ship-owners 

on  River  and  Harbor  Bill 

at  Lynn  on  Fugitive  Slave  Law 

on  Constitutionality  of  Fugitive  Slave  Law 

in  answer  to  Davis,  January  24,  1852         .... 

do.  do.  on  the  Coalition  in  Massachusetts 

at  Salem,  July  5,  1852,  on  the  doings  of  the  Baltim.ore  Convention 


322 

327 
342 
374 
533 
697 
712 
716 
729 
751 
780 
792 
831 


MEMOIRS,    ETC 


CHAPTER  I. 

PARENTAGE  AXD  BIRTH.  — HOME  INFLUENCES.  — PERMANENT  TRMTS  OF 
CHARACTER  EARLY  DISPLAYED.  — HIS  FIRST  SCHOOL  TEACHER,  ETC. 

The  family  of  Rantoul  is  of  Celtic  origin.  The  name,  not 
miknown  to  Scottish  history,  is  derived  from  two  Gaelic  words 
signifying  mountain  cavern.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.  was  born  in 
Beverly,  Mass.,  August  5,  1805.  He  was  the  eldest  son  of 
Robert  and  Joanna  Lovett  Rantoul.  Of  his  father,  ripe  in 
honors  as  in  years,  we  trust  that  it  may  yet  be  long  before  we 
can  speak  in  such  terms  as  delicacy  forbids  us  to  apply  to  the 
living.  His  mother,  who  died  in  the  summer  of  1848,  was  a 
person  of  superior  discernment  and  discretion,  of  a  serene  and 
gentle  spirit,  and  of  the  most  cheerful  and  loving  piety,  —  one 
whose  youth  had  the  wisdom  of  age,  and  whose  age  the  guile- 
less simplicity  and  fresh  affections  of  youth.  Under  the  most 
salutary  home  influences,  Robert  developed  in  his  very  infancy 
the  prominent  traits  of  character  that  marked  his  whole  subse- 
quent life  ;  such  as  reverence  for  the  truth,  frankness,  and  open- 
ness in  expressing  his  convictions,  strong  domestic  attachments, 
modest  and  unassuming  habits  of  social  intercourse,  and  uni- 
form courteousness  of  demeanor  towards  persons  of  every  age 
and  condition.  His  childhood  has  left,  in  the  memory  of  his 
1 


2  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

superiors  in  age,  recollections  of  ingenuousness,  veracity, 
modesty,  docility,  and  tender  conscientiousness.  His  advan- 
tages for  intellectual  culture  were  unusual  at  that  day,  when 
the  floodgates  of  juvenile  literature  had  not  been  opened,  and 
but  little  had  been  done  by  the  press  or  by  improved  modes  of 
education  to  smoothe  the  ascent  of  the  hill  of  science.  The 
books  to  which  he  had  constant  access,  were  those  of  Berquin,  Dr. 
Aiken,  Mrs.  Barbauld,  Miss  Edgeworth,  and  Hannah  More, — 
all  of  them  writers  adapted  to  awaken  the  mental  curiosity,  and 
to  give  a  right  direction  to  the  moral  purposes,  without  foster- 
ins:  the  inordinate  love  of  amusement  or  excitement,  which  is 
cherished  by  so  much  of  the  juvenile  reading  of  the  present 
time.  He  was  peculiarly  happy  in  his  first  school,  and  to  the 
last  day  of  his  life  expressed  greater  obligations  to  its  teacher 
than  to  all  the  instructors  in  his  subseqnent  career  as  a  student. 
She  was  a  bold  innovator  in  her  department,  and  had  antici- 
pated all  that  is  valuable  in  the  ameliorated  school  system  of 
the  present  generation.  She  was  not  a  mere  imposer  of  tasks 
or  hearer  of  lessons.  School  books  held  a  secondary  place  in 
her  administration.  She  imparted  knowledge  orally,  read  to 
her  pupils  extracts  from  works  of  history  and  science,  and  by  a 
Socratic  mode  of  interrogation  drew  out  their  powers  of  reason- 
ing and  judgment.  We  have  before  us  a  journal  commenced 
by  Robert  in  his  ninth  year,  which  bears  such  marks  of  careful 
thought,  discriminating  habits  of  reading,  and  accurate  expres- 
sion, as  do  equal  credit  to  the  child  and  to  those  who  partici- 
pated in  the  formation  of  his  character.  A  single  extract  from 
his  journal  reads  as  follows  :  '  Jan.  4,  1814.  Gained  the  fol- 
lowing idea,  namely,  that  I  had  better  sometimes  be  imposed 
upon,  than  never  to  trust.' 

From  this  school  he  was  removed  to  the  public  grammar 
school  of  his  native  town,  where,  with  a  brief  interval  under  the 
tuition  of  Mr.,  now  Rev.  Dr.,  Rufus  Anderson,  he  acquired  the 
rudiments  of  classical  learning.  The  wishes  of  his  friends  and 
his  own  tastes  and  capacities  pointing  to  a  liberal  education,  he 
was  placed,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  at  the  Phillips  Academy  in 
Andover,  then  under  the  tuition  of  the  veteran  teacher,  John 
Adams.  We  cannot  better  portray  his  character  at  that  period, 
and  the  promise  of  future  eminence  which  he  then  gave,  than 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3 

in  the  words  of  a  class  mate  and  room  mate,  now  a  distinguished 
member  of  the  medical  profession,  Dr.  Ray,  of  Providence,  R.  I. 
"  After  an  interval  of  more  than  thirty  years,  my  recollection 
of  his  mental  manifestations  calls  up  some  of  that  '  especial 
w^onder'  which  they  excited  then.  The  poems  he  had  planned 
and  even  begun,  the  systems  of  philosophy  he  had  conceived, 
and  the  numberless  improvements  of  one  kind  or  another  he  had 
meditated,  evinced  remarkable  fertility  of  mind,  and  indicated 
very  plainly  what  were  the  objects  of  his  ambition.  The  trait 
which  impressed  me  most,  was  his  unquenchable  thirst  for 
knowledge,  which  sought  for  gratification  in  every  field  of 
human  inquiry.  Whatever  arrested  his  attention,  w^iether  it 
were  a  paper  in  the  Spectator,  a  speech  in  Congress,  a  new 
poem  of  Lord  Byron's,  or  a  recent  invention  in  the  arts,  it 
absorbed  all  his  faculties,  and  was  thoroughly  mastered  and 
digested  before  he  left  it.  A  speculation  in  metaphysics,  or  a 
theory  of  political  economy,  seemed  to  be  as  welcome  as  the 
lightest  productions  of  the  press,  and  more  capable  of  exciting 
original  thought.  This  extraordinary  mental  activity  was  ac- 
companied by  great  tenacity  of  memory,  which  enabled  him  to 
retain  whatever  he  once  learned,  and  which,  I  believe,  was 
never  diminished  in  after  life.  It  placed  his  immense  acquisi- 
tions always  at  his  command,  and  rendered  it  easy  for  him,  at 
any  time,  to  pour  a  flood  of  light  on  points  which,  from  men 
less  happily  endowed,  would  have  required  days  and  week^  of 
laborious  investigation.  His  remarks  on  the  books  he  read 
showed  a  degree  of  originality  and  independence  not  often 
witnessed  in  lads  of  his  age.  He  scrutinized  very  closely  what 
he  read,  taking  nothing  on  trust,  and  never  passively  adopting 
the  conclusions  of  others,  but  using  them  for  forming  opinions 
of  his  own.  He  was  fond  of  discussion,  and  was  one  of  those 
who  could  argue  just  as  well  after  being  vanquished,  which  was 
not  often  the  case,  for  his  command  of  language,  his  quickness 
of  apprehension,  and  great  acquisitions,  rendered  him  a  formi- 
dable opponent.  Metaphysics  had  engaged  his  attention,  like 
almost  every  thing  else,  and  judging  from  my  impressions,  he 
had  completely  mastered  Locke.  In  English  literature,  his 
reading  had  been  extensive  and  critical,  and  Shakspeare  and 
Milton  were  his  favorite  authors.     In  the  politics   of  the  day 


4  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  the  great  questions  at  issue,  he  was  deeply  interested,  and 
though  the  views  of  a  school-boy  on  subjects  which  divide  the 
prominent  men  of  the  time  can  be  of  no  moment,  except  as 
indicative  of  tastes  and  tendencies,  yet  it  is  a  fact  worth  notice, 
that  the  doctrines  of  free  trade  which  afterwards  constituted  a 
cardinal  principle  in  his  political  creed,  were  then  advocated  as 
sincerely  and  earnestly,  if  not  with  equal  copiousness  of  illus- 
tration, as  at  any  subsequent  period.  In  the  political  history 
of  the  country,  and  especially  of  public  men,  he  was  well  versed, 
and  made  it  a  frequent  topic  of  conversation.  His  intellectual 
superiority  was  universally  acknowledged  among  his  compan- 
ions, the  more  readily  perhaps  because  it  was  free  from  all 
pretension  and  conceit.  He  was  equally  ready  to  recognize  the 
merits  of  others,  and  feelings  of  envy  or  jealousy  were  never 
among  the  number  of  his  moral  infirmities." 

During  his  residence  at  Andover,  if  not  previously,  Robert 
acquired  the  habit  of  studying  less  with  reference  to  the  requisi- 
tions of  his  teachers  than  to  the  demands  of  his  own  intellect, — 
for  the  sake,  not  of  reciting,  but  of  knowing.  His  engrossment 
in  the  theme  that  was  uppermost  in  his  mind  for  the  time  being 
was  so  entire,  that  he  could  hardly  call  himself  off  from  it. to 
perform  a  prescribed  task.  Thus  while  his  standard  very  highly 
transcended  that  of  his  school,  and  his  acquirements  took  a 
wider  range  than  seemed  within  the  scope  of  a  school-boy,  it 
seldom  happened  that  his  pursuits  coincided  with  the  academic 
course.  He  undoubtedly  held  the  minutiae  and  the  mere  tech- 
nicalities of  learning  in  undue  disesteem  ;  but  at  the  same  time 
he  w^as  in  his  novitiate  so  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  rudiments 
of  the  classical  languages,  and  in  the  fundamental  principles  of 
mathematics  and  natural  science,  that  they  were  ever  afterwards 
at  his  free  command  and  ready  service. 

In  1822  he  entered  the  Freshman  Class  at  Harvard  College. 
Here  he  manifested  in  fuller  development  the  traits  that  had 
marked  his  career  at  Andover.  He  was  indefatigably  industri- 
ous, frequently  studying  fourteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four, 
but  pursuing  his  studies  with  so  little  reference  to  the  college 
course,  as  often  to  absent  himself  for  days  together  from  the 
regular  exercises  of  his  class,  or  to  omit  all  special  preparation 
for  them,  and  to  rely  solely  on  his  previous  acquisitions  or  gen- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  5 

eral  knowledge.  He  thus  on  ethical,  metaphysical,  and  espe- 
cially political  subjects,  often  made  copious  and  brilliant  recita- 
tions, in  which  the  professor's  slow  finger  sought  in  vain  to 
track  him  down  the  pages  of  the  text-book,  till  failing  to  identify 
a  single  sentence  with  the  words  of  the  author,  he  cut  short  the 
harangue  with  "  you  may  sit,"  and  marked  with  a  cipher  incom- 
parably the  most  scholarly  exercise  of  the  hour.  We  do  not 
name  this  as  worthy  of  imitation.  We  believe  that  Mr.  Rantoul 
himself  would  have  been  the  last  person  to  commend  his  own 
example  in  this  regard  to  any  college  student.  Nor  is  there  one 
youth  of  seventeen  in  a  thousand,  whose  aims  are  sufficiently 
definite,  and  the  scope  of  whose  intellectual  horizon  is  suffi- 
ciently enlarged,  to  enable  him  to  give  a  profitable  direction  to 
his  own  course  of  study. 

During  his  residence  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Rantoul  devoted  a 
then  unusual  amount  of  time  to  the  languages  and  literature 
of  continental  Europe.  These  he  pursued  with  but  little  tuition, 
except  in  the  German,  in  which  he  was  a  member  of  the  first 
class  of  volunteer  students  under  the  late  Dr.  Follen.  His  read- 
ing in  these  languages  was  far  from  being  desultory.  His  chief 
object  was  to  familiarize  himself  with  national  characteristics, 
institutions,  and  political  history  of  the  nations  of  Christendom. 
With  reference  to  France  especially,  he  commenced  in  college 
a  course  of  patient  and  elaborate  research,  which  he  pursued  at 
brief  intervals  through  life,  and  which  made  him  in  latter  years 
hardly  less  familiar  with  the  French  chroniclers  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  with  the  codes  of  Charlemagne  and  his  successors, 
than  he  was  with  the  news  of  the  day  and  the  laws  of  Massa- 
chusetts. He  was  at  this  ea.rly  period  profoundly  interested  in 
the  science  of  government  and  legislation,  and  became  intimate- 
ly conversant  with  the  leading  continental  writers  in  these  depart- 
ments, especially  with  Beccaria  and  Montesquieu.  The  plans 
of  reformation  in  the  administration  of  justice  which  enlisted 
much  of  his  most  assiduous  industry  and  most  earnest  effort  in 
after  life,  were  already  familiar  subjects  of  inquiry  and  conver- 
sation ;  and  the  questions  of  this  class  which  he  subsequently 
sought  every  opportunity  of  discussing  before  popular  and 
legislative  assemblies,  w^ere  raised  and  mooted  under  his  aus- 
pices in  college  debating  societies  and  at  the  social  meetings  of 


6  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

his  fellow  students.  His  father  was  the  pioneer  in  the  move- 
ment for  the  abolition  of  Capital  Punishment  in  Massachusetts, 
and  had  early  commended  this  cause  to  the  warm  advocacy  of 
his  son,  whose  Report  on  that  subject  (in  1836)  presented  to 
the  House  of  Representatives,  is  confessedly  unsurpassed  in 
thoroughness  and  ability  by  any  argument  in  the  same  cause 
that  has  seen  the  light  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  But  in 
reading  that  report,  we  could  not  find  a  single  fact  or  reasoning 
of  importance  with  which  he  had  not  made  us  familiar  before 
the  close  of  his  college  life. 

His  industry  did  not  isolate  him,  or  interfere  in  the  least  with 
his  social  relations  to  such  of  his  class  mates  and  coevals  as 
sympathized  with  his  pursuits,  or  possessed  any  measure  of 
mental  activity  and  earnestness.  While  he  bore  no  part  in  the 
trivial  amusements,  the  gaieties,  or  the  frivolous  society  of 
college  life,  he  did  all  that  was  in  his  power  to  inspire  others 
with  tastes  kindred  to  his  own.  It  is  believed  that  he  exerted 
a  stronger  and  wider  influence  than  any  other  member  of  his 
class.  He  was  chiefly  instrumental  in  forming  a  society  for 
literary  exercises  on  a  freer  and  more  generous  principle  of  elec- 
tion to  membership,  than  prevailed  in  the  societies  previously 
existing.  At  a  subsequent  period,  he  effected  the  union  of  this 
association  with  two  others  of  earlier  date,  under  the  name  of 
the  "  Institute  of  1770,"  which  was  divided  into  several  sections 
for  the  cultivation  of  general  literature,  chemistry,  geology,  and 
natural  history.  He  presided  over  the  formation  of  the  library 
of  this  society,  and  procured  the  importation  of  many  valuable 
books  which  were  not  at  that  time  to  be  found  in  the  University 
Library.  In  addition  to  these  manifestations  of  public  spirit, 
he  was  profusely  generous  of  his  time  and  labor  in  assisting  the 
studies  and  investigations  of  his  class  mates.  While  he  sought 
no  college  honors  for  himself,  he  contributed  many  of  the 
choicest  materials  for  the  themes,  forensics,  and  prize  disserta- 
tions of  those  who  were  ambitious  of  the  highest  places  ;  and 
we  can  remember  repeated  instances  in  which,  on  a  difficult 
subject  with  which  no  other  member  of  the  class  had  made 
himself  familiar,  he  was  so  lavish  of  his  own  knowledge, 
thoughts,  and  arguments,  as  completely  to  deprive  himself  of 
all  that  would  have  been  characteristic  of  his  own  performance, 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  7 

so  that  when  he  read  in  his  alphabetical  place  in  the  division, 
he  might  seem  to  have  borrowed  his  entire  paper  from  those 
who  had  preceded  him,  and  had  drawn  every  thing  from  him. 
The  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  his  class  was  attested  by 
their  choice  of  him  as  their  valedictory  poet.  He  was  an  easy 
and  fluent  writer  both  in  prose  and  verse,  and  was  wont  to  trust 
to  the  fortune  of  the  last  hour  in  whatever  he  wrote.  But  we 
well  remember  the  consternation  of  the  class,  the  day  before  the 
valedictory  exercises,  on  finding  that  not  a  line  of  the  poem  had 
been  written.  An  entire  failure  was  anticipated  by  his  best 
friends  ;  for  the  occasion  was  one  which  could  have  been  ade- 
quately met  only  by  a  performance  of  considerable  length  and 
respectable  excellence.  It  was  even  hoped  by  some,  for  the 
credit  of  the  class,  that  he  would  let  the  whole  matter  go  by 
default,  rather  than  venture  on  so  doubtful  an  experiment  as 
must  then  be  made.  But  in  the  evening  he  addressed  himself 
to  the  work,  and  with  hardly  a  moment's  repose  till  the  proces- 
sion was  formed,  he  appeared  on  the  following  day  with  a  poem 
which  occupied  more  than  half  an  hour  in  delivery,  (containing 
forty-four  Spenserian  stanzas,  or  three  hundred  and  fifty-two 
verses,)  and  which,  alike  by  easy  versification  and  its  bold  and 
vigorous  thought,  commanded  profound  attention  and  uni- 
versal applause.  The  poem,  however,  though  so  entirely  suc- 
cessful as  regarded,  its  immediate  occasion,  presents,  on  a 
leisurely  perusal  unmistakable  marks  of  the  high  pressure  under 
which  it  was  composed.  Yet  there  are  two  grounds  on  which 
it  has  a  peculiar  interest  and  value  to  his  biographer.  In  the 
first  place,  it  reassures  our  own  reminiscences  of  his  favorite 
studies  ;  for  it  contains,  of  course,  a  brief,  yet  a  sharply  drawn 
and  original  outline  of  the  stages  of  human  progress,  from  the 
despotic  institutions  of  antiquity  to  the  republicanism  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  And,  secondly,  it  vindicates  the  consistency 
of  his  subsequent  character  and  career  as  a  politician ;  for  it 
exhibits  at  this  early  period  the  adoption  of  the  leading  opinions 
and  sentiments  which  determined  his  position  and  action  in 
public  affairs. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  character  was  fully  formed  and  maturely 
developed  at  the  time  of  his  graduation,  and  presented  itself  to 
those  who  knew  him  then  in  the  same  aspects  in  which  they 


8  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

viewed  it  in  his  riper  years,  and  amidst  the  labors  and  conflicts 
of  forensic  and  political  life.  Foremost  among  his  characteristic 
traits,  we  might  place  his  transparent  honesty.  He  never  sup- 
pressed or  disguised  a  conviction  or  opinion.  He  seemed  in- 
capable of  fear  as  to  the  results  of  free  and  candid  utterance. 
He  was  no  less  explicit  and  earnest  in  an  unpopular  cause,  than 
when  sustained  by  the  sympathy  of  multitudes.  He  was  sin- 
cere in  the  fullest  sense  of  that  word,  not  only  frank  but  whole- 
hearted. Lukewarmness  seemed  an  impossibility  for  him. 
Half-way  profession  or  advocacy  was  abhorrent  from  his  very 
nature.  He  advanced  towards  his  chosen  end,  without  survey- 
ing the  modes  or  weighing  the  chances  of  retreat.  He  com- 
mitted himself  at  once  and  decidedly,  and  was  ready  to  face 
whatever  consequences  might  flow  from  his  speech  or  action. 

His  ambition  was  of  no  ordinary  kind,  but  was  part  and 
parcel  with  his  earnestness.  •  Its  object  was  not  place  or  gain, 
but  a  full  bearing  and  an  appreciable  and  growing  influence. 
He  was  ready  to  make  any  personal  sacrifice  rather  than  keep 
silence  where  he  felt  deeply.  He  has  always  reminded  us  of 
the  Grecian  general,  who,  when  his  superior  ofl^cer  was  about 
to  arrest  his  remonstrance  by  a  blow  with  his  stafl",  exclaimed, 
"  Strike,  but  hear ! "  It  was  for  this  reason  that  he  found  it 
difficult,  or  rather,  that  he  never  attempted,  to  keep  within  strict 
party  lines,  and  was  often  the  advocate  of  measures  that  were 
repudiated  by  his  political  associates. 

His  interest  and  zeal  in  judicial,  educational,  and  moral  re- 
form, demand  our  notice  at  this  early  period  of  his  career ;  for 
they  were  not  superinduced  upon  other  objects  of  endeavor,  but 
took  precedence  of  whatever  else  claimed  his  regards  and  efforts. 
These  concerns  were  not  mere  episodes  in  his  public  life,  but 
always  held  the  uppermost  place  in  his  mind.  He  attached 
himself  to  the  democratic  party  at  a  time  when  there  was  no 
prospect  of  its  ascendency  in  his  native  State,  mainly  because 
(whether  right  or  wrong)  he  deemed  it  the  progressive  party, 
and  had  more  confidence  in  its  ultimate  advocacy  of  the  causes 
that  were  nearest  to  his  heart,  than  in  their  advancement 
through  the  more  conservative  inffuence  of  the  then  dominant 
party  in  the  State.  He  was  fully  aware  that  he  jeopardized 
his  own  political  elevation  by  his  support  of  unpopular  reforms. 


OF  EGBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  9 

In  his  labors  for  the  abolition  of  capital  punishment,  he  was 
conscious  of  alienating  those  whose  support  would  have  been 
of  the  most  avail,  had  official  station- been  his  chief  aim.  He 
knew  that  he  lost  ground  as  a  politician,  for  himself  and  his 
party,  by  his  uncompromising  adherence  to  the  cause  of  tem- 
perance ;  but  it  was  a  cause  commended  to  him  by  paternal 
precept  and  example  from  his  earliest  years,  and  one  which  had 
so  strong  a  hold  on  his  sympathies,  that  in  the  latter  portion  of 
his  life  he  was  wont  to  absent  himself,  whenever  practicable, 
from  public  dinners  and  festive  occasions  at  which  intoxicating 
liquors  were  used,  w^hile  he  Vv^ould  often  put  himself  to  serious 
inconvenience  in  order  to  attend  a  celebration  or  entertainment 
conducted  on  the  opposite  principle.  In  behalf  of  popular 
education,  he  labored  equally  regardless  of  party  tactics  or  of 
personal  interest.  He  was  among  the  pioneers  in  establishing 
the  Lyceum  system,  which  has  exerted  so  large  an  influence  on 
the  rising  and  just  risen  generation.  His  exertions  in  this  cause 
commenced  before  he  left  college  ;  and  how  zealously  and  use- 
fully they  were  pursued  immediately  afterwards,  the  following 
extract  from  a  letter  from  Dr.  Torrey  sufficiently  shows. 

"  Twenty-four  years  ago,  in  the  -\vinter  of  1828-9,  Mr. 
Rantoul,  who  was  then  studying  law  with  the  Hon.  Lcverett 
Saltonstall,  of  Salem,  projected,  and,  with  the  cooperation  of 
a  few  others  whom  he  had  interested  in  his  plans,  carried  into 
successful  action  in  this  town,  (Beverly,)  the  ffi-st  Lyceum  it 
is  believed  that  was  established  in  New  England.  In  the 
early  days  of  this  institution  the  lecture  of  the  evening  was 
usually  preceded  by  a  discussion  upon  some  subject  proposed 
at  a  previous  meeting,  in  which  opposite  positions  were  assigned 
to  specified  members  of  the  Lyceum,  who  were  to  be  designated 
by  the  presiding  officer.  These  debates  were  engaged  in  with 
very  considerable  spirit,  and  served  to  attract  by  their  novelty 
and  interest  a  larger  attendance  upon  the  rather  dull  lectures  of 
those  days  than  could  otherwise  have  been  secured.  It  was  in 
this  preparatory  school,  so  to  call  it,  that  his  friends  first  ob- 
served, with  sanguine  expectations  for  the  future,  that  remark- 
able aptitude  for  debate,  that  keen  logical  acuteness  in  argu- 
ment, and  those  ready  and  ample  resources  of  wit  and  learning 
which  afterwards  so  distinguished  him  in  the  courts  of  law  and 


10  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  halls  of  legislation.  Here  were  first  maintained  by  him,  in 
friendly  conflict  with  his  fellow  townsmen,  those  views  in  regard 
to  great  public  questions,  the  powerful  defence  of  which  in  his 
maturer  life  and  on  wider  fields  has  made  his  name  known 
abroad,  as  well  as  famous  at  home.  The  doctrines  of  free  trade, 
the  abolishment  of  all  capital  punishments,  the  mischiefs  of 
excessive  special  legislation,  and  many  other  topics  of  social 
and  political  interest  and  importance,  introduced  with  the  lec- 
tures and  debates  before  this  Lyceum,  met  there  the  apt  touches 
of  his  "  'prentice  hand,"  to  be  afterward  enforced  and  defended 
by  him  as  a  master  and  leader  among  his  fellows,  in  the  forum 
and  in  the  councils  of  the  State. 

"  The  fam.iliar  and  extended  knowledge  of  history,  art,  and 
science  possessed  and  exhibited  by  young  Rantoul,  was  not 
more  remarkable  than  the  well  arranged  and  fully  digested  con- 
dition which  it  held  in  his  memory  ;  so  that  let  the  subject  of 
debate  be  what  it  might,  it  was  always  sure  to  be  refreshed 
from  some  well  of  literary,  political,  scientific,  or  statistical  lore, 
such  as  few  others  could  boast  of.  By  reason  of  this,  did  he  in 
these  amateur  discussions  with  professional  men,  teachers,  and 
others,  by  bringing  the  lights  of  history  to  illustrate  the  question 
before  them,  and  the  balances  of  dates  and  of  figures  to  weigh 
its  probabilities,  or  its  dependencies,  or  its  truth,  did, much,  un- 
questionably, to  stimulate  a  spirit  of  investigation,  and  cause 
opinion  to  be  grounded  upon  something  better  than  loose  con- 
jecture, easy  credulity,  and  the  pertinacities  of  prejudice.  At 
this  early  period  of  his  life  was  manifested  a  trait  of  character, 
which  afterwards  illustrated  his  professional  as  well  as  political 
career  ;  it  was  an  ambitious  trait  —  (every  one  saw,  knew,  and 
said  he  was  '  ambitious,'  though  not  all  meant  it  in  the  same 
sense)  —  an  ambition  to  convince  the  understandings  of  people 
of  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  right  and  the  true,  rather  than 
to  dazzle  and  astonish  their  fancies  with  the  figurative  and  the 
brilliant.  Even  in  these  amateur  debates  at  the  Lyceum,  he 
never  was  willing  to  undertake  the  support  of  that  side  of  the 
question  which  contradicted  his  own  private  belief  and  under- 
standing ;  and  in  defence  of  what  he  regarded  as  the  truthful 
and  proper  view,  so  bent  was  he  upon  the  thorough  and  con- 
vincing establishment  of  it,  that  in  the  quickness  of  his  logic 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  H 

and  the  strictness  of  his  matter  of  fact  reasoning,  he  was  prone 
to  forget  or  neglect  the  great  subsidiary  lights  of  rhetoric  and 
imagination.  Thus  his  oratory  sought  less  to  delight  the  fancy 
than  to  search  men's  brains  for  the  consent  of  their  experience 
and  the  approval  of  their  judgment,  —  it  was  of  the  old  Doric 
order,  and  would  neither  have  been  strengthened  or  improved 
by  Corinthian  acanthi,  or  the  florid  ornaments  of  later  schools." 
While  institutions  of  this  character  were  in  the  early  stages 
of  their  development,  and  services  rendered  them  were  always 
gratuitous,  and  often  costly  to  the  lecturer,  Mr.  Rantoul  held 
himself  ready  for  every  call,  and  bestowed  the  best  fruits  of  his 
genius  and  industry  with  a  cordial  alacrity  proportioned  not  to 
the  conspicuousness  of  the  stage  on  which  he  was  to  appear, 
but  to  the  intellectual  destitution  and  neediness  of  those  who 
sought  his  aid.  Labors  in  this  department  made  him  conver- 
sant with  the  existing  standard  of  general  education  and  culture, 
and  impressed  upon  his  mind  the  necessity  of  a  more  ample 
basis  for  popular  intelligence  than  was  afforded  by  the  common 
school  system,  which  had  not  been  so  enlarged  and  liberalized 
as  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  age.  The  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Education,  the  Normal  Schools,  the  legal  provision  for  school 
district  libraries,  and  the  publication  of  the  Common  School 
Library,  were  among  the  objects  which  he  sustained  and  urged 
through  evil  and  through  good  report,  in  behalf  of  which  he  en- 
countered misrepresentation  of  position  and  obloquy,  and  in 
the  accomplishment  of  which  he  took  immeasurably  more 
satisfaction  than  in  any  successes  or  emoluments  of  a  merely 
personal  character.  We  speak  advisedly  when  we  say,  that 
these  permanent  interests  of  humanity  always  occupied  the 
foremost  place  in  his  mind.  It  was  of  these  that  he  talked  at 
home  with  his  family,  and  among  his  intimate  friends.  It  was 
for  these  that  he  expressed  and  manifested  intense  solicitude 
when  they  were  in  jeopardy,  and  unfeigned  sadness  when  they 
were  depressed  or  defeated.  Indeed,  when  any  measure  for  the 
promotion  of  these  ends  was  in  agitation,  it  occupied  his  thought 
and  speech  so  constantly,  that  one  might  have  been  daily  in  his 
society  for  weeks  together  without  being  once  reminded  that 
he  was  a  lawyer  or  a  politician.  On  the  other  hand,  what  the 
world  deemed  his  serious  pursuits,  he  treated  as  his  avocations, 


12  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

his  side-callings,  the  mere  by-play  of  his  life ;  no  one  ever  saw 
him  over  solicitous  for  office  or  emolument,  or  saddened  or  dis- 
heartened by  the  failure  of  his  more  strictly  personal  ends.  Nor 
does  this  seem  strange  to  those  who  were  conversant  with  his 
early  life.  The  causes  of  reform  and  progress  to  which  he 
devoted  the  best  strength  of  his  maturity,  were  the  same  which 
had  been  uppermost  in  his  father's  mind,  and  in  which  he  was 
disciplined  and  indoctrinated  by  domestic  education  and  influ- 
ence, so  that  energetic  action  in  their  behalf  was  the  day-dream 
of  his  boyhood,  the  constantly  ripening  purpose  of  his  yoath, 
the  end  to  which  he  had  consecrated  his  energies  before  the 
objects  of  a  less  noble  ambition  had  assumed  distinctness  to  his 
view. 

Nearly  allied  to  this  philanthropic  spirit,  and  symptomatic  of 
its  genuineness,  was  his  generous,  self-forgetting  friendliness  in 
aiding  the  worthy  efforts  of  others.  Whatever  resources  he  had 
were  at  the  command  of  friend  and  stranger  alike.  His  books, 
his  time,  his  ripest  thoughts,  were  at  the  service  of  any  one, 
however  young  or  ignorant,  who  was  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge,  or  the  investigation  or  diffusion  of  truth.  He  claimed 
no  copyright  for  the  results  of  his  genius  or  his  toil ;  but  so  long 
as  they  subserved  the  end  which  he  held  in  view,  he  cared  not 
who  made  use  of  them,  or  to  whom  their  credit  redounded. 
Nay  he  seemed  more  happy  in  contributing  to  the  beneficent 
instrumentality  and  the  fair  fame  of  others,  than  in  reaping  the 
rewards  of  his  own  genius  and  industry. 

His  habits  of  study  continued  through  life  on  the  model  on 
which  they  were  formed  in  his  college  days.  He  studied  not 
books,  but  subjects.  Whatever  was  proposed  for  his  investiga- 
tion, whether  a  fact  or  character  in  history,  a  point  in  ethics  or 
economics,  or  a  case  in  jurisprudence,  his  first  care  was  to  bring 
together  all  within  his  reach  that  had  any  bearing,  however 
remote  or  incidental,  on  the  matter  in  hand ;  nor  till  he  had 
taken  a  survey  of  the  whole  did  he  deem  himself  authorized  to 
write  or  speak  with  any  confidence  as  to  any  portion  or  aspect 
of  the  subject-matter.  We  have  never  known  a  method  of  study 
so  thoroughly  exhaustive  as  his  ;  nor  was  his  capacity  of  using 
large  and  heterogeneous  masses  of  material  inferior  to  his  skill 
and  industry  in  collecting  them.   He  cross-questioned  facts  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  13 

literary  testimonies,  traced  opinions  back  to  their  sources,  and 
on  through  their  various  relations  and  their  reciprocal  bearings, 
and  manifested  marvellous  acuteness  in  selecting  from  a  multi- 
tude of  circumstances,  those  which  were  significant  and  typical, 
and  in  drawing  forth  from  them  whatever  unrecorded  events, 
states  of  society,  or  conditions  of  sentiment  or  feeling  they 
indicated.  It  was  seldom  that  he  found  the  paltriest  scrap  of 
intelligence,  history,  or  archaeology,  of  metaphysics,  ethics,  or 
law,  for  which  he  had  not  a  ready  use  for  the  illustration  of 
some  one  of  the  many  topics  of  inquiry  constantly  before  him. 

Among  the  prominent  traits  of  his  early  and  life-long  char- 
acter, we  might  name  the  extreme  simplicity  of  his  tastes.  In 
manners,  void  of  a.ssumption,  ostentation,  and  pretence ;  in 
dress,  neat  from  instinct  and  principle,  but  severely  plain  ;  in 
diet,  erring,  if  at  all,  on  the  side  of  meagreness  and  abstinence ; 
in  his  whole  personal  bearing  modest  and  retiring,  yet  affable 
and  friendly  ;  he  carried  into  manhood  all  that  is  manly  in  the 
ingenuousness  of  early  youth,  and  in  every  other  regard  matur- 
ing faster  than  his  years  demanded,  in  these  things  he  seemed 
always  young.  "With  such  tastes  and  habits,  of  course  home- 
society,  home-pleasures,  were  his  chief  resource  and  joy.  Nor 
have  we  ever  known  an  instance,  in  which  all  the  freshness  and 
warmth,  the  simplicity  and  purity  of  home-feelings  have  been 
retained  so  wholly  unimpaired  through  many  years  of  public 
office,  professional  toil,  and  distracting  care.  It  was  eminently 
true  of  him,  that  his  heart  was  incapable  of  growing  old  ;  and 
to  those  who  enjoyed  his  familiar  intercourse,  the  only  change 
that  passed  over  him  from  early  manhood  till  he  died,  seemed 
that  of  growing  wisdom  and  worth,  while  not  a  juvenile  attach- 
ment was  weakened,  not  a  tie  of  local  interest  loosened,  not  a 
sentiment  of  respect  for  his  elders,  or  a  considerate  regard  for 
his  juniors  or  his  inferiors  in  intelligence  or  social  position, 
impaired. 

Two  of  the  following  Poems  were  written  during  an  excited 
political  campaign  in  1836  :  — 


14  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


PURE   LOYE  PEACEFUL. 

While  passions  vile  are  waging 
Rude  war  within  the  breast, 

The  soul's  fierce  storms  assuaging, 
Love  breathes  eternal  rest. 

Begone,  then,  wrath  and  malice, 
Envy  and  hate,  begone  ! 

Affliction's  bitter  chalice 
Rather  I  'd  drain  alone. 

Than  e'er  one  drop  of  sadness, 

Like  poison  in  his  cup. 
Should  mar  my  neighbor's  gladness, 

Or  disappoint  his  hope. 

Be  ye  a  band  of  brothers, 

And  unto  others  do 
That  which  ye  would  that  others 

Should  render  unto  you. 

Then  shall  ye  bask  surrounded 

With  life  divine  above. 
For  heaven  is  joy  unbounded. 

And  God,  our  Lord,  is  love. 


PURE   LOVE  ETERNAL. 

If  e'er  two  hearts  united 
In  love,  life's  weary  way, 

Wander,  and  troth  once  plighted 
Keep,  till  their  dying  day. 

Think  not  the  bond  shall  sever, 
That  bound  them  here  below, 

United  still  forever, 

Their  onward  course  they  go. 

Whether  the  path  of  glory 
It  was  their  lot  to  tread. 

Whether  their  humble  story 
Be  in  oblivion  dead  ; 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  15 

Those  mansions,  pure  and  holy, 

Alike  await  above 
The  lofty  and  the  lowly, 

Who  always  live  in  love. 

Witli  light  divine  surrounded, 

They  bask  in  bliss  above. 
For  heaven  is  joy  unbounded, 

And  God  is  sacred  love. 


LINES  WRITTEN  ON  THE  BIRTH  OF  HIS  SON  ROBERT. 

A  world  of  cares,  and  fears,  and  doubt,  and  strife, 
Blossom  of  hope,  sweet  promise  of  much  joy, 
Welcome,  my  first-born,  to  this  world  of  life. 
Thy  father  bids  thee  welcome  to  it,  boy. 

Welcome,  young  stranger,  to  this  changing  state. 
Of  weal  or  woe.     As  yet  thou  knowest  naught, 
Nor  heed'st  thou,  of  the  turns  of  fickle  fate, 
With  which  thy  future  destiny  is  fraught. 

And  ere  thy  days  of  trial  shall  be  nigh, 
Prosperity  her  flattering  tale  shall  tell. 
False,  yet  believed  :  such  as,  in  days  gone  by. 
With  greedy  ear  I  drank,  and  now  remember  well. 

God's  universe  was  paradise  to  me  ; 

With  thrilling  ecstasy  creation  teemed ; 

One  living  emerald  glowed  the  outspread  sea  ; 

And  heaven's  blue  arch  one  vaulted  sapphire  beamed. 

In  the  bright  sunshine  of  those  cloudless  days. 
My  young  heart  basked,  while  balmy  zephyrs  breathed ; 
Immortal  Hope  her  brow  with  amaranth  wreathed. 
Ambition  showed,  far  off,  the  victor  bays. 

But  stern  reality  at  last  draws  near. 

Those  empty  visions  all  have  taken  wing ; 

Life's  winter  comes,  't  is  cheerless,  cold,  and  drear,  — 

How  sad  a  contrast  to  its  verdant  spring  ! 

June  2,  1832. 


CHAPTER   11 


MR.   RANTOUL'S    CHOICE   OF  A  PROFESSION,  AND   HIS    DISTINCTION 

IN  IT. 

If  his  natural  character,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  early 
education,  were  prophetic  of  his  future  eminence,  not  less  so 
were  the  advantages  which  Mr.  Rantoul  enjoyed  in  the  study 
of  Law.  This  direct  preparation  for  professional  duty  he  com- 
menced in  1826,  in  the  office  of  Mr.  John  Pickering,  of  Salem, 
whose  varied  scholarship  and  literary  accomplishments,  united 
with  his  profound  learning  as  a  lawyer,  well  qualified  him  to 
guide  the  studies  of  a  young  and  ardent  inquirer  after  truth. 
Mr.  Rantoul's  habits  of  industry  and  his  love  of  intellectual  im- 
provement, which  with  him  was  a  passion,  joined  with  a  mem- 
ory retentive  of  every  fact,  or  principle  of  which  he  had  once 
gained  a  clear  conception,  made  his  advancement  rapid,  and 
his  knowledge  various  and  liberal.  He  had  the  benefit  of  wise 
guidance  to  the  sources  of  information,  and  a  rare  facility  of 
acquiring  it.  Such  was  his  peculiar  constitution  of  mind  that 
his  acquisitions  were,  at  the  same  time,  easy  conquests  and 
permanent  possessions.  Once  put  in  charge  of  his  memory, 
they  were  never  surrendered.  In  every  emergency  they  were 
at  the  command  of  a  judgment  sound  and  discriminating. 
This  unusual  combination  of  faculties  gave  him  rank  in  mental 
endowments  among  the  most  gifted  men  of  genius. 

Mr.  Pickering's  select  and  voluminous  library  opened  to  Mr. 
Rantoul's  active  mind  a  wide  field  of  congenial  labor,  of  which 
the  fruits,  in  his  after  life,  proved  the  diligence  of  his  cultiva- 
tion.    Here  was  pursued,  if  not  commenced,  his  indefatigable 


MEMOIRS  OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  17 

study  of  medicBval  history,  in  the  knowledge  of  which,  espe- 
cially that  of  France,  he  had  few  equals  among  American  schol- 
ars. His  mastery  of  this  branch  of  learning  contributed  to  his 
fitness  for  political  life,  as  well  as  to  his  usefulness  and  celebrity 
at  the  bar.  By  principle  and  habit  an  economist  of  time,  he 
suffered  no  opportunity  of  intellectual  improvement  to  be  lost. 
His  tastes,  indeed,  inclined  him  to  literary  rather  than  juridical 
pursuits.  But  by  patient  delving  in  the  dry  technicalities  of  the 
law,  for  the  sake  of  a  knowledge  of  its  essential  principles,  he 
gained,  at  least,  that  discipline  of  the  understanding,  which  ge- 
nius most  needs  for  its  correction  and  guidance. 

On  Mr.  Pickering's  removal  to  Boston,  Mr.  Rantoul  became 
a  student  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Leverett  Saltonstall,  a  lawyer  of 
high  reputation,  a  representative,  for  several  years,  to  Congress 
from  Essex  South  District,  a  gentleman  of  generous  and  at- 
tractive social  qualities,  whose  friendship,  freely  given  to  Mr. 
Rantoul,  notwithstanding  differences  of  political  opinion,  was, 
by  the  latter,  highly  appreciated  and  uninterruptedly  enjoyed. 
While  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Saltonstall,  as  in  that  of  Mr.  Picker- 
ing, the  aptitude  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  mind,  and  his  preference  for 
the  investigation  of  political  subjects,  were  decidedly  mani- 
fested. The  important  facts  of  history  and  biography,  espe- 
cially as  connected  with  European  and  American  legislation, 
he  traced  to  their  sources,  treasured  in  his  memory,  and  ar- 
ranged in  philosophical  order.  In  these  studies  he  found  com- 
pensation for  irksome  and  distasteful  toil  in  the  more  barren 
field  of  mere  professional  inquiry. 

In  the  year  1829  he  was  admitted  to  practice  at  the  bar ;  and 
in  a  few  months  afterwards,  1830,  occurred  in  Salem  the  trial 
of  the  Knapps  for  the  murder  of  Mr.  White.  In  this  case  Mr. 
Rantoul  w^as  employed  as  one  of  the  junior  counsel  for  the  de- 
fence. Objection  was  made  to  his  acting  in  that  capacity 
arising  from  rules  adopted  by  the  profession,  whether  reasona- 
ble, or  otherwise,  which  required  a  longer  practice,  in  the  infe- 
rior court,  than  his  age  as  a  lawyer  had  yet  afforded  him.  To 
that  objection  the  choice  of  his  clients  and  his  ability  to  serve 
them  were  a  sufficient  answer.  The  office,  however,  to  which  he 
was  called,  and  which  he  honored  by  his  fidelity  and  skill,  was 
one  extremely  unpopular  and  considerably  hazardous.     Such 

2* 


18  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

was  the  state  of  public  feeling  in  Salem  against  the  accused, 
that  their  young  counsel  suffered,  undeservedly,  the  dishearten- 
ing influence  of  the  averted  eyes,  and  the  broken  friendship,  of 
many  who  knew,  and  ought  to  have  justified,  the  purity  of  his 
motives.  In  this  usually  staid  and  sober  community,  not  un- 
distinguished by  its  Christian  culture  and  intellectual  advan- 
tages, the  ferocity  of  the  cries  for  the  blood  of  these  men,  bore 
too  much  resemblance  to  that  of  the  crime  of  which  they  were 
accused. 

Mr.  Rantoul  felt  in  every  way  the  unjust  and  sickening 
effects  of  this  excited  state  of  feeling  in  the  public  ;  an  excite- 
ment which  he  regarded  not  only  as  hostile  to  the  accused,  but 
to  the  calmness  and  the  fairness  of  judicial  proceedings,  in  a 
case  of  life  and  death  ;  and  he  never  could  divest  himself  of  the 
belief,  in  which  he  has  since  been  sustained  by  more  than  one 
eminent  jurist,  who  has  examined  the  case,  that  one  of  the  de- 
fendants suffered  unjustly.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  neither 
the  remonstrances  of  friends,  nor  their  averted  looks,  nor  the 
general  excitement,  had  power  to  relax  his  efforts  in  behalf  of 
his  clients  ;  for  he  was  as  independent  and  resolute  in  duty,  as 
he  was  kind  and  humane  in  his  feelings.  How  much  the  cir- 
cumstances of  this  trial  confirmed  opinions  which  he  had  early 
imbibed,  in  relation  to  the  law  of  capital  punishment,  can  be 
better  im^agined  than  ascertained.  It  is  well  known,  that  from 
this  time  forward,  he  cherished  an  unalterable  determination  to 
spare  no  exertions,  justified  by  reason,  to  expunge  from  our 
statute  book  this  blood-stain  handed  down  from  ages  of  barbar- 
ism. Of  his  legislative  labors  to  this  end,  an  account  will  be 
given  in  the  sequel. 

In  this  important  trial,  Mr.  Rantoul's  participation,  so  hu- 
mane, so  conscientious,  so  obedient  to  his  convictions  of  duty 
both  as  a  man  and  as  a  lawyer,  was  at  the  cost  of  grievous 
sacrifices.  Besides  those  already  referred  to  was  his  long  cher- 
ished purpose  of  making  Salem  the  place  of  his  permanent  resi- 
dence, as  it  was  of  his  professional  .studies.  From  this  town, 
it  is  but  a  short  distance,  a  pleasant  walk,  to  the  scenes  of  his 
earliest  recollections  and  dearest  joys ;  the  home  of  his  child- 
hood and  youth  ;  the  residence  of  his  parents,  to  him,  therefore, 
the  most  sacred  spot  on  earth,  and  of  a  numerous  circle  of  his 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  19 

most  beloved,  as  they  were  his  most  loving  and  admiring 
friends.  Salem,  too,  besides  its  social  advantages,  oifered 
many  attractions  to  a  young  man  of  learning  and  genius,  and 
among  them  the  prospect  of  enjoying  the  rewards  of  a  useful 
and  eminent  professional  career.  It  may  well  be  confessed 
that  the  abandonment  of  prospects  like  these,  required  great 
moral  courage,  a  stern  and  inflexible  virtue.  At  the  time  Mr. 
Rantoul  became  one  of  the  counsel  for  the  defendants,  he  must 
have  foreseen  the  undeserved  hostility  to  him  of  the  most  influ- 
ential, as  it  was  the  richest  class,  of  the  people  of  Salem. 
Their  passions  were  roused  to  the  highest  degree,  and  not  with- 
out cause.  Mr.  White  was  a  rich  man,  and  atrociously  mar- 
dered  for  his  property. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  and  certairfly  it  was  one 
altogether  independent  of  his  character  as  a  man  of  strict  in- 
tegrity, of  ability  as  an  advocate,  and  of  learning  as  a  lawyer, 
Mr.  Rantoul  never  received  in  Salem,  or  anywhere  else,  the 
patronage  of  wealth.  He  would  not  receive  it  as  the  price  of 
his  moral  and  intellectual  independence.  The  emoluments  of 
his  profession  were  no  adequate  compensation  for  the  time  and 
the  labor  he  bestowed  upon  it.  This  remark  applies  without 
qualification  to  his  earlier  life  as  a  lawyer,  and  is  true  of  the 
whole  of  it.  Whatever  even  of  applause  he  received  from  those 
who  ought  to  have  been  the  first  to  recompense  his  services, 
was  extorted,  only  by  surprising  displays  of  genius.  It  was 
often  in  appearance,  at  least,  an  unwilling  homage  to  his  intel- 
lectual power. 

In  1831.  Mr.  Rantoul  married  Miss  Jane  Elizabeth  Wood- 
bury, a  young  lady  qualified  to  be,  to  him,  so  distinguished  for 
purity  of  character  and  aflluence  of  intellect,  his  chosen  com- 
panion in  life.  She  is  a  relative  of  the  late  Judge  Levi  Wood- 
bury, whose  eminence,  as  a  jurist  and  a  truly  American  states- 
man, will  long  be  revered  and  honored  by  his  countrymen.  In 
the  quiet  enjoyments  of  home,  which  he  most  heartily  loved, 
Mr  Rantoul  found  a  needed  solace  for  the  cares  and  vexations 
of  professional  and  political  life  ;  a  solace  required  as  much  by 
his  tender  and  ingenuous  nature,  as  by  the  rough  trials  of  his 
condition  and  circumstances. 

On  leaving  Salem,  Mr.  Rantoul  resided  for  two  years  in  the 


20  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

town  of  South  Reading,  to  whose  citizens,  on  the  fourth  of 
July,  1832,  he  delivered  his  first  public  political  address.  In 
1833  he  removed  to  Gloucester,  where  he  continued  in  the 
practice  of  his  profession  to  1838,  in  which  year  he  opened  an 
office  in  Boston.  The  citizens  of  Gloucester,  in  four  successive 
years,  beginning  in  1835,  by  large  majorities,  elected  him  a  rep- 
resentative to  the  state  legislature.  The  honorable  distinction 
which  he  acquired  in  that  office,  and  the  celebrity  he  conferred 
on  this  patriotic  old  town,  will  be  appropriately  referred  to  in  a 
succeeding  chapter. 

In  Boston  almost  the  whole  of  his  professional  career,  when 
he  was  not  in  the  employ  of  the  United  States  government  as 
District  Attorney,  was  a  constant  struggle  against  every  species 
of  unfriendly  influences  ;  for  in  Boston,  more,  perhaps,  than  in 
any  other  place,  affording  many  individual  examples  of  liberal- 
ity of  sentiment  and  great  moral  worth,  a  vast  and  almost  om- 
nipotent money-power  opposes  the  principles  of  political  reform, 
and  fosters  a  hateful  and  unscrupulous  intolerance.  Mr.  Ran- 
toul  had  been  widely  and  honorably  known  as  a  bold  champion 
of  political  justice ;  an  inflexible  and  eloquent  advocate  of  the 
rights  of  man,  as  above  those  of  property,  whether  held  by  indi- 
viduals, or  corporations.  He  had  a  sincere  and  just  respect  for 
mental  power,  exerted  in  any  useful  direction,  and,  especially, 
for  that  intelligence,  which,  triumphing  over  adverse  circum- 
stances, is  able  to  secure  success  to  enterprise  and  reward  to 
industry.  But  he  had  a  higher  respect  for  integrity,  justice,  and 
truth  ;  a  higher  respect  for  the  rights  of  the  poor,  the  weak,  and 
the  defenceless.  He  acknowledged  no  authority  in  an  oligarchy 
of  wealth ;  no  other  nobility  than  that  conferred  by  beneficence 
to  mankind,  by  services  actually  rendered  to  his  fellow-crea- 
tures. What  he  regarded  as  the  humanity  and  justice  of  his 
political  opinions,  were  treated,  by  the  selfish  and  the  arrogant, 
as  treasonable  to  wealth.  And  hence  the  fact  that  neither  the 
extent,  nor  the  emoluments  of  his  professional  practice,  indi- 
cated his  merit  as  a  lawyer,  or  its  just  reward.  In  short,  he 
was  a  democratic  lawyer  in  the  city  of  Boston. 

The  consequence  of  his  standing  in  this  relation  to  politics  is 
perfectly  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  the  late  Judge  Joseph 
Story,   one   of  the   most   distinguished   of  American  jurists. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  21 

"  He  entered  public  life  in  1805,  when  federalism  was  so  pre- 
dominant in  Massachusetts,  that  his  avowed  sympathy  with 
the  republican  party,  and  his  consequent  support  of  the  admin- 
istrations of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  not  only  seriously  injured 
him  in  his  profession,  but,  to  a  great  degree,  excluded  him  from 
the  best  society."  *  To  precisely  the  same  kind  of  hostile  influ- 
ences was  Mr.  Rantoul  exposed,  and  they  affected  his  profes- 
sional and  social  interests  to,  at  least,  an  equal  degree.  That 
sort  of  "  best  society  "  still  bears  sway  in  Boston,  still  maintains 
its  ridiculous  exclusiveness,  and  its  wonted  enmity  to  freedom 
of  political  opinion  ;  transmitting  its  hereditary  hate  down, 
through  the  changes  of  times  and  of  parties,  to  the  present  day. 
No  purity  of  character,  no  cultivation  of  intellect,  no  splendor 
of  genius,  no  social  excellences,  however  refined  or  generous, 
can  gain  for  a  man  of  democratic  opinions,  a  just  consideration 
of  his  personal  merits,  or  of  his  professional  ability.  It  has 
been  so  from  the  early  days  of  Story,  and  so  will  continue  to 
be,  while  man  himself  shall  be  held  in  less  honor  than  the  acci- 
dents of  his  condition,  while  the  worship  of  Mammon  shall  be 
fostered  by  special  legislation,  and  admission  to  the  "  best  soci- 
ety "  shall  depend  less  on  moral  worth  and  intellectual  accom- 
plishments, than  on  the  glitter  of  wealth,  or  the  fashionable 
utterance  of  the  shibboleth  of  a  party. 

But  notwithstanding  these  hostile  influences,  Mr.  Rantoul's 
professional  ability  was  not  only  vindicated,  but  at  last,  slowly, 
and,  as  it  were,  painfully  acknowledged.  He  had  a  solid  basis, 
and  rose  high  to  the  sunlight,  above  the  fogs  and  damps  of 
party  malignity  and  intolerance.  It  is  due  to  him,  due  to  the 
public  and  to  the  profession,  of  which  he  always  deserved  high 
honors,  that  some  of  those  cases,  in  his  conduct  of  which  he 
revealed  to  unwilling  eyes  his  various  and  extensive  legal  learn- 
ing, his  exact  and  forcible  logic,  his  clear,  effective,  and  convinc- 
ing oratory,  should  be  distinctly  referred  to. 

One  of  the  first  in  the  order  of  time  (1840)  is  known  as  the 
Journeymen  Boot-Makers'  Case,  in  which  he  "  succeeded  in  ob- 
taining one  of  the  completest  triumphs  that  it  ever  fell  to  the 
lot  of  an  American  lawyer  to  achieve.     The  defendants  were 

*  Life  and  Letters  by  his  Son. 


22  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

charged  with  having  entered  into  a  combination  to  compel  by 
force  of  numbers  and  discipline,  and  by  imposition  of  fines  and 
penalties,  other  journeymen  to  join  their  society,  and  masters 
to  employ  none  but  members.  This  is  an  unlawful  conspiracy 
at  common  law  in  Massachusetts.  '  The  gist  of  the  offence  of 
conspiracy,'  say  the  books,  '  consists  in  a  confederacy  to  do  an 
unlawful  act,  and  the  offence  is  complete  when  the  confederacy 
is  made.  It  is  not  necessary,  to  complete  the  offence,  that  the 
confederacy  should  be  to  commit  an  act  which  is  indictable.' 
The  trial  of  the  boot-makers  came  off*  before  the  Boston  Muni- 
cipal Court  at  the  October  term,  1840.  Mr.  Rantoul  defended 
them  with  great  eloquence  and  powerful  arguments,  and  a  vast 
array  of  legal  and  historical  learning.  He  held  and  established, 
that  the  conduct  of  the  defendants  had  not  been  unlawful ;  and 
that,  therefore,  they  could  not,  in  law  and  justice,  be  convicted 
of  a  conspiracy  to  perform  an  unlawful  act.  What  they  had 
an  undoubted  right  to  do  in  their  capacity  of  individuals,  that 
they  had  a  right  to  do  as  a  combination  of  individuals.  '  A 
conspiracy  to  raise  wages,'  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  '  could  not  be  in- 
dictable in  England,  if  it  were  not  unlawful  there  for  an  indi- 
vidual to  attempt  to  raise  his  wages.  And  the  indictment  in 
the  case  at  the  bar  is  bad,  because  each  of  the  defendants  had  a 
right  to  do  that  which  is  charged  against  them  jointly.'*  The 
court  ruled  against  the  defendants,  and  the  jury  found  them 
guilty.  The  defendants  took  several  exceptions  to  the  ruling 
of  the  judge,  (Thacher,)  and  the  case  was  carried  up  to  the 
Supreme  Court.  Action  was  had  on  it  at  the  March  Term  of 
that  Court  in  1842.  The  only  exception  considered  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  was  this  :  "  The  defendants'  counsel  contended, 
that  the  indictment  did  not  set  forth  any  agreement  to  do  a 
criminal  act,  or  to  do  any  unlawful  act  by  criminal  means  ; 
and  the  agreements  therein  set  forth  did  not  constitute  a  con- 
spiracy indictable  by  any  law  of  this  commonwealth  ;  and  they 
moved  the  court  so  to  instruct  the  jury  ;  but  the  judge  refused 
so  to  do,  and  instructed  the  jury  that  the  indictment  against 
the  defendants  did  in  his  opinion,  describe  a  conspiracy  among 
the  defendants  to  do  an  unlawful  act,  and  to  effect  the  same  by 

*  Thacher's  Criminal  Cases,  p.  634. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  23 

unlawful  means  ;  that  the  society,  organized  and  associated  for 
the  purpose  described  in  the  indictment,  was  an  unlawful  con- 
spiracy against  the  laws  of  this  commonwealth  ;  and  that  if  the 
jury  believed,  from  the  evidence  in  the  case,  that  the  defendants, 
or  any  of  them,  had  engaged  in  such  conspiracy,  they  were 
bound  to  find  such  of  them  guilty.'  Mr.  Rantoul  argued  the 
case  very  elaborately.  In  conclusion,  he  said  :  '  All  the  counts 
in  the  present  indictment  are  fatally  defective  ;  first  in  not 
averring  any  unlawful  acts,  or  means ;  secondly,  if  any  such 
acts  or  means  are  averred,  in  not  setting  them  forth.  The 
vagueness  and  generality  of  the  charges  are  such,  that  autrefois 
convict  could  not  be  pleaded  to  a  sound  indictment  for  the  same 
acts.  When  the  end  is  not  unlawful,  the  means  should  be  set 
forth."*  The  Attorney- General  (Austin)  replied,  and  took 
ground  in  all  respects  precisely  the  opposite  of  that  advanced 
by  the  defendants'  counsel.  The  court  maintained  the  excep- 
tions, in  these  words,  after  a  long  train  of  reasoning :  '  What- 
ever illegal  purpose  can  be  found  in  the  constitution  of  the 
boot-makers'  society,  it  not  being  clearly  set  forth  in  the  indict- 
ment, cannot  be  relied  upon  to  support  this  conviction.  So  if 
any  facts  were  disclosed  at  the  trial,  which  if  properly  averred, 
w^ould  have  given  a  different  character  to  the  indictment,  they 
do  not  appear  in  the  bill  of  exceptions ;  nor  could  they,  after 
the  verdict,  aid  the  indictment.  But  looking  solely  at  the  in- 
dictment, disregarding  the  qualifying  epithets,  recitals,  and  im- 
material allegations,  and  confining  ourselves  to  facts  so  averred 
as  to  be  capable  of  being  traversed  and  put  in  issue,  we  cannot 
perceive  that  it  charges  a  criminal  conspiracy,  punishable  by 
law.  The  exceptions  must,  therefore,  be  sustained,  and  the 
judgment  arrested.' f 

"  We  have  dwelt  at  some  length  on  this  case,  because  it  not 
only  involved  a  great  question  bearing  upon  some  of  the  most 
important  rights  of  man,  but  because  its  decision  in  behalf  of 
the  defendants  settled  the  question  favorably  to  the  liberal  view 
of  things.  The  decision  was  final,  so  far  as  Massachusetts  i& 
concerned.  Mr.  Rantoul  won  much  applause  from  the  singu- 
larly able  manner  in  which  he  fought  the  battle  in  behalf  of 

*  Metcalf  s  Reports,  Vol.  IV.  119. 
t  Metcalf 's  Reports,  Vol.  IV.  136. 


24  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

sound  principles,  and  from  his  obtaining  a  victory  in  the  face 
of  influences  almost  overpowering  in  their  character.'*  In  this 
account  of  the  case,  it  is  remarked  in  a  note,  (p.  361,)  that  '  the 
reasons  advanced  by  Mr.  Rantoul  in  defence  of  the  boot-makers, 
and  the  recognition  of  the  soundness  of  which,  led  not  only  to 
their  acquittal,  but  also  to  the  settlement  of  a  great  principle 
favorably  to  the  cause  of  humanity  and  common  sense,  were 
substantially  the  same  as  those  which  led  to  the  reversal  of  the 
condemnation  of  Mr.  O'Connell  by  the  British  House  of  Lords, 
in  1844.  Lord  Denman,  then  Chief  Justice  of  the  Queen's 
Bench,  Lord  Cottenham,  who,  besides  other  high  stations,  has 
been  Lord  Chancellor,  and  Lord  Campbell,  now  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Queen's  Bench,  all  voted  for  the  reversal  of  the  condem- 
nation of  the  Irish  prisoners  ;  and  the  gist  of  what  was  said  by 
them  all  is,  in  no  essential  respect,  different  from  the  arguments 
of  Mr.  Rantoul  in  the  Massachusetts  courts  —  the  highest  of 
which  courts  sustained  his  positions,  reversing  the  decision  of 
the  courts  below,  just  as  the  House  of  Lords  reversed  that  of 
the  prejudiced  and  partial  Irish  court,  that  condemned  iMr. 
O'Connell  in  the  face  of  law  and  justice.  Lord  Lyndhurst, 
Chancellor  under  the  Peel  ministry,  and  Lord  Brougham,  voted 
against  the  three  Lords  before  named,  but  being  outnumbered, 
the  government  was,  as  it  deserved  to  be,  defeated."  * 

In  1842,  the  Rhode  Island  trials,  as  they  w^ere  called,  excited 
the  interest  of  the  friends  of  republican  liberty  throughout  the 
Union.  Mr.  Rantoul  was  employed  as  leading  counsel  in  the 
defence  of  one  or  more  persons  indicted  for  attempts  of  a  revo- 
lutionary character,  or  which  were  deemed  such  by  the  author- 
ities of  that  State,  to  render  its  government  more  just  to  all  its 
citizens,  by  extending  and  equalizing  the  right  of  suffrage. 

Of  the  demand  which  was  made  by  the  people  of  that  State 
for  the  just  extension  of  the  right  of  suffrage,  there  could  not, 
it  should  seem,  well  be  among  men  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
American  institutions,  much  diversity  of  opinion.  It  is  as  cer- 
tain that  the  suffrage  party  were  right,  in  their  aim,  as  that 
equality  and  justice  belong  to  all  men.     On  this  point,  the  tes- 


*  See  Democratic  Review,  October,  1850,  p.  360. 
t  Democratic  Review,  October,  1850. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,   JR.  25 

timoiiy  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  sons  of  that  State  who 
resided  there  a  part  of  almost  every  year  of  his  life,  Rev.  Dr. 
William  Ellery  Channing,  should  be  received  with  great  re- 
spect. He  says,  "  I  have  never  doubted  that  the  great  mass  of 
the  suffrage  party  started  with  a  truly  honest  purpose,  and  with 
a  thorough  conviction  of  right."  '•  They  had  just  cause  of  com- 
plaint against  the  charter.  The  disfranchisement  of  so  great  a 
number,  who,  according  to  our  republican  creed,  had  a  right  to 
vote,  and  the  enormous  and  unjust  inequalities  of  representa- 
tion in  the  northern  and  southern  parts  of  the  state,  were  serious 
Sfrievances."'  '•  The  existence  of  these  wronsfs  in  the  established 
system  has  always  made  me  look  with  great  tenderness  on  the 
rash  steps  of  the  revolutionists.*'  "  I  know,"  he  adds,  ••  the  state 
does  not  need  severity  for  its  own  safety :  and  I  hope  it  will 
not  fall  into  cruelty  from  revenge."  * 

The  authorities  of  Rhode  Island  knew  as  well  as  Dr.  Chan- 
ning, that  the  "  state  did  not  need  severity  for  its  own  safety ; " 
but  what  was  their  course  ?  INIen,  whose  crime  was  adopting  the 
only  method  which  they  believed  effective,  and,  therefore,  right, 
of  rendering  its  government  equal  and  just  to  all  its  citizens, 
were  arrested,  imprisoned,  and  tried,  not  in  parts  of  the  state 
where  the  acts  charged  as  criminal  were  committed,  but  in 
direct  violation  of  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  of  the  vicinage. 
Partizan  judges  and  packed  juries,  resembling  those  of  the 
worst  periods  of  English  history,  were  selected  as  the  fitting 
instruments  of  oppression.  To  unloose  this  unjust  grasp  of 
power,  and  to  save  some  of  the  best  citizens  of  Rhode  Island 
from  these  anti- American  and  tyrannical  modes  of  proceeding, 
INIr.  Rantoul  was  employed  as-  leading  counsel ;  and  he  brought 
to  bear,  on  the  merits  of  the  question,  a  force  of  reason,  and  an 
extent  of  learning,  which  startled  and  electrified  the  court,  and 
a  convincing  eloquence,  which  drew  involuntary  outbursts  of 
applause  from  a  numerous  and  enlightened  assembly.  The 
commonplace  arguments,  the  dull  detail  of  dry  technicalities, 
so  favorable  to  the  rigid,  and  often  sleepy,  decorum  of  a  court 
room,  were  all  swept  away  by  the  resistless  force  of  his  torrent- 
like oratory.     Even  Webster,  the  opposing  counsel,  clapped  his 

*  Channinjr'rf  Memoirs, 


26  MEMOIRS,   SPEF.CHES  AND  WRITINGS 

hands  with  applause.  The  rights  of  the  person,  and  the  rights 
of  the  state,  their  relation  to  each  other,  and  their  just  limita- 
tions, were  never  perhaps  more  ably  reviewed,  or  justly  defined 
in  a  forensic  address  ;  and  the  great  right  of  trial  by  jury  of  the 
vicinage  vindicated  by  the  most  learned  and  masterly  com- 
mand of  the  history  of  this  institution  from  its  earliest  source. 

The  Providence  Express,  published  the  next  day  after  the 
trial,  (October  11,  1842,)  gives  the  following  account  of  Mr. 
Kantoul's  argument :  — 

The  able  and  conclusive  argument  of  this  distinguished  gentleman 
occupied  two  hours  and  a  half  in  the  delivery.  It  was,  throughout,  the 
most  learned  address  to  which  we  have  ever  listened.  Indeed,  Ave  did 
not  expect  to  see  such  exuberance  of  elegant  learning  thrown  around 
this  technical  question  of  the  law.  It  is  not,  however,  in  the  subject,  but 
in  the  7nan,  that  w^e  arc  to  look  for  the  character  of  every  intellectual 
effort.  In  the  hands  of  some  men  this  subject  would  have  been  dull  and 
Avithout  interest.  Mr.  Rantoul  made  it  far  otherwise  to  the  crowded 
audience  who  listened  to  him.  At  his  touch,  the  dry  bones  of  Old  Feu- 
dalism were  clothed  with  flesh,  and  the  relics  of  the  buried  past  were 
brought  forth  in  copious  numbers,  to  illustrate  the  strong  points  of  his 
case.  History,  in  all  its  departments  —  feudal  and  Saxon  laws  — 
French  and  German  feudal  institutions,  all  passed  on,  marshalled  to  sus- 
tain the  oppositions  which  the  orator  successively  assumed,  in  the  pro- 
gress of  his  argument.  It  was  a  rare  and  rich  display  of  the  hoarded 
treasures  of  the  mind.     We  can  give  but  a  synopsis  of  It. 

Mr.  Rantoul  argued  very  briefly  the  question  whether  tlils  was  the 
proper  stage  of  the  proceedings  in  which  to  interpose  the  plea  now  under 
discussion,  and  then  passed  rapidly  on  to  the  great  question  on  the 
merits  of  the  plea,  the  question.  Can  a  man  he  tried  in  one  county,  for 
an  act  charged  in  the  indictment  in  another  county'^  He  argued  that  he 
could  not  be ;  that  the  legislature  of  Rhode  Island  could  not  constitu- 
tionally authorize  this  to  be  done  ;  and  that,  if  they  could  do  so,  the 
fourth  section  of  the  Algerlne  Act,  under  which  the  right  is  claimed, 
does  not  give  any  such  authority. 

Rhode  Island  could  not  do  it,  because  the  right  to  a  trial  by  the  jury 
of  the  county  where  the  act  is  done,  was  one  of  those  fundamental 
rights  of  Englishmen,  which  the  colonists  brought  with  them  to  Amer- 
ica, and  had  never  surrendered,  or  lost. 

He  showed  this  by  examining  the  object  of  the  Institution  of  jury 
trials,  the  sources,  and  the  original  form  of  this  institution,  the  meaning 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  27 

of  the  terms  in  Magna  Carta,  by  which  trial  by  his  peers  is  secured  to 
every  freeman,  the  course  of  the  common  law  in  England,  since  the 
Great  Charter,  the  statutes  in  England,  in  derogation  from  this  common 
law  of  England  on  this  point,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  Rev- 
olution. 

He  then  considered  the  discussions  which  occurred  in  Parliament, 
and  in  the  several  colonies  upon  this  right,  in  17G9,  and  from  that  time 
to  177G,  and  showed  that  everywhere  they  claimed  trial  by  jury  as  their 
birthright,  and  that  it  was  always  by  jury  of  the  vicinage,  or  neighbor- 
hood. 

He  then  showed  that  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States 
contained  nothing  repugnant  to  these  views,  but  much  to  corroborate 
them.  Then  turning  to  Rhode  Island,  he  showed  that  a  departure  from 
these  principles  would  be  a  violation  of  her  character,  usages,  and 
rights. 

From  the  question  of  constitutionality,  he  then  passed  to  the  con- 
struction of  the  Algerine  question.  It  was  a  penal  statute,  and  must,  of 
course,  not  be  extended  beyond  its  natural  meaning.  It  does  not  pro- 
vide for  the  trial  of  this  case  in  Newport  county.  It  provides  for  keep- 
ing prisoners  in  custody  in  a  foreign  county,  for  indictment  there,  for  a 
removal  on  good  cause  shown,  and  that  is  all.  You  have  a  meaning  to 
every  sentence,  and  every  word  in  the  act,  by  this  construction.  Its 
meaning  is  exhausted,  and  you  cannot  add  any  thing  more,  by  conjec- 
turing what  the  legislature  thought,  when  they  have  not  said  it. 

Mr.  Rantoul  set  forth  the  substantial  benefits  of  this  right,  the 
growth  of  which  he  had  traced  from  the  times  of  Alfred  and  Charle- 
magne, and  conjured  the  court  not  to  throw  away  a  guarantee  which 
had  ripened  under  the  varied  experience  of  a  thousand  years,  for  a 
forced  and  unnatural  construction  of  a  statute,  which  was  itself,  at  least, 
of  very  doubtful  constitutionality. 


This  hasty  sketch  of  an  argument  which  so  rapid  a  speaker 
as  Mr.  Rantoul  was  two  hours  and  a  half  in  delivering,  can 
give  but  an  imperfect  idea  of  the  varied  learning  which  eluci- 
dated with  historical  details  the  legal  authorities  which  he  made 
the  basis  of  his  reasoning. 

In  1843,  Mr.  Rantoul  was  appointed  collector  of  the  port  of 
Boston  and  Charlestown,  in  the  place  of  Ex-Governor  Levi 
Lincoln,  removed.  The  friends  of  the  latter  gentleman  had 
sufficient  influence  with  the  United   States   Senate  to  prevent 


28  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

Mr.  Rantoul's  confirmation.  He  held  that  office  but  a  year, 
discharging  its  duties  with  unquestionable  uprightness  and 
characteristic  ability ;  and  the  same  Senate,  in  1844,  under  an- 
other administration,  confirmed  his  appointment  to  the  office  of 
United  States  Attorney  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts,  which 
required  a  higher  order  of  talent,  and  a  more  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  law ;  an  office,  too,  which  had  been  held  by  several 
men  who  were  greatly  distinguished  for  their  learning  and  elo- 
quence ;  among  whom  were  H.  G.  Otis,  the  late  Judge  Davis, 
George  Blake,  and  Franklin  Dexter.  Their  celebrity  as  law- 
yers had  given  eclat  to  an  office,  which,  from  its  nature,  was 
sufficiently  responsible.  Mr.  Rantoul,  however,  was  equal  to 
the  duties  to  which  he  was  called.  It  is  no  more  than  just  to 
say,  that  the  most  able  of  his  predecessors  did  not,  in  that  office, 
surpass  him  in  the  display  of  legal  erudition,  or  of  brilliant  and 
effective  eloquence. 

As  United  States  District  Attorney,  Mr.  Kantoul  established 
and  vindicated  by  laborious  investigation  and  invincible  reason- 
ing, several  of  the  most  important  principles  of  constitutional 
law.  Such  principles  were  involved,  for  example,  in  the  New 
Bedford  Bridge  Case  ;  one  of  great  magnitude  in  its  results, 
and  which  required  the  full  force  of  the  ablest  talent  in  its  man- 
agement. It  belonged  to  a  class  of  cases  that  present  questions 
arising  from  a  supposed  or  apparent  conflict  of  jurisdiction  be- 
tween the  State  sovereignties  and  the  constitutional  powers  of 
the  General  Government. 

To  draw  clearly  the  lines  that  mark  the  respective  boundaries 
in  mixed  sovereignties,  such  as  are  created  by  the  American 
national  and  State  governments,  is  a  service  which  requires  not 
only  a  most  thorough  knowledge  of  jurisprudence,  but  of  the 
history  of  the  country,  and  the  formation  of  its  civil  institutions. 
No  cases  can  arise  before  the  legal  tribunals  of  any  other  country, 
that  call  for  more  varied  research  and  exact  knowledge,  than 
many  of  those  that  have  been  decided  in  the  federal  courts. 
Of  this  class,  no  one  more  interesting  or  important  w^as  ever 
presented  than  the  New  Bedford  Bridge  Case.  It  involved  the 
construction  of  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  grants  to 
the  General  Government  all  admiralty  and  maritime  jurisdiction. 
The  extent  of  this  grant  had  never  been  settled,  and  its  just 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  29 

definition  was  to  be  sought  in  a  thorough  examination  of  the 
admiralty  laws  of  England,  of  other  European  nations,  ancient 
as  well  as  modern,  and  of  the  colonies  themselves ;  in  the 
diplomatic  relations  of  the  United  States,  and  in  whatever 
historical  details  could  assist  the  interpretation  of  statutes  or 
clauses  of  the  Constitution,  and  elucidate  the  inherent  rights 
of  sovereignty.  All  were  indefatigably  explored  and  eloquently 
applied,  to  determine  and  establish  the  just  limits  of  the  mari- 
time jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  when  in  conflict  with 
the  legislation  of  a  State. 

The  government  counsel  went  into  a  thorough  examination 
of  maritime  laws,  commencing  with  those  of  Athens  and 
Rhodes,  and  coming  down  to  the  present  day.  He  cited  up- 
wards of  four  hundred  authorities,  in  various  languages  ;  and 
it  is  but  just  to  say,  that  never  was  a  cause  tried  in  that  court, 
where  authority  had  been  more  thoroughly  examined  and  col- 
lated, where  more  varied  fields  of  learning  had  been  explored, 
or  where  the  power  of  the  constitutional  lawyer  was  more  fully 
tasked,  to  do  justice  to  the  question  presented.  Mr.  Rantoul 
was  equal  to  the  occasion  ;  his  thorough  and  profound  investi- 
gations, his  searching  and  convincing  logic,  the  comprehensive 
grasp  of  his  mind,  and  the  massive  force  of  his  deductions,  won 
the  admiration  of  the  bar  and  the  court,  and  established  his 
reputation  as  an  able  constitutional  lawyer. 

It  gave  the  profession  and  the  public  the  assurance  that  the 
acquirements  of  Mr.  Rantoul  in  the  regions  of  the  civil  law, 
were  as  extensive  and  valuable  as  his  well-known  erudition  in 
the  common  law.  The  positions  taken  by  him  in  his  argument 
in  this  case,  sustained  as  they  were  by  the  most  clear  and 
forcible  reasoning,  and  a  vast  accumulation  of  authority,  have 
had  a  just  and  commanding  influence  in  the  decision  of  other 
cases. 

The  decision  of  this  cause  was  important,  as  the  commence- 
ment of  the  series  of  great  cases  on  the  same  subject,  through 
which  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  have  at  last 
announced  conclusions  closely  corresponding  with  those  of  Mr. 
Rantoul  in  his  able  argument. 

"  Another  branch  of  law  of  great  intricacy  first  came  within 
the  practice  of  Mr.  Rantoul  about  this  time,  —  that  of  the  trial 

3* 


30  MEMOIRS,   SrEECPIES   AND  WHITINGS 

of  infringements  on  patent  rights.  This  presents  two  difFicnlties 
to  the  ordinary  lawyer,  — r  the  highly  metaphysical  character  of 
the  law,  in  its  application  to  given  facts,  requiring  close  study 
and  great  power  of  abstract  thought,  —  and  then  the  difficulty 
of  comprehending  the  subject-matter  of  the  cause  with  any 
facility,  owing  to  the  immense  amount  of  mechanical  details, 
and  the  complicated  masses  of  machinery  on  which  counsel  are 
expected  to  reason  as  fluently  as  on  printed  briefs.  The  won- 
derful powers  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  mind  in  mathematics  and  ge- 
ometry, which  when  he  was  in  college  had  excited  admiration 
and  surprise,  now  cam^e  practically  in  play,  and  he  astonished 
by  the  rapidity  of  his  comprehension,  the  ease  with  which  he 
analyzed  intricate  machines,  and  the  freedom  and  accuracy 
with  which  he  applied  the  principles  of  the  patent  code.  So 
extraordinary  were  his  powers  in  these  particulars,  as  to  fit  him 
for  peculiar  eminence  in  that  great  study  of  the  extent  and  right 
of  property  in  ideas,  which  a  high  stage  of  civilization  renders 
interesting  and  useful  to  the  community." 

The  case  of  the  Spitfire,  a  slaver,  was  another  in  which  Mr. 
Rantoul's  singular  power  as  an  advocate  obtained  over  able 
and  learned  counsel  an  honorable  triumph  in  the  conviction  of 
her  master  and  the  condemnation  of  the  vessel.  He  was  pe- 
culiarly able  in  analyzing  facts,  placing  them  in  their  just  rela- 
tion to  each  other,  and  making  them  thus,  by  their  own  nature, 
speak  the  language  of  truth,  and  carry  conviction  to  the  under- 
standing. In  this  case,  the  opposing  counsel,  a  gentleman  of 
great  distinction  as  a  lawyer,  having  made  his  argument  in  the 
defence,  sat  down  with  the  persuasion  that  nothing  could  essen- 
tially weaken  its  force,  when  Mr.  Rantoul,  for  the  government, 
taking  the  same  facts  upon  which  the  defence  relied,  placed 
them  in  such  a  natural,  and,  when  seen,  evident  and  convincing 
relation  to  one  another,  as  to  give  to  his  argument  the  irresisti- 
ble force  of  complete  demonstration.  The  honorable  gentleman 
who  w^as  counsel  for  the  defence  has  since  often  remarked  that 
Mr.  Rantoul's  argument  for  the  government  was  one  of  the 
most  unlooked  for  and  admirable  in  lucid,  logical  force,  that 
was  ever  heard  at  the  bar  of  that  court. 

It  is  just,  also,  to  refer  in  similar  terms  of  commendation  to 
his  conduct  of  the  prosecution  in  several  cases  of  smuggling. 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  31 

In  one  of  these,  called  the  Jacob's  Case,  his  rare  ability  as  a 
lawyer  was  so  signally  illustrated  as  to  command  the  enco- 
mium of  men  high  in  his  profession,  who  were  witnesses  of  his 
success. 

But  a  case  which  deservedly  excited  a  deeper  and  graver 
interest  in  the  community,  was  one  called  the  Crafts  Case. 
This  was  an  indictment  against  one  Crafts,  an  owner  of  the 
ship  Franklin,  for  conspiring  with  the  master,  and  procuring 
the  casting  away  of  the  ship  to  defraud  the  underwriters. 

This  ship,  on  her  passage  from  London  to  Boston,  was  cast 
away  on  Cape  Cod,  and,  together  with  several  lives,  was  lost. 
The  government  charged  that  the  casting  away  was  intended 
by  the  master,  at  the  instigation  of  Crafts,  the  owner  of  the 
vessel,  that  he  might  receive  the  amount  insured  on  her,  which, 
as  alleged,  was  several  thousand  dollars  more  than  she  was 
worth. 

This  case  was,  by  Mr.  Rantoul,  deemed  to  be  one,  in  every 
point  of  view,  of  very  great  importance.  The  crime  charged 
w^as  of  vast  and  solemn  magnitude,  affecting  the  welfare  and 
interests  of  the  commerce  of  the  United  States,  soon  to  be,  if 
not  already,  the  greatest  maritime  power  of  the  world.  That 
such  a  crime  should  receive  its  deserved  punishment,  Mr.  Ran- 
toul  held  to  be  of  national  consequence.  "  It  was  the  neces- 
sity," he  said,  "  that  some  general  law  should  throw  its  protect- 
ing aegis  over  those  who  had  left  behind  them  all  local  juris- 
diction, and  the  sense  of  the  obvious  common  interest  of  all 
merchants  and  mariners,  that  caused  the  early  and  universal 
adoption  of  the  law  of  the  sea ;  a  law  whose  venerable  author- 
ity commanded  the  respect  of  the  Roman  emperors  in  the 
height  of  their  unbounded  power  —  of  which  Antoninus  said: 
'  I  am  indeed  the  lord  of  the  earth,  but  the  law  is  lord  of  the 
sea.'  And  when  afterw^ards  feudal  anarchy  had  separated  the 
law  of  the  land  into  a  thousand  discordant  systems,  the  law  of 
the  sea  still  was,  and  continues  to  be,  one  laiv ;  and  it  is  only 
upon  the  sea  that  sovereign  law,  the  world's  collected  will,  sits 
arbiter.  You  are  trying  this  great  maritime  fraud,  gentlemen, 
in  the  court  which  is  the  minister  and  interpreter  of  this  uni- 
versal law  —  a  court  which  tried  maritime  offences  by  a  jury  of 
twelve  good  and  lawful  men,  in  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  be- 


32  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

fore  the  institution  of  a  jury  had  acquired  its  present  form  in 
the  courts  of  common  law  of  England,  —  a  law  which  took  cog- 
nizance of  barratry  and  fraudulent  wrecks,  and  conspiracies  to 
procure  them,  not  only  before  its  prohibitions  were  adopted 
into  our  statutes,  but  before  Columbus  had  discovered  the  ocean 
path  to  our  hemisphere." 

Nothing  less  than  a  full  and  thorough  report  of  this  impor- 
tant trial  can  do  justice  to  the  masterly  and  unsurpassed  ability 
of  Mr.  Rantoul's  conduct  of  the  case  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ment. Nor  would  that  be  sufFicient  to  give  a  just  idea  of  his 
merits  in  the  wonderful  command  of  his  intellect  and  knowl- 
edge, unless  it  were  also  recorded,  that  through  the  whole  of 
these  arduous  labors,  he  was  suffering  scarcely  less  than  the 
torments  of  the  rack  from  anxiety  occasioned  by  unforeseen  and 
overwhelming  pecuniary  embarrassments.  His  thoughts  were, 
every  moment  when  he  was  not  in  the  court  room,  harassed  by 
this  constant  and  corroding  solicitude.  None  but  a  few  per- 
sonal friends  knew  and  could  appreciate  the  sublimity  of  that 
self-command  which  he  had  occasion  to  exert  through  the 
whole  of  this  trial.  Precluded  by  the  painful  circumstances  in 
which  he  was  placed,  from  pre-consideration  of  many  of  the 
great  points  upon  which  he  was  called  to  speak,  he  caught  in- 
spiration in  a  moment  from  the  presence  of  the  court,  the  jury, 
the  witnesses,  and  the  opposing  counsel,  and  arranged  with  the 
rapidity  of  lightning  in  close,  solid,  compact  columns,  the  re- 
sources of  his  knowledge  and  his  logic,  and  directed  them  to 
the  point  of  attack,  or  defence,  which  the  constantly  shifting 
aspect  of  the  trial  presented  to  his  glance.  The  great  principles 
of  law  relative  to  the  case  were  as  clear  to  him  as  intuitions, 
and  how  well  he  applied  them,  those  who  were  present  at  the 
trial  can  never  forget. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  writing  from 
Boston,  June  1st,  1849,  says  of  Mr.  Rantoul :  — 

His  speech  thus  far  lias  occupied  two  days.  To  speak  of  it  as  a 
reply  to  the  defence  of  Mr.  Choate,  except  so  far  as  the  most  ingenious 
theories  of  that  defence  came  in  collision  with  the  assumptions  of  gov- 
ernment, would  be  to  characterize  it  as  a  successful  effort  to  effect  an 
end  for  which  it  evidently  was  not  designed.     The  prosecution  has  had 


OF   EGBERT    RANTOUL,  JR.  33 

a  theory  of  its  own,  and  has  not  been  led  from  its  pursuit  by  the  daz- 
zling brilliancy  of  false  lights  of  other  parties  ;  while,  to  a  careful  observer, 
it  was  palpable  that  the  plan  of  the  defence  was  constantly  changing, 
as  the  evidence  developed  itself.  The  government,  facing  an  opponent 
with  a  constantly  shifting  front,  has  bent  its  steady  gaze  apparently  from 
but  one  single  point  of  view.  Whatever  came  in  conflict  with  that 
view,  was  swept  away  with  a  ponderous  arm,  often  at  a  single  blow. 

Mr.  Rantoul  said,  in  commencing,  that  he  viewed  the  prosecution  for 
this  most  unusual  crime,  as  a  test  of  the  power  of  commerce  to  vindicate 
itself,  —  to  throw  its  protecting  a^gis  over  all  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships,  over  the  million  souls,  passengers  and  seamen,  that  were  annually 
committed  to  its  care,  and  the  immense  amount  of  property,  as  of  life, 
that  depended  on  its  sanctity.  The  commerce  of  New  York  was  equal 
to  that  of  all  Europe  in  the  middle  ages.  The  commerce  of  Boston 
alone  was  greater  than  that  of  England  and  Wales,  in  the  reign  of  queen 
Anne.  The  American  flag  protects  and  vindicates  the  safety  of  one 
entire  third  of  the  shipping  of  the  whole  world.  It  was  developing  and 
expanding  itself  with  a  power  double  that  of  England,  and  without  a 
parallel  in  the  history  of  nations.  Britannia  could  not  much  longer  be 
mistress  of  the  seas  ; 

Non  illi  imperium  pclagi  S£cvum  que  tridcntcm ; 
Scd  mihi  sortc  datum. 

It  was  the  sanctity  of  an  interest  so  vast  as  this,  that  asked  a  vindica- 
tion at  the  hands  of  sworn  and  just  jurors. 

Mr.  Rantoul  endeavored  to  establish  three  points.  1st.  AVas  the 
.Franklin  intentionally  wrecked  ?  2d.  Do  the  letters  of  John  jM.  Crafts, 
of  Smith  the  captain,  and  Wilson,  establish  the  connection  of  Crafts  in 
a  conspiracy  to  effect  that  object  ?  od.  Is  the  testimony  of  Wilson  cor- 
roborated by  the  proved  facts  in  the  case,  and  the  conduct  of  parties  ? 

To  the  first  of  these  propositions,  the  learned  counsel  devoted  his 
first  day's  argument.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  of  this  part,  it  was  per- 
fect demonstration.  He  argued  it  as  a  nautical  man  u})on  the  testimony 
of  nautical  men  ;  upon  the  ship's  log,  and  tlie  known  facts  of  the  result. 
So  powerfully  were  the  incidents  of  the  voyage  analyzed,  that  several 
times  demonstrations  of  applause  ran  round  the  court  room,  even  against 
the  declaration  of  Judge  Sprague,  made  the  day  before,  when  the  mag- 
nificent declamation  of  Mr.  Choate  "  brought  down  the  cambric,"  rather 
vehemently,  that  he  would  arrest  and  imprison  any  person  found  repeat- 
ing it. 

The  Franklin,  he  said,  was  a  thorough  built  ship,  at  the  cost  of 
$27,000,  and  about  seventeen  years  old.    It  was  manned  with  a  full  and 


34  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

excellent  crew,  commanded  by  an  experienced  navigator  of  the  north  of 
Europe,  who  had  sailed  from  that  port  twenty-two  years  as  master,  and 
for  how  much  longer,  it  was  unknown.  The  ship  was  wrecked  in  fair 
weather,  upon  a  calm  sea,  in  broad  daylight,  upon  a  coast  as  familiar  to 
the  master  as  his  birthplace.  The  incidents  throughout  the  voyage, 
proved  that  not  one  act,  calculated  to  effect  her  destruction,  was  omitted  ; 
not  an  act  performed  calculated  to  save  her,  until  it  was  too  late  to  do  it. 
Captain  Smith  had  written  to  Wilson,  in  a  letter  before  the  jury,  and 
among  the  last  of  his  letters  :  "  if  it  is  possible  to  do  ivhat  ive  talked  of  in 
Savmmah,  I  ivill  do  it." 

lie  had  purchased  for  the  Franklin,  which  was  a  ship  of  three  hun- 
dred tons,  a  boat  suitabl*^  for  a  ship  of  eight  hundred  tons.  He  declared 
to  Captain  McLane,  who  sought  passage  home,  that  he  did  not  want  to 
be  '  bothered '  with  passengers,  saying,  "  the  fewer  passengers  I  take  on 
board  this  ship  the  better."  An  incident  occurred  in  London  (details 
not  given  in  evidence)  which  caused  one  of  the  persons  on  board  to 
closely  watch  Captain  Smith.  When  he  had  arrived  upon  the  Ameri- 
can coast,  he  ran  off  his  course  as  far  south  as  the  thirty-ninth  parallel, 
and  his  constant  orders  even  then  were,  "  west  by  north,  and  nothing  to 
the  north  of  it,"  a  course  which  would  not  have  taken  him  into  Boston 
bay  at  best ;  but  if  it  had  not  wrecked  him  on  Cape  Cod,  would  have 
carried  him  as  far  south  as  Marshfield,  a  better  haven,  Mr.  Rantoul 
said,  for  a  politician,  than  for  the  Franklin.  He  stood  upon  soundings 
thirty-six  hours,  but  did  not  heave  a  lead,  and  wlien  compelled  by  Cap- 
tain McLane  and  tlie  passengers,  wlio  had  declared  for  hours  they 
heard  breakers  ahead,  he  hove  the  lead  himself  and  instead  of  calling 
the  water  as  usual,  he  cried  '-'- plenty  of  water,  keep  her  on  her  course '\ 
When  forced  by  his  seamen,  who  twice  called  him  from  below,  to  cast 
anchor,  he  paid  out  but  seventeen  or  eighteen  fathom  cable,  when  it 
should  have  been  fifty,  and  in  two  hours  after,  the  ship  had  shoaled  her 
water  twenty-one  feet. 

He  allowed  the  ship,  against  the  repeated  protestations  of  every  soul 
on  board,  to  drag  with  short  cable,  till  she  stranded  upon  the  bar,  and 
when  there,  without  an  effort,  till  aid  was  impossible,  he  held  her  there. 
The  whole  of  these  details  were  examined,  with  others  not  here  stated, 
and  collated  with  invincible  reasoning,  to  prove  the  design  of  wrecking, 
and  the  questions  put  to  the  jury  to  explain  them,  except  upon  the  theory 
of  an  intentional  wreck,  fell  with  crushing  weight  upon  the  prisoner. 
The  letters  proved  Crafts'  connection  with  this  conspiracy.  No  plea  of 
forgery  could  account  for  them.  The  learned  counsel  said  that  never  a 
forgery  of  such  extent  —  some  dozen  of  letters  being  in  this  case  —  had 
ever  been   successful    against  examination.      The   forgery  of  deed  in 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  35 

ancient  Rome,  the  forgeries  of  tlie  monasteries  of  the  middle  ages,  no 
modern  case  disproved  this  position  ;  and  the  jury  would  find  here,  that 
forgery  of  these  letters  was  an  impossible  theory. 

An  examination  of  the  letters  would  satisfy  the  jury  that  they  could 
he  written,  if  by  Crafts  or  another,  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  procure 
a  fraudulent  wreck.  These  points,  demonstrated  by  invincible  reason, 
and  irrefragible  proof,  led  to  the  question  considered  at  first ;  Did  Cap- 
tain Smith  wreck  the  ship  ?  Did  he  do  "  as  he  had  promised  Wilson  he 
w^ould  do,  accomplish  what  they  had  talked  about  at  Savannah  ?  " 


The  Boston  Daily  Times  continues  the  report  of  Mr.  Rantoul's 
address  as  follows  :  — 

Friday^  June  1,  1849. 

Mr.  Rantoul  recommenced  his  address  by  a  brief  recapitulation  of 
yesterday's  arguments.  The  nature  of  circumstantial  evidence  was  ex- 
plained as  it  tended  to  bear  on  the  conclusions  arrived  at  yesterday. 
One  of  the  most  obvious  reasons  to  conclude  that  the  ship  was  wilfully 
cast  away,  was  the  one  derived  from  the  fact  that  Captain  Smith  knew, 
from  tlie  depth  of  water,  that  the  ship  was  in  danger,  and  did  not  strive 
to  avoid  it. 

It  was  clear  that  the  ship  was  deliberately  cast  away ;  and  the  ques- 
tion came  to  be  resolved  —  what  influence  could  operate  on  Captain 
Smith  to  induce  him  to  destroy  the  ship  ?  That  he  had  been  solicited 
to  cast  away  the  ship,  and  agreed  to  it,  was  clear.  The  letters  were 
extant  to  prove  that  to  be  the  case.  He  was  to  have  wrecked  the 
Franklin  on  the  voyage  to  Havre,  and  he  kept  the  letters  in  his  posses- 
sion in  order  to  coerce  his  owner  into  a  fulfilment  of  the  arrangement 
entered  into  when  the  destruction  of  the  ship  w^as  planned.  An  attempt 
to  explain  the  meaning  of  these  letters,  which  were  providentially  found 
in  the  captain's  valise,  had  been  made,  but  it  was  a  very  lame  one,  and 
one  by  no  means  founded  on  any  thing  like  probability.  There  was  no 
doubt  that  these  letters  w^ere  to  be  interpreted  to  prove  a  conspiracy  ; 
Crafts  taking  this  cunning  and  cowardly  manner  of  expressing  what  he 
dared  not  otherwise  plainly  speak,  —  but  what  was  plainly  understood 
by  the  party  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 

Were  these  letters  the  genuine  productions  of  the  parties  they  purport 
to  be  written  by  ?  If  the  signatures  had  been  put  to  notes  of  hand,  they 
would  be  genuine  enough;  but  as  their  identification  involved  a  great 
crime,  more  than  common  proof  was  required.  There  had  been  a  great 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  defendant  to  repudiate  his  signatures  all  along, 


36  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

and  to  tlirow  those  that  were  genuine  out  of  the  evidence.  There  was 
no  doubt  that  the  letters  found  in  the  valise  were  genuine,  and  Crafts' 
defence  in  regard  to  their  ungenuineness  was  all  a  lie,  and  he  well 
knew  it  to  be  so.  If  these  letters  were  forgeries,  how  did  it  come  that 
tliere  was  such  an  unwillingness  to  allow  them  to  come  before  the  jury  ? 
There  was  a  circumstance  of  proof  in  this  suspicious  conduct,  which  was 
most  unfavorable  to  the  presumption  that  these  letters  were  forged.  If 
these  letters  were  forgeries,  how  could  it  come  that  so  many  of  them 
were  genuine  ?  There  were  several  of  them  admitted  to  be  genuine,  and 
the  remainder  proved  one  of  the  most  extensive  forgeries,  if  it  proved 
any  thing  of  forgery  at  all,  that  had  ever  happened  in  any  age. 

The  letters  were  taken  separately  and  commented  upon.  The  spell- 
ing of  letters  put  in  in  evidence,  as  being  genuine  manuscripts  of  Crafts', 
in  every  peculiarity,  Avas  found  to  correspond  with  that  of  the  letters 
found  in  the  valise.  In  particular,  the  word  "  please  "  was  spelled  alike 
in  all  the  documents,  genuine  and  not  genuine,  (as  counsel  for  defence 
had  objected  to  or  admitted  as  evidence,)  and  in  every  instance  without 
a  final  e.  Other  peculiarities  were  also  pointed  out  which  corresponded 
in  all  the  letters  before  the  court.  It  was  to  be  inferred,  most  clearly, 
from  these,  that  the  letters  were  in  the  hand- writing  of  J.  W.  Crafts ; 
and  the  fact  of  these  peculiarities  having  an  existence,  was  as  sure  proof 
that  he  wrote  them  as  if  ten  men  had  sworn  to  have  seen  him  write 
them. 

There  was  no  doubt  either  that  the  practice  of  such  crimes  as  had 
shown  themselves  in  the  destruction  of  the  Franklin,  were  very  common, 
although  there  was  a  difficulty  in  finding  evidence  sufficiently  strong  to 
found  an  action  on  them.  Human  depravity  was  every  day  at  work  in 
some  shape  ;  and  if  the  insurance  offices  did  not  check  such  proceedings, 
when  they  found  good  grounds  to  act  on,  they  neglected  their  own  in- 
terest, and  left  the  public  also  to  suffi3r,  because  of  the  crimes  involving 
their  safety  and  interest. 

One*  particular  feature  in  the  case  of  the  letters  furnished  an  indisput- 
able proof  that  they  could  not  be  forgeries  ;  that  was  the  similarity  in 
size  of  paper  between  the  letters  assumed  to  be  written  by  Crafts,  and 
those  in  court  owned  to  be  written  by  him.  Another  was,  that  the  paper 
had  the  same  color  and  consistency  ;  and  it  was  obvious  that  it  was  all 
the  same  manufacture  —  the  pretendedly  false,  and  the  admittedly 
genuine,  documents.  These  showed  a  clear  proof  of  the  fact  that  Crafts 
had  written,  or  had  been  cognizant  of  the  writing  of  the  letters. 

There  was  no  doubt  of  Crafts  having  sent  Wilson  to  Savannah  to 
arrange  the  wreck  of  the  ship,  and  that  Smith  agreed  to  do  it.  The 
letter  which  was  in  court,  and  was  written  by  Captain  Smith  from  Sa- 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  37 

vannah,  saying  that  lie  "  would  do  it  if  possible,"  was  unquestionable 
evidence  tliat  he  had  entered  upon  this  agreement.  There  was  no  other 
legitimate  explanation  of  this  phrase,  but  that  it  implied  a  disposition  to 
agree  to  wreck  the  ship. 

There  could  be  no  reasonable  motive  on  the  part  of  Wilson  to  make 
any  arrangement  independently  of  Crafts.  If  there  had  been  any  such 
thing  on  his  part,  why  did  not  Crafts,  when  he  came  to  know  of  it,  as  he 
did,  and  as  the  captain's  letters  show  he  did,  go  and  expose  him  ?  The 
crime  was  clearly  divided  among  the  two.  Crafts  and  Wilson,  and  there 
was  no  forgery  whatever  in  the  case.  The  letters  were  undoubtedly  and 
uncontrovertibly  genuine.  Every  thing  showed  it,  even  to  the  studied 
ambiguity  of  the  documents.  Crafts  was  one  of  those  cunning  reptiles, 
who,  getting  their  heads  hidden,  think  themselves  all  safe  ;  but  it  had 
turned  out  otherwise.  The  "  my  dear  captain's,"  the  "  wish  I  could  see 
you  to  night's,"  and  the  "  your  friend  for  life  "  epistles,  were  all  written 
by  Crafts.  This  was  his  amatory  correspondence  all  along,  and  not 
Wilson's  in  any  particular.  Wilson's  letters  had  more  of  a  turpentine 
fiavor  —  and  none  of  that  maudlin  nonsense  of  having  a  good  time  when 
the  party  addressed  and  lie  should  meet. 

After  Smith  returned  from  Havre,  and  after  he  had  purchased  the 
boat  by  Crafts'  injunction,  there  must  have  been  some  conversation  about 
the  casting  away  of  the  ship.  This  ought  to  be  carried  into  their  delib- 
erations by  the  jury,  as  a  decided  fact  ratified  by  the  strongest  circum- 
stantial probability  ;  and  there  was  not  a  vestige  of  a  doubt  that  Captain 
Smith  left  on  his  next  voyage  with  a  clear  understanding  that  he  was  to 
wreck  the  ship,  and  a  determination  to  perform  the  task  set  him. 

[A  recess  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  was  here  allowed  counsel  and  jury.] 

Mr.  Rantoul  afterwards  resumed  his  argument  by  aflirming  that  the 
letters  were  each  and  all  written  by  the  parties  Avho  signed  them.  It 
was  no  matter  who  copied  some  of  them  —  whether  William  Clawson  did 
so  or  no  —  it  was  not  in  evidence  that  Wilson  wrote  and  that  Clawson 
copied  them.  It  was  more  likely  that  Crafts  got  them  copied.  There 
does  not  seem  to  be  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  Wilson  to  act  in  this 
way.  He  goes  to  the  work  in  an  unhidden  manner,  openly  and  boldly ; 
and  Crafts  does  not.  It  is  furthermore  improbable  that  Clawson  wrote 
the  letters  for  Wilson  ;  but  he  might  do  so  for  Crafts,  as  Clawson  had 
asked  him  for  employment,  and  said  in  his  letter  of  application  that  he 
did  not  know  whether  Wilson  would  give  him  a  character  or  no  ;  thus 
implying  that  there  might  be  some  feeling  between  Clawson  and  Wilson 
which  originated  this  doubt. 

Why  did  not  the  defence  bring  up  Clawson  to  testify  regarding  the 
letters  ?     Upon  the  evidence  before  the  jury  the  government  were  bound 

4 


38  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITIXGS 

to  presume  that  Clawson  did  not  write  tlic  letters.  It  was  said  that  he 
could  not  be  brought  here,  as  the  court  would  not  extend  any  protection 
to  him  against  a  presentment  of  his  complicity  to  the  grand  jury.  The 
defence  never  made  such  a  request  to  the  court.  The  government  were 
ever  anxious  to  do  justice  to  parties  at  the  bar  ;  and  if  any  such  request 
had  been  made,  that  an  eifort  was  necessary  to  bring  Clawson  from  St. 
John's,  the  government  would  have  given  every  facility  in  its  power.  It 
was  notorious,  however,  that  Clawson  had  been  applied  to  to  come,  and 
he  had  refused.  There  was  no  use  in  his  coming  ;  for  he  never  copied 
one  single  letter  of  those  before  the  jury.  It  was  the  conviction  of  the 
government  that  the  party  who  wrote  the  letters  had  tried  to  imitate 
Clawson's  hand-writing.  [A  comparison  of  the  letters  with  one  written  by 
Clawson  was  instituted  to  prove  the  point.] 

Besides  the  certainty  that  the  letters  were  not  written  by  Clawson, 
there  was  the  phraseology  of  the  letters  to  prove  that  they  were  written 
by  Crafts.  They  were  all  full  of  hopes  and  wishes  that  he  would  have 
a  good  time  with  somebody,  or  that  somebody  else  would  have  a  good 
time  with  somebody  else.  This  general  feature  in  Crafts'  composition 
was  a  proof  that  the  letters  were  his. 

Another  thing  was  very  apparent ;  Wilson  had  no  power  or  funds  to 
build  or  buy  a  ship  for  Captain  Smith.  It  could  not  then  be  him  who 
was  to  furnish  the  ship  promised  to  Captain  Smith.  It  was  J.  W.  Crafts 
that  was  to  provide  that  ship,  and  he  authorized  Wilson  to  promise  one 
to  Smith ;  and  Wilson  did  no  more  than  promise  it  —  he  did  not  say 
more  —  nor  that  he  would  furnish  the  ship.  His  Bremen  letter  said  that 
Crafts  would  get  Smith  a  new  ship,  or  give  him  the  bark  on  the  stocks, 
that  was  to  be  launched  in  September.  The  letter  was  dated  June  15, 
1847.  The  first  intimation  of  the  furnishing  of  the  vessel  comes  from 
Crafts  ;  he  was  preparing  a  ship,  not  Wilson,  who  had  it  not  in  his 
power  to  do  so  in  his  bankrupt  state.  The  prospect  of  a  new  ship  was 
offered  first  by  Crafts,  and  Captain  Smith  so  understood  the  affair. 

With  respect  to  the  profit  that  would  arise  from  the  insurance  on  the 
ship,  it  was  clear  that  it  was  to  go  into  the  pocket  of  Crafts,  with  the 
exception  of  what  might  be  agreed  on  between  Crafts  and  Wilson  to  be 
given  to  the  latter  for  liis  negotiation  of  the  affair  of  the  destruction  of 
the  Franklin. 

There  was  no  doubt  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  parties  who  con- 
spired to  sink  the  Franklin,  to  utterly  destroy  the  ship,  so  that  no  salvage 
should  possibly  be  derived "  from  her.  In  this  view  the  captain  was  re- 
quested to  "  roll  a  barrel  of  turpentine  into  her  cabin  and  fire  her,"  that 
not  a  vestige  should  remain  of  her,  to  afford  the  underwriters  any  hope 
of  modifying  the  amount  of  their  responsibility. 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  39 

The  remainder  of  the  day  was  taken  up  with  the  letters  written  more 
immediately  previous  to  the  ship's  sailing  on  her  last  voyage. 

Saturday,  June  '2,  1849. 

The  court  met  this  morning  at  half-past  nine,  and  Mr.  Rantoul  resumed 
his  argument  on  the  part  of  tlie  prosecution. 

Reference  was  again  made  to  the  letters  found  in  the  valise  floating 
near  the  wreck  on  the  day  the  Franklin  was  lost.  In  one  of  these  letters 
Crafts  says,  "  I  wonder  how  it  will  come  out  at  last.  I  cannot  sleep  day 
or  night,  owing  to  the  ship,  and  its  luck.  I  sometimes  have  hope,  and 
then  again  I  almost  despair."  That  hope  was  to  get  the  amount  of 
insurance,  not  that  the  cargo  of  turpentine  should  not  sell  well ;  and  that 
despair  was  that  something  would  occur  to  prevent  the  realization  of  his 
scheme.  This  strain  of  importunity  was  not  necessary  in  relation  to  a 
mere  question  of  a  sale  of  cargo  or  freight.  Crafts,  besides,  did  not 
expect  to  draw  any  thing  from  the  turpentine  cargo  to  pay  off  his  debt 
to  Raymond  ;  therefore  his  importunity  must  have  had  reference  to  some 
other  transaction. 

Crafts  does  not  speak  out  plain  in  his  letters.  He  says  that  he  hopes 
Captain  Smith  has  a  wish  for  his  interest,  and  the  '•'  final  v/elfare  "  of 
the  ship.  This  final  welfare  was  just  another  way  of  saying,  final 
destruction  ;  and  Captain  Smith  well  knew  what  it  meant.  Mr.  Rantoul 
never  knew  any  single  case  wherein  a  more  absurd  explanation  of  the 
meaning  of  these  phrases  was  set  up  than  in  this.  If  there  was  nothing 
in  them  that  the  defence  was  ashamed  of,  why  did  it  not  say  something 
in  explanation  of  their  meaning  ?  The  reason  to  be  given  was,  the 
inability  of  defendant  to  make  any  other  interpretation  than  what  had 
been  assumed  by  counsel,  —  and  that  was,  that  they  referred  to  the 
destruction  of  the  ship.  If  any  plausible  explanation  could  have  been 
given  otherwise,  the  defence  would  not  have  upheld  the  very  erroneous 
argument  that  these  letters  were  forged. 

The  pleading  tone  in  which  Crafts  writes  to  Captain  Smith  at  Charles- 
ton, is  a  proof  that  there  was  something  in  view  more  than  mere  common 
business.  Here  Smith  was  sailing  a  ship  with  a  cargo  belonging  to 
somebody  else  than  the  owner  of  the  ship  —  the  ship  was  fully  insured  — 
and  what  could  induce  the  owner,  then,  to  write  in  such  a  pleading, 
amatory  strain  ?  It  could  not  rest  on  the  explanation  of  defendant,  that 
he  was  desirous  of  Smith's  getting  away  from  Charleston  as  speedily  as 
possible.  There  was  no  influence  at  work  to  compel  him  to  be  thus 
anxious  for  Captain  Smith's  sailing  in  order  to  obviate  difficulties  that 
might  arise  from  the  insurance  offices.  Crafts  is  always  anxious  for  an 
interview  with   Captain  Smith.     For  what  ?     To  see  about  the  freight, 


40  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

or  the  repair  on  the  ship,  or  what  ?  Why  could  not  Smith  have  been 
instructed  by  letter  what  to  do  ?  If  it  had  not  been  in  contemplation  to 
destroy  the  sliip,  what  necessity  was  there  for  such  ambiguity  ?  What 
was  the  reason  for  the  use  of  such  terms  as  could  only  be  interpreted  by 
inference  ?  If  the  ship  had  not  been  understood  and  determined  on  to 
be  destroyed,  there  w\as  no  requirement  that  these  dark  expressions 
should  be  used,  although  their  interpretation  could  be  clearly  made  out 
by  attaching  to  them  the  fact  that  an  agreement  to  destroy  the  Franklin 
had  existed.  That  such  was  the  case,  there  could  be  no  manner  of 
doubt. 

As  to  the  plea  of  the  defence,  that  Crafts'  circumstances  did  not  toler- 
ate the  belief  that  he  could  have  any  inducement  to  conspire  against  the 
safety  of  the  ship,  it  w^as  answered,  that,  by  the  tenor  of  the  letters  read, 
Crafts  was  in  want  of  money,  and  was  at  that  time  paying  sixty  per  cent. 
for  cash  on  loan,  or  more,  and  for  renewals  on  bonds.  This,  certainly, 
was  something  odd,  then,  if  Crafts'  circumstances  w^ere  so  good  as  his 
counsel  had  represented.  At  this  time  Crafts  says,  in  one  of  his  letters 
to  Smith  at  Charleston,  "  Wilson  is  coming  on  to  you,  and  I  hope  you 
both  will  have  a  good  time,  and  happier  will  I  be  when  w^e  three  meet 
in  Boston  ;  I  hope  we  w^ill  have  a  first-rate  time ; "  and  in  another  he 
says,  ''  I  hope  I  will,  long  before  then,  (November,)  be  out  of  Raymond's 
hands  entirely,  if  all  succeeds  as  we  wish.  I  have  the  fullest  confidence 
that  you  will  do  the  wright  (right)  thing."  Had  this  expression  referred 
to  the  freight  money,  how  was  it  possible  that  he  could  have  any  idea  of 
being  out  of  Raymond's  debt  through  its  means  ?  It  would  not  serve 
that  purpose  by  a  long  w^ay.  The  wrecking  of  the  ship  must  then  have 
been  the  object  of  the  hopes  and  wishes  of  Crafts ;  in  fact,  it  was  the 
decided  consideration  on  which  these  anxieties  were  based.  Another 
letter  hopes  that  Captain  Smith  wall  not  get  sick,  or  all  would  be  over. 
What  could  this  mean  ?  Not  the  settlement  with  the  underwriters,  as 
explained  by  Mr.  Choate.  His  explanation  v\^as  very  beautiful  and  very 
ingenious,  but  there  was  nothing  in  it  but  the  strength  of  the  honorable 
gentleman's  eloquence.  There  w^as  no  explanation  to  be  given  of  the 
expression  used  by  Crafts,  that  did  not  relate  to  the  wreck  of  the  ship, 
and  wdiich  involved  that  contingency  by  inference  very  clearly.  Every 
letter  fastened  on  Crafts  the  damning  fact  that  he  importuned  Captain 
Smith  to  cast  away  the  ship. 

There  M^as  also  a  letter  written  by  Wilson,  according  to  his  evidence, 
and  left  with  Crafts  to  copy,  (but  whose  hand-writing  it  was  could  not  be 
proved,)  which  instructed  the  captain  of  the  Franklin  to  sink  the  ship 
when  the  crew  were  drunk.  It  was  signed  J.  W.  W.  This  letter  settled 
the  notion  of  Wilson's  having  offered  an  outrage  on  Mrs.  Smith.     It 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  41 

could  not  have  been  so,  otherwise  the  defence  would  have  elicited  what 
kind  of  outrage  it  had  been.  But  they  could  not  draw  out  any  thing 
that  would  support  the  conclusion  arrived  at  by  counsel  from  this  sup- 
posititious circumstance.  If  the  indignant  letter  from  Captain  Smith  to 
his  wife  had  contained  such  sentiments  towards  Wilson  as  had  been 
stated  by  counsel,  why  was  it  destroyed  ?  There  could  not  have  been 
any  very  great  aggravation  offered  Mrs.  Smith  by  Wilson  ;  for  she  saw 
him  on  the  26th  of  February,  after  the  indignity  w-as  presumed  to  have 
been  committed.  [This  statement  was  objected  to,  and  after  a  debate 
as  to  its  accuracy  the  matter  w^as  left  to  the  memories  of  the  jury  to 
settle.]  IMr.  Rantoul  said  that  the  question  was  put  to  her  specially  to 
realize  the  fact  that  Wilson  w^as  in  her  house  once  again  after  the  out- 
rage w^as  supposed  to  have  been  committed  by  him,  and  in  company  with 
Crafts. 

[Mr.  Clioate  wished  to  leave  the  fact  to  the  statement  of  Mrs.  Smith 
on  Monday  morning ;  but  the  court  thought  it  might  be  safely  left  to  the 

The  judge's  amanuensis  furnished  his  notes,  which  stated  that  the  last 
visit  made  by  Wilson  w^as  in  the  latter  end  of  1848  —  not  in  February, 
1849,  as  had  been  argued  by  the  prosecution. 

The  testimony  of  one  vntness  has  been  so  much  commented  on,  that 
something  was  necessary  to  be  ^aid  about  it.  It  had  been  said,  that  if 
the  government  had  been  able  to  make  a  case  w^ithout  Wilson,  they 
would  not  have  used  him.  It  was  certainly  not  the  original  wish  of  the 
government  that  Wilson  should  be  placed  on  the  witness-stand.  Not 
admitting  that  the  government  could  not  have  made  out  a  case  without 
his  assistance,  it  was  undeniable  that  he  had  furnished  evidence  that 
could  not  be  controverted.  Wilson  proved  the  authenticity  of  the  letters 
which  Crafts  had  denied.  Unless  by  comparison,  this  could  not  have 
been  proved.  It  could  not  be  done  by  comparison,  as  no  rule  of  com- 
parison whatever  existed  which  could  be  made  available.  A  man  that 
demonstrated  an  inclination  to  deny  the  signature  to  a  libel  sworn  in  this 
court,  would  have  had  no  scruple  in  denying  all  the  letters  and  signatures 
put  into  court.  That  comparative  proof  Wilson  furnishes  ;  and  the 
letters  he  produces  form  the  standard  of  proof,  and  are  backed  up  in 
their  integrity  by  the  evidence  of  Wilson. 

There  could  not  have  been  any  testimony  furnished  about  the  journey 
to  Savannah,  or  that  Crafts  sent  Wilson  there,  independent  of  the  aid  of 
the  latter ;  neither  could  the  government  have  proved  that  Crafts  went 
to  an  insurance  office  and  got  a  policy  of  insurance  of  $5000  on  Wilson's 
life  ;  and  that  Wilson  should  get  a  permit  to  go  abroad  granted  him  by 
the  office.  Little  of  any  thing  v/ould  have  been  known ;  and  the  absence 
4* 


42  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

of  all  power  to  prove  the  most  important  points,  existed  on  the  part  of 
the  government  until  they  could  take  advantage  of  Wilson's  evidence. 
The  discretion  belonging  to  any  officer  of  the  government  dictated  the 
necessity  of  putting  Wilson  on  the  stand.  One  who  furnished  the  key 
to  unlock  the  Avhole  chest  of  secrets  was  necessary.  If  the  government 
had  done  wrong,  who  was  to  blame  it  ?  Not  Crafts,  surely  ;  for  the  act 
of  the  government  enabled  him  to  cross-examine  the  conspirator,  to  prove 
the  evidence  bad.  Had  Crafts  not  been  able  to  do  this,  it  was  no  fault 
of  the  government.  Wilson  had  sworn  to  a  long  train  of  circumstances 
which  could  not  be  shown  as  perjuries  ;  if  they  could,  why  had  it  not 
been  done  ?  The  ablest  counsel  in  the  Union  had  cross-examined  Wil- 
son, and  could  not  get  perjury  out  of  him  —  for  it  was  not  in  him. 
Wilson  was  not  a  saint,  a  model  of  perfection ;  he  does  not  set  himself 
up  as  such  in  his  own  defence  ;  and  counsel  would  not  give  him  a  greater 
degree  of  credit  than  he  had  assumed  to  himself  He  thought  that  his 
course  was  the  only  atonement  he  could  make  for  his  crime ;  but,  what- 
ever were  his  motives,  he  had  done  right.  He  and  Crafts  were  concerned 
to  commit  a  crime.  Ilis  obligation  to  the  community  was  beyond  any 
other  that  might  exist  between  him  and  any  other  party. 

Wilson's  testimony  was  not  at  all  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  case  ;  but  if 
the  jury  thought  of  so  doing,  they  were  to  recollect  that  other  testimony 
besides  Wilson's  existed  to  convict  Crafts.  What  credit  was  to  be  given 
to  Wilson's  testimony  was  to  be  gleaned  from  the  manner  of  the  witness 
in  the  first  place.  It  had  been  argued  that  Wilson  had  a  too  vivid  mem- 
ory regarding  some  of  the  minor  details  of  his  evidence.  The  trivial 
character  of  many  of  the  inquiries  made  of  Wilson,  was  the  reason  why 
lie  said  "  I  don't  know  "  so  often  in  answer.  If  Wilson  had  come  here 
to  swear  falsely,  and  answer  promptly  in  his  disregard  for  truth,  he 
would  not  have  scrupled  to  make  ready  answers  to  those  frivolous  que- 
ries he  said  he  could  not  answer.  He  would  have  taken  the  opposite 
course. 

Wilson  could  have  no  reason  for  perjuring  himself,  and  a  strong 
charge  of  perjury  had  been  brought  against  him.  It  had  been  thrown 
against  him  that  he  had  given  an  ambiguous  answer  to  the  question  why 
he  had  come  to  the  office  of  the  District  Attorney  ;  that  answer  was,  he 
had  "  come  in  a  cab."  This  had  arisen  from  the  witness's  having  been 
badgered  by  counsel.  The  answer  was  nothing  more  than  a  retort  in- 
tended to  be  witty,  and  could  not  be  considered  in  any  light  a  perjury. 
Wilson  stood  his  cross-examination  as  well  as  any  man  ;  but  there  was 
little  wonder  he  was  so  puzzled  and  confused ;  and  no  one  would  have 
been  surprised  at  his  breaking  down  more  than  he  had  done.  He 
showed  no  marks  of  embarrassment  that  were  not  to  be  expected  under 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  43 

the  circumstances  attending  the  ordeal  he  was  obL'ged  to  submit  to.  In 
giving  all  the  conversations  that  took  place  between  Wilson  and  Crafts, 
in  making  the  agreement  to  sink  the  ship,  he  did  not  give  the  very 
w^ords  accompanying  the  proposition,  and  it  was  argued  that  he  should 
have  remembered  them,  as  they  ought  to  have  branded  themselves  on 
his  forehead,  and  remained  unobliterated  through  life.  It  was  notorious 
that  no  one  ever  broached  a  crime  for  the  first  time  in  direct  terms,  un- 
less in  the  perpetual  habit  of  committing  crime.  It  might  be  upheld 
that  neither  in  the  cases  of  first  designing,  or  matured  villany,  did  such 
open  speaking  commence  a  plot.  Shakspeare,  in  painting  King  John  as 
the  greatest  of  villains,  represents  him  and  Hubert  as  speaking  their  plots 
darkly.  It  was  therefore  to  be  considered  (for  the  general  belief  ratified 
the  reasonableness  of  the  representation)  that  significance  might  be  im- 
parted to  the  agreement  between  Crafts  and  Wilson  by  other  media  than 
express  words.  Counsel  for  defence  say  that  Wilson's  story  is  like  a 
w^eb  of  truth  with  a  thread  of  falsehood  running  through  it.  This  ad- 
mission gives  no  tolerance  to  the  request  that  the  jury  should  throw  the 
evidence  of  Wilson  overboard. 

[A  recess  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  was  here  allowed.] 

Mr.  liantoul  then  spoke  of  the  attempt  to  set  up  an  allhi  by  the  de- 
fence. The  whole  details  of  the  evidence  given  by  Crafts'  workmen,  his 
brother,  and  that  of  the  parties  at  the  Bunker  Hill  House,  in  particular, 
was  commented  on  at  length  ;  and  a  conclusion  drawn  that  there  was  no 
existing  reason  to  believe  that  Wilson  had  asserted  what  was  false  ;  but 
that  he  had  good  and  sufiicient  justification  in  testifying  as  he  did  to  the 
meeting  between  him  and  Crafts  on  the  13tli  March,  and  what  occurred 
at  that  time.  There  was  a  probability  about  the  story  of  Wilson  that 
Crafts'  had  not.     The  one  w^as  plausible,  and  the  other  impossible. 

On  the  10th  of  February,  Crafts  and  Dame  were  the  sole  owners  of 
the  Franklin.  Dame  sold  out  his  share  for  $1,000  ;  the  amount  of  lia- 
bihties  on  account  of  the  ship  was  $11,388,  and  every  thing  included, 
the  responsibility  on  Crafts  amounted  to  $13,000.  Dame  sold  out  his 
$2,700  claim  on  the  ship  for  $1,000,  and  counsel  did  not  think  that 
Dame  could  have  expected  to  have  realized  his  money  out  of  the  ship 
when  she  came  home,  otherwise  he  w^ould  not  have  done  so.  That  was 
not  his  evidence,  but  that  was  Dame's  act,  and  that  was  better  than  his 
evidence,  for  he  might  have  happened  to  forget  something  in  giving  it. 

Mr.  Rantoul  then  run  over  the  evidence  respecting  the  purchase  and 
value  of  the  Franklin  at  the  time  of  Wilson's  buying  her  in  1847,  and 
proved  that  the  whole  value  of  the  ship,  after  being  repaired  at  an  ex- 
pense of  $2,500,  amounted  to  something  short  of  $6,000 — .taking  in  the 
depreciation  of  character  in  consequence  of  her  having  required  such 


44  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

extensive  repairs.  This  was  calculated  at  $1,000  per  annum.  This 
$5,300,  which  she  was  worth  was  estimated  by  the  rule  which  made 
property  in  shipping  so  valuable  at  the  time  of  the  "  grain  fever  "  as  it 
was  called.  There  was  none  of  that  grain  fever  in  February,  1849, 
consequently  the  value  of  the  vessel  was  less,  to  correspond.  Besides 
300,000  tons  had  been  added  to  the  national  marine  in  the  previous 
eighteen  months  ;  which  came  to  operate  against  the  value  of  old  ships. 
Thus,  then.  Crafts  had  a  ship  on  his  hands  that  could  not  be  so  safely 
freighted  as  a  newer  ship,  which  would  not  have  sold  for  $5,000,  had  she 
come  home  in  March  ;  and  if  Crafts  meant  a  fair  sale  of  the  ship,  how 
could  he  hope  to  cover  the  debt  of  $13,000,  for  which  he  was  responsi- 
ble on  the  ship's  account.  The  ship  was  liable  to  pay  this  sum  ;  and  it 
was  to  guard  himself  against  this  contingency,  which  a  fair  sale  would 
not  obviate,  and  insure  her  for  a  higher  amount,  and  wreck  her  to  realize 
it  —  it  was  to  effect  this  object  that  the  conspiracy  was  hatched  —  and 
for  that  object  alone.  It  was  to  sell  her  to  the  underwriters  for  $15,000 
or  more,  that  Crafts  bought  out  Dame,  and  the  train  of  circumstances 
connected,  which  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  Franklin.  Crafts  was  the 
only  one  who  was  to  realize  a  dollar  through  the  loss.  The  state  in 
which  Crafts  was  in  at  the  time,  and  the  enormous  sums  he  was  obliged 
to  pay  to  note  shavers  on  paper  he  had  endorsed,  showed  that  he  wanted 
money  in  some  way.  Wilson  was  only  to  get  such  sum  as  might  be 
agreed  on  between  him  and  Crafts.  Counsel  argued  the  facts,  he  said, 
not  on  Wilson's  testimony,  but  on  the  general  import  of  the  evidence 
independently  of  his  —  but  which  his  evidence  tended  to  confirm. 

Then  there  was  the  life  insurance  on  Wilson,  which  was  effected  by 
Crafts  on  loth  February,  1849.  Had  the  document  not  been  confirmed 
by  Mr.  Brewster  it  would  have  been  insisted  that  the  signature  was  a 
forgery. 

Wliat  did  Wilson  go  to  Savannah  to  do  ?  There  vf  as  no  prospect  of  any 
freight-money  fi'om  her  was  coming  to  assist  in  paying  off  the  $13,000  ; 
and  was  it  necessary  to  send  out  Wilson  to  get  a  freight  of  cotton  better  or 
more  easily  than  Brigham  and  Co.  ?  Did  Crafts  want  an  agent  and  super- 
cargo to  assist  Captain  Smith,  an  old  and  able  seaman,  to  go  as  a  super- 
cargo to  Europe  ?  No  !  Then  for  what  did  he  go  ?  Simply  to  sell 
the  ship  to  the  underwriters,  and  nothing  else.  There  was  nothing  ex- 
tant that  could  shake  that  testimony,  even  independent  of  that  of  Wil- 
son. If  Crafts  cannot  answer  that  question  satisfactorily  (and  he  can- 
not) then  he  is  to  be  considered  guilty  ;  and  that  he  was  guilty,  the  jury 
could  not  for  a  moment  hesitate  about. 

If  Wilson  had  to  go  to  Europe  in  accordance  with  his  memorandum 
of  agreement,  why  did  he  not  ?  simply  because  Captain  Smith  considered 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  45 

that,  if  he  was  on  board,  and  the  ship  was  lost,  the  circumstance  of  Wil- 
son's having  no  legitimate  business  on  board  would  look  suspicious. 
Another  thing  looked  very  suspicious.  Wilson  left  Boston  for  Savan- 
nah on  the  16th,  and  Crafts  had  effected  an  insurance  on  the  14th,  two 
days  previous  to  his  leaving.  Why  did  not  he  inform  Wilson  of  it  be- 
fore he  went  away  ?  He  thought  as  Smith  did,  "  If  you're  going  to 
make  a  haul  off  the  insurance  offices,  make  it  a  good  one."  The  reason 
why  Crafts  took  this  mode  of  sending  a  letter  to  Wilson  at  Savannah 
was,  that  it  might  be  a  sort  of  introduction  of  the  subject  of  conspiracy 
to  be  broached  to  Captain  Smith. 

Wilson  stated  in  his  evidence,  that  Crafts  said  Dame  told  him  that  he 
had  a  very  high  opinion  of  Captain  Smith.  It  might  be  that  Crafts  had 
told  Wilson  what  Dame  did  or  did  not  say.  What  understanding  Dame 
and  Crafts  had  on  this  point  lay  between  themselves  ;  but  one  thing  was 
certain,  it  seemed  that  Crafts  had  been  feeling  his  way  in  some  shape  or 
another,  and  that  he  had  done  so  to  his  satisfaction  as  to  what  Captain 
Smith  could  be  prevailed  on  to  do  was  evident.  AYhat  information 
Crafts  had  from  Dame  on  this  point  lay  between  Crafts  and  Dame ;  it 
was  not  in  evidence  to  prove  to  what  extent  one  or  both  could  be 
charged. 

Counsel  would  repeat  that  it  was  a  matter  for  Crafts  and  Dame  to 
settle  among  themselves  how  their  estimate  of  Smith's  character  was 
arrived  at ;  and  that  a  man  of  Wilson's  intelligence  was  not  likely  to 
have  such  a  power  of  invention  as  the  gratuitous  assertion  of  such  evi- 
dence would  involve,  there  was  a  security  in  the  probability  that  he  did 
not,  nor  could  not,  do  any  thing  of  the  sort. 

Mr.  Rantoul  emphatically  denied  that  any  influence  had  been  exerted 
by  the  insurance  companies  to  bring  up  this  case.  If  all  the  insurance 
companies  in  the  city  had  so  desired  it  to  be,  it  would  not  have  been  the 
case  had  good  reason  not  appeared  to  the  government  oflftcer  to  act.  A 
very  fine  eulogium  followed  on  the  benefits  of  insurance. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Rantoul,  among  various  other  arguments,  held  that 
there  were  two  chains  of  evidence,  each  capable  of  demonstrating,  ^er 
se,  the  guilt  of  Crafts.  These  were  no  chains  laid  down  to  drag  b}^,  like 
Captain  Smith's  cables,  but  effectually  to  produce  conviction.  It  was  so 
self-evident  that  there  was  an  intention  all  along  to  destroy  the  ship  ; 
every  thing  proved  it ;  every  circumstance  conspired  to  assert  that  proof; 
every  document  corroborated  its  neighbor,  and  one  serv^ed  another.  On 
the  faith  of  the  general  truth  of  Crafts'  guilt,  proved  in  so  many  special 
shapes,  the  jury  were  asked  to  return  such  verdict  as  would  support  the 
case  for  the  government. 

Mr.  Rantoul  here  concluded,  what  is  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the 


46  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

most  able,  practical  arguments  that  have  ever  been  spoken  at  any  bar. 
We  accord  with  this  opinion  ;  and  also  in  the  general  conviction  that  a 
more  brilliant  exit  from  office,  never  preceded  the  entering  upon  private 
professional  pursuits.  It  has  contributed,  with  Mr.  Rantoul's  already- 
well  earned  repute,  to  place  his  name  on  the  very  top  of  the  list,  em- 
bracing the  more  talented  among  the  members  of  the  bar  over  the  Union. 

Similar  tributes  of  applause  which  were  published  at  the 
time,  might  be  quoted  to  any  extent ;  but  they  are  not  needed 
to  sustain  or  perpetuate  the  reputation  of  Mr.  Rantoul,  as  one 
of  the  most  learnedly  accomplished  and  effectively  eloquent 
lawyers  that  our  country  has  produced. 

This  chapter  must  not  close  without  referring  to  an  unmis- 
takable indication  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  honorable  professional 
standing,  even  at  an  early  period.  In  1835,  he  was  one  of  a 
committee  for  revising  the  statutes  of  the  Commonwealth,  and 
in  1836-8,  of  the  judiciary  committee,  in  which  offices  his  ser- 
vices were  second  in  value  to  those  of  no  one  of  his  associates, 
especially  when  their  labors  were  reported  to  the  House.  To 
specify  the  numerous  instances  in  which  his  active  intellect  was 
a  guiding  and  controlling  one  in  that  work  of  revision  and  re- 
form, would  be,  at  the  present  time,  impracticable.  An  extract 
or  two  from  a  journal  kept  by  him  a  part  of  the  time  that  he 
served  on  this  commission,  will  show  that  he  was  not  an  idle 
or  a  useless  member  of  it. 

"  September  2,  1835.  The  General  Court  met  this  day.  A 
report  drawn  up  by  Bliss  and  Mann  of  the  Senate,  and  Rock- 
well, Rantoul,  and  Forbes  of  the  House,  was  submitted,  stating 
the  doings  of  the  Committee  of  Revision,  etc. 

"  Sept.  3.  I  moved  for  a  committee  to  report  what  further 
arrangements  are  necessary  to  facilitate  the  action  offthe  House 
on  the  Revised  Statutes. 

"  Sept.  4.  I  reported  eight  orders  for  the  House,  and  a  joint 
order  containing  my  plan  of  proceeding.  This  report  w^as  op- 
posed with  great  violence  by  Blake,  Chapman,  Roberts,  Endi- 
cutt,  etc.  Baylies  and  myself  defended  it.  The  debate  lasted 
all  the  forenoon,  and  the  report  was  accepted. 

"  Sept.  10.  The  speaker  decided  that  a  part  of  the  report  of 
the  Committee  of  Supervision  was  out  of  order.     I  appealed 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  47 

from  this  decision  on  the  ground  that  the  speaker  could  not 
withdraw  any  part  of  a  report  from  the  action  of  the  House,  by 
making  a  question  of  order;  and  because  the  committee,  when 
charged  with  the  examination  of  a  chapter,  have  a  right  to  re- 
port substantial  amendments  like  that  in  dispute. 

"  The  appeal  was  sustained  on  both  these  grounds  by  Blake, 
Baylies,  Ashmun,  Keyes,  Chapman,  Kennicutt,  and  Everett. 
The  House  sustained  the  speaker,  199  to  32.  Blake  says  this 
is  only  another  instance  of  their  servility.  G.  Bliss  says  it  is 
placing  the  House  under  the  control  of  the  speaker.  H.  G. 
Otis  says  he  should  not  have  ventured  on  such  a  stretch  of 
power. 

"  Sej)t.  12.  On  my  motion,  the  House  struck  out  a  distinc- 
tion in  favor  of  Protestants  in  two  sections  of  the  chapter  on 
parishes,  and  voted  that  corporations  should  not  be  taxed  for 
parochial  purposes.  I  then  moved  that  no  donation  to  any 
pious  or  charitable  use  shall  be  valid,  unless  made  at  least  six 
months  before  the  death  of  the  donor. 

"  Sept.  14.  My  mortmain  motion  was  rejected  after  long  and 
animated  discussion. 

"  Sept.  15.  On  my  motion,  chapter  25  was  amended  so  as 
to  allow  any  part  or  the  whole  of  the  expense  of  roads  to  be 
imposed  on  counties. 

'•  Sept.  16.  I  moved  to  insert  a  new  section  in  chapter  25, 
that  damages  by  repairing  roads  shall  be  paid  by  reversing  the 
case  of  Callender  v.  Marsh,  Mass.  Rep.  Passed  after  sharp 
debate,  139  to  62. 

"  Sept.  17.  An  attempt  was  made  to  reconsider  the  vote  by 
which,  on  my  motion,  sec.  70,  chap.  36,  (Perkins's  bank  plate 
monopoly,)  was  stricken  out.  The  House  almost  unanimously 
refused  to  reconsider.  The  vote  was  this  day.  The  attempt  to 
reconsider  was  22d." 

These  few  extracts  from  his  private  journal  are  here  given  as 
indicating  the  active  and  influential  part  he  took,  both  as  a 
member  of  the  Committee  and  of  the  House  in  suggesting  and 
carrying  through  important  measures  of  reform  in  the  statutes 
of  the  Commonwealth. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  journal  was  continued  but  for  a 
short  time.     On  commencing  it,   August  26,  1835,  he  says : 


48  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

"  I  shall  make  the  experiment  of  a  regular  journal,  at  least,  long 
enough  to  satisfy  myself  whether  the  advantage  is  worth  the 
trouble."  The  result  was,  that  the  experiment  was  abandoned, 
as  it  has  been  by  thousands  for  the  same  reason.  The  truth 
appears  to  be,  that  most  of  the  facts  in  one's  personal  experience 
and  observation,  which  a  good  memory  will  not  retain,  are  not 
worth  preserving.  The  press  teems  with  minutiae  that  had 
better  be  forgotten  than  remembered. 

There  is  one  subject,  however,  discussed  at  some  length  in 
Mr.  Rantoul's  journal  of  a  rainy  day,  which  lay  near  his  heart, 
and  which  he  took  particular  pains  to  bring  before  the  House 
and  the  committee  for  revising  the  statutes ;  namely,  the 
codification  of  the  common  law.  The  legislature  proceeded 
so  far  as  to  appoint  a  committee  to  consider  the  expediency  of 
attempting  this  measure,  of  which  Judge  Story  was  chairman. 
The  wisdom,  however,  or  the  bigotry  of  the  legal  profession 
prevailed  against  this  needed  reform,  —  and  judge-made  law 
was  allowed  to  have  longer  sway  in  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Ran- 
toul  contended  resolutely  against  continuing  this  principle  of 
judicial  legislation,  as  he  justly  called  it,  and  urged  the  right  of 
freemen  to  be  amenable  to  no  law  but  written  law,  sanctioned 
by  their  representatives.  For  his  views  of  this  subject,  see 
chapter  IV.  of  this  work,  as  given  in  his  oration  at  Scituate. 

Seldom  has  a  lawyer  been  placed  at  greater  disadvantage, 
by  the  force  of  circumstances,  or  the  injustice  of  a  court  before 
which  he  had  occasion  to  speak,  than  was  Mr.  Rantoul  on  the 
morning  of  April  4,  1852.  He  arrived  in  Boston  by  the  early 
train  from  Beverly,  unsuspicious  of  any  extraordinary  demand 
for  his  professional  services.  On  his  way  to  his  office  he  noticed 
an  unusual  crowd  around  the  court  house,  and  on  asking  some 
one  passing  the  cause,  he  was  answered,  "  They  have  caught  a 
negro."  This  speedy  commencement,  in  Massachusetts,  of 
operations  under  what  he  regarded  as  the  unconstitutional  law 
in  relation  to  fugitive  slaves,  he  felt  as  an  affront  to  the  very 
name  of  freedom  in  his  native  State.  He  proceeded,  however, 
in  silence  to  his  office,  and  began  the  perusal  of  the  morning 
papers,  when  a  gentleman  entered  and  requested  him  to  step 
into  the  office  of  C.  G.  Loring,  Esq.,  and  from  there  to  the 
court  house.     Not  returning  immediately,  a  friend,  wishing  to 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  49 

know  what  had  detained  him,  repaired  to  the  court  room  and 
found  him  ah'eady  engaged  in  the  service  of  counsel  for  the 
alleged  fugitive,  a  service  for  which  he  was  not  allowed  one 
moment  for  preparation.  This  injustice  towards  Mr.  Rantoul 
was  of  a  piece  with  the  iiijustice  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
itself,  for  the  commissioner  who  refused  Mr.  Rantoul  one  hour's 
time  for  preparing  his  argument,  took  full  two  days  to  prepare 
his  own  in  deciding  the  case.  In  connection  with  these  facts, 
let  the  reader  study  the  following 


REPOUT  OF  THE  CASE  OF  THOMAS  SIMS. 

On  Thursday  night,  April  3,  1852,  Thomas  Sims,  a  colored 
man,  was  arrested  by  a  posse  from  the  U.  S.  Marshal's  office^ 
as  a  fugitive  slave,  and  taken  to  the  court  house,  where  he  was 
immediately  guarded  by  a  strong  force  of  special  police,  partly 
under  direction  of  the  U.  S.  Marshal,  and  partly  under  that  of 
the  City  Marshal.  A  line  of  chains  was  stretched  round  the- 
court  house,  guarded  by  officers  not  appointed  by  the  courts 
of  the  State,  although  both  the  Superior  and  Common  Pleas 
courts  were  in  session  in  the  building.  During  the  first  day, 
most  persons  who  entered  the  court  house,  including,  it  is  said, 
the  judges  themselves,  were  compelled  to  go  under  the  chains  ; 
but,  the  second  day,  an  opening  was  made  and  people  passed 
in,  but  sometimes  they  w^ere  questioned  by  the  officers,  and 
obliged  to  satisfy  them  that  they  had  business  in  court.  At 
the  same  time,  a  large  military  force  was  under  arms  day  and 
night,  and  the  special  police  force  under  the  marshals  w^as 
armed  and  drilled  in  martial  exercises  in  the  square  every 
morning.  All  these  circumstances  produced  the  most  intense 
excitement  in  the  community. 

On  Friday  morning,  April  4th,  the  proceedings  commenced 
before  George  T.  Curtis,  Esq.,  United  States  Commissioner. 
Seth  J.  Thomas,  Esq.,  appeared  for  the  claimant ;  Charles  G. 
Loring,  Esq.,  and  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  for  the  respondent. 
There  was  little   dispute   on  the  facts,   and   the   proceedings 

5 


50  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINCxS 

resolved  themselves  almost  entirely  into  questions  of  constitu- 
tional law. 

Mr.  Rantoul  opened  the  argument  for  the  defence.  His 
points  were  as  follows  :  — 

1.  That  the  power  ^vhich  the  commissioner  is  called  upon  in  this  pro- 
cedure to  exercise,  is  a  judicial  power,  and  one  that  if  otherwise  lawful 
can  he  exercised  only  hy  a  judge  of  the  United  States  court  duly 
appointed,  and  that  the  commissioner  is  not  such  a  judge. 

2.  That  the  procedure  in  a  suit  hetween  the  claimant  and  the  captive, 
involving  an  alleged  right  of  property  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  right  of 
personal  liberty  on  the  other,  and  that  either  party,  therefore,  is  entitled 
to  a  trial  by  jury  ;  and  that  the  law  which  purports  to  authorize  the 
delivery  of  the  captive  to  the  claimant,  denying  him  the  privilege  of  such 
trial,  and  which  he  here  claims  under  judicial  process,  is  unconstitutional 
and  void. 

3.  That  the  transcript  of  testimony  taken  before  the  magistrates  of  a 
State  court  in  Georgia,  and  of  the  judgment  thereupon  by  such  magis- 
trates, is  incompetent  evidence,  congress  having  no  power  to  confer  upon 
State  courts  or  magistrates  judicial  authority  to  determine  conclusively, 
or  otherwise,  upon  the  effect  of  evidence  to  be  used  in  a  suit  pending,  or 
to  be  tried  in  another  State,  or  before  another  tribunal. 

4.  That  such  evidence  is  also  incompetent ;  the  captive  was  not  rep- 
resented at  the  taking  thereof,  and  had  no  opportunity  for  cross-exam- 
ination. 

5.  That  the  statute  under  which  the  process  is  instituted  is  uncon- 
stitutional and  void,  as  not  within  the  powers  granted  to  congress  by 
the  Constitution,  and  because  it  is  opposed  to  the  express  provisions 
thereof. 

These  points  Mr.  Rantoul  took  up  separately,  in  their  order,  and  his 
argument  on  each  w-as  substantially  as  follows  :  — 

I.     The  Commissioner  is  not  a  judge. 

Constitution  of  United  States,  art.  3,  sec.  1.  "The  judicial  power 
of  the  United  States  shall  be  vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  in  such 
inferior  courts  as  the  congress  may,  from  time  to  time,  ordain  and  estab- 
lish. The  judges  both  of  the  supreme  and  inferior  courts  shall  hold  their 
offices  during  good  behavior,  and  shall  at  stated  times  receive  for  their 
services  a  compensation  which  shall  not  be  diminished  during  their  con- 
tinuance in  office." 

The  commissioners  do  not  hold  "  during  good  behavior,"  but  at  the 
will  of  the  judges,  and  do  not  receive  salaries,  but  are  paid  by  fees. 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  51 

Under  this  clause  of  the  Constitution,  there  can  be  no  courts,  supreme 
or  inferior,  but  such  as  are  held  by  judges,  with  the  tenure  and  compen- 
sation therein  specified. 

By  this  clause  of  the  Constitution,  all  the  "judicial  power  "  of  the 
United  States  is  vested  in  such  courts,  held  by  such  judges. 

The  only  question,  then,  is,  whether  the  power  the  commissioner  is 
now  called  upon  to  exercise,  is  a  "judicial  power,"  within  the  meaning 
of  the  Constitution. 

Const.,  art.  3,  sec.  2.  "The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases 
of  law  and  equity  arising  under  this  Constitution,  the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  treaties  made,  or  which  shall  be  made,  under  their 
authority." 

Then  follow  certain  other  grants  of  powers,  but  none  especially  appli- 
cable to  this  case.  The  question  is,  whether  this  proceeding  is  "  a  case 
in  law  or  equity,  arising  under  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the 
United  States." 

It  is  well  settled,  that  a  "  case  at  law,"  does  mean  merely  at  "  common 
law."  It  includes  special  statute  proceedings,  Parsons  v.  Bedford,  3 
Peters,  446.  This  will  be  conceded.  The  court  in  Prigg  v.  Pennsyl- 
vania, 16  Peters,  615,  define  the  meaning  of  the  word  "case." 

A  "  claim  "  is  to  be  made.  What  is  a  claim  2  It  is,  in  a  just  juridical 
sense,  a  demand  of  some  matter  as  of  right  made  by  one  person  upon 
another  to  do,  or  to  forbear  to  do,  some  act  or  thing  as  a  matter  of  duty. 
A  more  limited,  but  at  the  same  time  an  equally  expressive  definition, 
was  given  by  Lord  Dyer,  as  cited  in  Stowell  v.  Zouch,  Plowden,  359  ; 
and  it  is  equally  applicable  to  the  present  case  ;  that  "  a  claim  is  a  chal- 
lenge by  a  man  of  the  propriety  or  ownership  of  a  thing  which  he  has 
not  in  possession,  hut  which  is  wrongfully  detained  from  him."  The 
slave  is  to  be  delivered  up  on  the  claim.  By  whom  to  be  delivered  up  ? 
In  what  mode  to  be  delivered  up  ?  How,  if  a  refusal  takes  place,  is  the 
right  of  delivery  to  be  enforced  ?  Upon  what  proof?  What  shall  be 
the  evidence  of  a  rightful  recaption,  or  delivery  ?  When,  and  under 
what  circumstances,  shall  the  possession  of  the  owner  after  it  is  obtained 
be  conclusive  of  his  right,  so  as  to  preclude  any  further  inquiry  or  exam- 
ination into  it  by  local  tribunals,  or  otherwise,  while  the  slave,  in  posses- 
sion of  the  owner,  is  in  transitu  to  the  State  from  which  he  fled  ?  These 
and  many  other  questions  will  readily  occur  upon  the  slightest  attention 
to  the  clause  ;  and  it  is  obvious  that  they  can  receive  but  one  satisfactory 
answer. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  where  a  claim  is  m.ade  by  the  owner  out  of  pos- 
session for  the  delivery  of  a  slave,  it  must  be  made,  if  at  all,  against  some 
other  person  ;  and  inasmuch  as  the  right  is  a  right  of  property,  capable 


52  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

of  being  recognized,  and  asserted  by  proceedings  before  a  court  of  jus- 
tice, between  parties  adverse  to  each  other,  it  constitutes  in  the  strictest 
sense  a  controversy  between  the  parties,  and  a  case  "  arising  under  the 
Constitution  "  of  the  United  States  ;  within  the  express  delegation  of 
JUDICIAL  POWER  given  by  that  instrument. 

This  very  act  of  1850  gives  the  commissioners  "concurrent  jurisdic- 
tion with  the  judges  of  the  Circuit  and  District  courts  of  the  United 
States,"  "  to  hear  and  determine  the  case."  The  president  having  doubts 
of  the  constitutionality  of  this  law,  on  other  points,  took  the  opinion  of 
the  attorney-general  of  the  United  States,  and  in  this  opinion,  which  is 
published,  the  attorney-general  says :  "  These  officers,  and  each  of  them, 
have  JUDICIAL  power  and  jurisdiction  to  hear,  examine,  and  decide  the 
«ase." 

Mr.  Rantoul  then  proceeded  to  enforce  this  view,  by  showing  that  the 
commissioner  was  bound,  under  the  act,  to  decide  the  questions  raised, 
and  decide  them  finally.  His  acts  are  preliminary  to  a  full  judicial  pro- 
ceeding. There  is  nothing  to  follows  His  decision  in  favor  of  the  claim- 
ant is  conclusive  in  favor  of  his  claim  to  take  and  carry  off  the  man. 
There  is  no  appeal  provided.  Neither  is  his  act  auxiliary  to  a  judicial 
proceeding,  and  subject  to  the  revision  of  the  judge.  Thus  the  case  is 
distinguished  from  all  those  powers  involving  the  exercise  of  legal  judg- 
ment that  may  be,  and  often  are,  confined  to  commissioners,  clerks,  mas- 
ters in  chancery,  auditors,  and  even  sheriffs  and  marshals.  On  examina- 
tion, it  will  be  found  that  all  those  are  cases  of  preliminary  or  auxiliary 
proceedings,  having  reference  to  a  judicial  proceeding  of  which  they  are 
a  part.  The  commissioner  here  acts  independently  of  all  other  tribunals, 
and  his  decision  is  a  final  decision  of  the  whole  matter  before  him. 

Thus,  too,  this  case  is  distinguished  from  cases  arising  under  the  next 
paragraph  of  the  Constitution. 

Art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  2.  "A  person  charged  in  any  State  with  treason, 
felony,  or  other  crime,  who  shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in 
another  State,  shall  on  demand  of  the  executive  authority  of  the  State 
from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up  to  be  removed  to  the  State  having 
jurisdiction  of  the  crime." 

Under  that  clause,  all  that  need  be  shown  is,  that  the  party  is  charged 
with  the  crime ;  and  if  charged,  he  is  delivered  up  to  the  tribunal  or 
public  authority  "  having  jurisdiction  of  the  crime,"  for  the  purpose  of 
having  his  guilt  or  innocence  there  determined.  The  proceeding,  there- 
fore, is  preliminary  and  auxiliary  to  the  full  trial,  like  the  ordinary  case 
of  binding  over  for  criminal  trials.  But  the  section  of  the  Constitution 
Uader  which  we  are  now  proceeding,  reads  thus  :  — 

Art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  3.     "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one 


JR.  53 

State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  consequence 
of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or 
labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such 
service  or  labor  may  be  due." 

And  the  statute  uses  the  same  language.  It  is  only  a  person  "  held  to 
service  and  labor,"  "  under  the  laivs  of  the  State,'^  that  can  be  delivered 
up.  He  must  be  held,  not  only  de  facto,  but  de  jure.  The  commissioner 
must  determine,  therefore,  whether  the  man  is  de  facto  and  de  jure  a 
slave,  and  the  slave  of  the  person  who  claims  him,  before  he  can  make 
his  decree.  He  is  not  to  deliver  over  a  person  charged  with  being  a 
fugitive  slave,  to  the  public  authorities  of  another  State,  that  the  question 
may  be  tried  there  before  a  tribunal  "  having  jurisdiction;"  but  having 
adjudged  him  to  be  the  slave  by  the  law  of  the  State  of  the  claimant, 
he  delivers  him  up  to  the  claimant.  This  is  the  end  of  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding. Neither  the  Constitution  nor  the  statute  provides  nor  contem- 
plates any  further  proceeding  in  the  State  from  which  he  escaped,  nor 
is  he  delivered  up  to  or  required  to  be  carried  before  any  public  authority 
or  tribunal  whatever.  Nor  is  there  even  any  guaranty  that  the  claimant 
shall  carry  him  back  to  the  State  he  escaped  from.  This,  therefore,  is 
not  a  case  of  extradition. 

11.     The  Constitution  requires  in  this  case  a  trial  by  jury. 

The  fifth  article  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  provides  that 
no  person  shall  "  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due 
process  of  law."  Then  the  seventh  article  of  the  amendments  provides 
that  "In  suits  at  common  law,  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall 
exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved." 

Upon  this  clause  in  the  fifth  article  of  the  amendments,  in  the  third  of 
Story's  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution,  page  661,  sec.  1783,  we  find 
the  following  language  :  — 

"  The  other  part  of  the  clause  is  but  an  enlargement  of  the  language 
of  Magna  Charta,  '•nee  super  eum  ihimuSy  nee  super  eum  mittimus,  nisi 
per  legale  judicium  parium  suorum,  v el  per  legem  terrce^  neither  will  we 
pass  upon  him,  or  condemn  him,  but  by  the  lawful  judgment  of  his  peers, 
or  by  the  law  of  the  land.  Lord  Coke  says,  that  these  latter  w^ords,  per 
legem  terrce,  (by  the  law  of  the  land,)  mean  by  due  process  of  law,  that 
is  [not]  without  due  presentment  or  indictment,  and  being  brought  into 
answer  thereto  by  due  process  of  the  common  law.  So  that  this  clause 
in  effect  affirms  the  right  of  trial  according  to  the  process  and  proceed- 
ings of  the  common  lawT 

Mr.  Kantoul  then  cited  at  length  from  Lord  Coke's  2d  Institutes,  vol. 

5* 


54  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

1,  ch.  29,  p.  50,  and  Story's  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution,  vol.  3, 
sections  1G39  and  lG-40. 

In  Lee  v.  Lee,  8  Peters,  44,  it  was  decided  that  tlie  value  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  party  is  not  susceptible  of  pecuniary  valuation,  and  the  court 
will  conclusively  infer  it  to  be  of  sufficient  amount  to  give  the  court 
jurisdiction,  in  favor  of  the  party  claimed  as  a  slave.  Nor  will  it  be 
denied  that  the  person  claimed  is  worth  more  to  the  claimant,  considered 
as  property,  than  twenty  dollars. 

III.  The  third  point  is,  that  the  transcript  of  testimony  taken  before 
the  magistrates  of  a  State  court  in  Georgia,  and  of  the  judgment  there- 
upon by  such  magistrates,  is  incompetent  evidence,  congress  having  no 
power  to  confer  upon  State  courts  or  magistrates  judicial  authority  to 
determine  conclusively,  or  otherwise,  upon  the  effect  of  evidence  to  be 
used  in  a  suit  pending,  or  to  be  tried,  in  another  State,  or  before  another 
tribunal. 

The  doctrine  grows  out  of  the  same  clause  :  — 

Art.  3,  sec.  1.  "  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be 
vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the  congress 
may,  from  time  to  time,  ordain  and  establish." 

Mr.  Rantoul  then  argued,  first,  that  the  "  inferior  courts,"  "  ordained 
and  established  by  congress,"  could  not  include  the  magistrates  and 
inferior  courts  of  the  State  of  Georgia;  and,  second,  that  the  conclusive 
character  given  to  the  record  of  the  State  court  of  Georgia,  was  an 
attempt  to  "  vest  "  a  portion  of  "  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States" 
in  those  courts  or  magistrates.  The  two  most  important  questions  to  be 
decided,  namely,  whether  the  defendant  is  a  slave  by  the  law  of  Georgia 
to  the  claimant,  and  whether  he  is  a  fugitive,  are  conclusively  settled  by 
the  proceeding  in  Georgia,  which,  though  an  ex  parte  proceeding,  has 
yet  all  the  effect  of  a  judicial  trial. 

This  point  Mr.  Rantoul  elaborated  with  great  skill  and  fulness ;  and 
he  restated  his  position  that  the  judicial  power  cannot  be  invested  else- 
where than  in  courts  constituted  by  congress,  and  presided  over  by 
judges  holding  during  good  behavior  and  having  fixed  salaries  ;  and  that 
the  authority  given  by  this  act  to  the  commissioners,  and  under  this 
clause  to  the  inferior  courts  of  Georgia,  is  "judicial  power,"  and  con- 
firmed these  positions  by  numerous  authorities,  and  read  largely  from 
Martin's  Lessees  v.  Hunter,  1  Wheaton,  327-333. 

IV.  The  fourth  point  was,  that  the  evidence  of  the  record  from 
Georgia  was  incompetent,  because  taken  in  an  ex  parte  proceeding,  and 
in  the  absence  of  the  defendant. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  55 

This  point  he  argued  on  general  principles  of  law  and  reason,  and 
cited  a  passage  of  indignant  eloquence  from  Judge  Story's  decision  in 
Bradstreet  v.  Neptune  Insurance  Company,  3  Sumner,  G08,  on  the 
admission  of  ex  i^urte  evidence, 

V.  The  next  point  is  the  general  unconstitutionality  of  the  law.  It 
is,  that  the  statute  under  which  the  process  is  instituted  is  unconstitutional 
and  void,  because  it  is  not  within  the  powers  granted  to  congress  by  the 
Constitution,  and  because  it  is  opposed  to  the  express  provisions  thereof. 

The  government  of  the  United  States,  it  is  almost  unnecessary  to 
repeat,  is  a  government  of  limited  powers.  It  is,  in  its  nature,  entirely 
unlike  the  governments  of  the  several  States.  It  is  limited  to  specially 
granted  powers.  The  legislature  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  may  do 
whatever  it  may  see  fit  to  do,  if  it  is  not  forbidden ;  and  that,  I  believe, 
is  the  case  with  the  Constitutions  of  most  of  the  States.  I  will  quote 
from  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  part  2,  ch.  1,  sec.  1,  art.  4. 
"And  further,  full  power  and  authority  are  hereby  given  and  granted  to 
the  said  General  Court  from  time  to  time  to  make,  ordain,  and  establish 
all  manner  of  wholesome  and  reasonable  orders,  laws,  statutes  and 
ordinances,  directions  and  instructions,  either  with  penalties  or  without, 
80  as  the  same  be  not  repugnant  or  contrary  to  this  Constitution,  as 
they  shall  judge  to  be  for  the  good  and  welfare  of  this  Commonwealth, 
and  for  the  government  and  ordering  thereof,  and  of  the  subjects  of  the 
same,  and  for  the  necessary  support  and  defence  of  the  government 
thereof" 

Then  they  may  make  all  manner  of  laws  wliich  are  not  forbidden  to 
tliem  in  the  Constitution.  That  I  quote  merely  to  show  the  sort  of  Con- 
stitution which  prevails  in  most  of  the  States,  and  I  use  it  for  the  purpose 
of  contrast.  The  United  States  government,  instead  of  possessing  gen- 
eral grants  of  power,  subject  to  limitation,  is  a  government  of  special 
grants  of  power,  which  are  laid  down  in  the  Constitution.  That  was  the 
original  understanding  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution.  That  is  the 
understanding  now  of  the  judicial  authorities.  That  is  the  understand- 
ing under  which  the  several  States  agreed  to  adopt  and  obey  the  Con- 
stitution. It  is  the  doctrine  to  which  they  adhered,  and  meant  to  adhere. 
It  is  the  doctrine  of  Massachusetts  to-day.  In  the  4th  article  of  the  Bill 
of  Rights  of  Massachusetts,  we  find,  — 

"  The  people  of  this  Commonwealth  have  the  sole  and  exclusive  right 
of  governing  themselves,  as  a  free,  sovereign,  and  independent  State ; 
and  do,  and  forever  hereafter  shall,  exercise  and  enjoy  every  power, 
jurisdiction,  and  right,  which  is  not,  or  may  not  hereafter  be  by  them 


5Q  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

EXPRESSLY    delegated  to  the  United   States  of  America  in  congress 
assembled." 

The  people  of  Massachusetts,  then,  in  the  year  1780,  in  a  bill  of  rights 
drawn  principally  by  Samuel  Adams,  declared  their  intention  forever  to 
enjoy  every  right  which  they  might  not  expressly  delegate  to  the 
United  States  of  America  in  congress  assembled.  That  was  the  inten- 
tion of  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  Have  they  ever  departed  from 
that  intention  ?  Have  they  ever  shown  any  wish  to  grant  any  more 
power  than  that  expressly  granted  to  congress  ?  I  maintain  that  the 
State  of  Massachusetts  has  always  held  that  it  was  independent,  except 
as  to  those  powers  which  it  had  expressly  delegated  to  congress. 
That  is  the  Massachusetts  doctrine.  That  is  the  doctrine  that  Samuel 
Adams  wrote  down.  That  is  the  doctrine  that  Massachusetts  solemnly 
and  emphatically  incorporated  into  her  Bill  of  Rights.  That  is  the  doc- 
trine that  stands,  and  "forever  hereafter"  shall  stand,  in  the  Massachu- 
setts Bill  of  Rights.  That  being,  then,  the  doctrine  of  Massachusetts,  I 
ask  your  Honor  to  act  up  to  that  doctrine. 

Congress  shall  have  that  power  which  is  expressly  delegated  to 
them.  Have  they  ever  pretended  to  possess  that  which  is  not  delegated  ? 
Never !  On  the  contrary,  they  proceed  always  upon  the  supposition 
that  the  powers  of  the  United  States  are  created  and  defined  by  the 
Constitution,  and  that  they  have  no  other  power.  They  proceed  to  dis- 
tribute this  power. 

Const.,  art.  1,  sec.  1.  "All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be 
vested  in  a  Congress  of  the  United  States,  which  shall  consist  of  a 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives." 

Art.  2,  sec.  1.  "The  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  President 
of  the  United  States  of  America." 

Art.  3,  sec.  1.  "  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be 
vested  in  one  Supreme  Court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the  congress 
may  from  time  to  time  ordain  and  establish." 

Are  there  any  other  powers  except  these  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial  powers  vested  in  other  persons  ?  None  !  Nothing  is  taken  by 
implication;  because  if  you  begin  to  take  by  implication,  you  know  not 
where  you  may  end.  Nothing  is  to  be  taken  by  implication,  because 
the  men  who  framed  this  Constitution  knew  what  they  were  doing. 
They  knew  they  were  creating  a  government  of  limited  powers.  Powers 
were  proposed  and  rejected,  because  it  was  not  intended  that  they  should 
be  inserted.  "Whatever  was  meant  was  written.  This  is  the  letter  of 
attorney  of  congress;  and  whatever  is  not  in  the  commission  they 
cannot  usurp  or  assume. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  57 

I  come  now  to  consider,  —  if  it  were  not  that  it  is  unnecessary,  I  should 
run  over  the  general  doctrines  of  the  Constitution,  and  show  that  this 
general  rule  of  limitation  of  power  runs  through  the  whole  of  it,  —  I  come 
now  to  the  consideration  of  the  4th  article  of  the  Constitution. 

Art.  4,  sec.  1.  "  Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to 
the  public  acts,  records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  State." 

Do  those  words  contain  a  grant  of  power  ?  Is  there  a  grant  of  power, 
it  being  considered  that  every  grant  of  power  in  this  Constitution  is  a 
grant  of  something  which  the  people  possessed,  and  distinctly  and 
expressly  transferred  from  themselves  to  the  United  States  ?  A  grant 
of  power  must  be  expressed,  from  the  nature  of  the  transaction  itself. 
A  State  possesses  and  retains  all  the  powers  of  government  which  are  not 
prohibited  to  it.  The  United  States  possesses  only  those  powers  which 
are  granted.  If  you  contend  that  those  powers  have  gone  somewhere 
else  than  to  the  States,  shoAV  me  how,  and  when,  and  where.  How  have 
they  been  granted,  if  the  grants  do  not  appear  by  the  letter  of  the  Con- 
stitution ?  If  you  cannot  show  tliat  letter,  then  the  plain  truth  is,  that 
the  powers  do  not  exist  at  all  in  the  United  States.  For  if  they  do  exist, 
it  is  only  through  this  Constitution.  Such  was  the  view  with  which  the 
people  of  the  United  States  adopted  and  confirmed  this  instrument.  For 
they  have  given  in  the  amendments,  as  emphatically  as  words  can  give, 
their  sanction  to  the  rule  of  interpretation  which  I  have  indicated. 

Amendments  to  the  Constitution,  art.  10.  "  The  powers  not  delegated 
to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the 
States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the  people." 

I  hold  that  a  delegation  of  power  must  be  an  express  delegation. 
Here  the  Constitution  says,  that  the  powers  not  delegated  are  reserved. 
Here  is  this  general  reservation  of  all  powers  not  delegated.  Now  I 
hold  that  that  makes  it  necessary  that  the  delegation  should  be  clear  ; 
because  here  is  the  obvious  intention  to  retain  all  powers  not  delegated. 
Why  was  this  amendment  inserted  ?  Because  certain  grants  of  powers 
were  given,  and  it  was  feared  others  might  be  taken  by  implication.  It 
was  put  in  from  greater  caution ;  from  excess  of  caution.  It  was  put  in 
to  render  it  certain  that  no  man  could  pretend  that  the  United  States 
had  any  power  not  given  in  the  Constitution.  That  is  what  they  meant, 
or  else  it  would  have  been  unnecessary  so  to  amend ;  and  yet  so  neces- 
sary was  it  regarded  by  one  of  the  great  sages  of  the  Revolution, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  a  jnan  whose  constitutional  opinions  were  so  much 
approved  by  the  people  that  they  twice  elected  him  president  under  this 
Constitution,  that  he,  speaking  of  this  tenth  article,  which  means  nothing 
at  all,  unless  it  meant  to  say,  you  must  expressly  ascertain  that  the  power 
is  there,  in  so  many  words,  or  else  it  does  not  exist,  said,  in  his  official 


58  ME]\IOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

opinion,  as  secretary  of  State,  "  I  consider  the  foundation  corner-stone  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  be  laid  upon  the  tenth  article 
of  the  amendments."  It  will  not  do  when  a  great  apostle  of  human  liberty- 
has  declared  this  article  to  be  the  corner-stone,  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  whole  structure  rests,  —  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  it  means 
nothing.  It  was  put  there  to  show  the  intention  to  reserve  all  power, 
which  was  not  necessarily,  by  the  strictest  construction,  granted  to  the 
United  States. 

Now  I  come  back  to  the  4th  article  of  the  Constitution ;  and  I  ask, 
after  these  remarks,  whether  the  words  which  I  have  read  do  contain  a 
grant  of  power.  "  Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to 
the  public  acts,  records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  State." 
That  declares  that  something  shall  he  done,  that  it  shall  be  done  too  in 
every  State,  and  that  something  7nust  be  done  by  the  State.  Full  faith  shall 
be  given  in  each  State.  Is  that  a  grant  of  power  to  congress  to  regulate 
how  "full  faith  shall  he  given  ?"  It  certainly  is  not  from  the  principles 
which  I  have  laid  down.  It  is  certain  that  it  is  not  from  that  which 
follows.  If  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  had  supposed  that  the  first 
clause  did  grant  the  power,  then  they  would  not  have  gone  further  and 
given  the  power  in  so  many  words ;  because  here  is  an  instrument  where 
there  are  no  words  wasted.  And  when  they  say  that  "congress  may, 
by  general  laws,  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  such  acts,  records,  and 
proceedings  shall  be  proved,  and  the  effect  thereof,"  they  did  so,  because 
they  knew  congress  could  not  otherwise  have  touched  this  subject.  If 
the  first  clause  only  had  been  used,  then  congress  could  have  done 
nothing  in  the  premises.  The  prohibition,  or  command,  call  it  which 
you  please,  was  directly  to  the  States.  Then  it  goes  on  to  say  that  con- 
gress may  regidate  ;  that  gives  the  power  to  congress. 

I  pass  to  the  second  section.  I  have  made  these  observations  for  the 
purpose  of  applying  the  principle  for  which  I  am  contending,  to  the 
second  section. 

Art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  1.  "  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled 
to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  the  citizens  in  the  several 
States." 

Is  that  a  grant  of  power  to  congress  ?  The  citizens  of  each  State 
shall  have  the  privileges  of  citizens  in  the  several  States.  Well,  that  is 
a  direction  to  the  States,  and  to  nobody  else.  It  does  not  authorize 
congress  to  act,  and  yet  here  is  a  case  where  congress  might  act,  if  the 
States  had  chosen  to  give  them  the  power.  Suppose  this  man  is  declared 
free  ;  and  suppose  this  man  ships  as  a  steward  on  board  one  of  our 
merchant  vessels,  and  goes  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  There  he  is 
taken  out  of  the  vessel  by  the  authorities,  and  imprisoned  during  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  59 

stay  of  the  vessel.  And  if  his  jail  fees  are  not  then  paid,  he  is  sold  as 
a  slave.  The  State  disobeys  this  positive  command  ;  and  congress  has 
not  determined  that  it  has  the  power  to  act.  And  most  certain  it  is, 
that  if  the  pretence  were  set  up  that  congress  had  a  right  to  legislate  on 
this  subject,  it  would  be  asked  with  great  pertinency,  "  If  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  meant  so,  why  did  they  not  say  so,  as  they  did  in  the 
first  section?"  Congress  has  no  such  power.  If  it  has,  where  is  it 
given  ?  It  is  replied,  "  It  is  declared  in  the  second  section,  that  the 
citizens  shall  have  the  privileges  of  citizenship  throughout  the  United 
States."  "Oh!"  the  answer  would  come,  "  that  is  a  direction  to  the 
States.  Where  is  the  grant  of  power  to  congress?  No,  no!  it  is  not 
at  all  like  the  first  section.  There  full  faith  was  to  be  given  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  other  States,  and  congress  has  the  power  by  express  enactment 
to  control  it.  In  the  case  of  the  second  section,  however,  congress  has 
no  such  power  ;  for  if  it  was  intended  that  it  should  have  the  power,  that 
power  would  have  been  conferred  in  express  terms."  If  this  argument 
could  have  been  answered,  some  one  would  long  since  have  proposed  an 
act  protecting  the  citizens  of  each  State  in  every  other  State,  it  would 
have  been  passed,  and  it  would  have  been  sustained  by  judicial  decisions, 
and  enforced.  But  that  has  not  been  the  case,  because  the  power  was 
not  given  to  congress.  Well,  then,  I  come  to  the  other  clauses  of  the 
same  section. 

Art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  2.  "  A  person  charged  in  any  State  with  treason, 
felony,  or  other  crime,  who  shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in 
another  State,  shall,  on  demand  of  the  executive  authority  of  the  State 
from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  to  be  removed  to  the  State  having 
jurisdiction  of  the  crime." 

Any  grant  of  power  to  congress  there  ?  Not  unless  there  was  in  the 
first  clause  of  the  first  section.  But  yet  in  the  first  section  they  thought 
it  necessary  to  express  the  grant,  and  here  not.  It  is  not  a  clause  which 
in  its  nature  necessarily  implies  that  it  n\ust  be  executed  by  congress, 
because  it  can  be  executed  by  the  States.  If  it  had  said  something  shall 
be  done,  and  that  something  was  that  which,  in  its  nature,  could  be  done 
only  by  the  United  States  government,  which  was  impossible  in  its  nature 
to  be  done  by  the  States,  then  it  could  be  said  that  it  was  absurd  to  pre- 
tend it  must  be  done  by  the  States.  But  in  this  case  it  can  be  done  by 
the  States.  It  is  now  done  by  the  States,  although  regulated  by  a  fede- 
ral law.  It  can  be  done  by  virtue  of  a  State  law,  just  as  well  as  by  con- 
gress. The  State  of  Massachusetts  might  have  made  regulations  to  give 
up  fugitives  from  justice,  just  as  well  as  congress.  It  would  have  been 
for  the  mutual  interest  of  the  States  of  this  Union  to  make  laws  for  the 
delivery  of  fugitives  from  justice.     It  would  have  been  done  just  as 


60  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

certainly,  and  just  as  well,  by  States  as  by  congress.  Not  only  is  this 
power  not  given  to  congress  in  words,  but  it  is  a  power  which  might 
with  equal  propriety  be  given  to  either  the  State  or  the  national  govern- 
ment ;  and  the  Constitution  has  declared  that  that  which  is  not  given  to 
the  general  government  is  reserved  to  the  States. 

The  Commissioner.  I  do  not  like  to  interrupt  you,  but  I  wish  to 
understand  you.  I  wish  to  ask  if  your  argument  goes  so  far  as  to  main- 
tain that  congress  has  not  the  power  to  carry  out  that  section  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  It  does.  I  know  that  congress  have  legislated  on 
this  subject.  But  I  maintain  that  the  power  is  not  granted.  Then  comes 
the  next  clause.  The  ground  that  I  have  taken  may  be  defended  with 
stronger  arguments  with  regard  to  this  clause,  than  with  regard  to  the 
clause  concerning  fugitives  from  justice  ;  so  that  a  judge  with  nice  dis- 
tinctions might  decide  that  congress  could  pass  laws  with  reference  to 
the  first,  and  not  with  reference  to  the  second.  The  objection  is  stronger 
in  regard  to  the  latter. 

Art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  3.  "No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one 
State  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  consequence 
of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or 
labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such 
service  or  labor  may  be  due." 

Now,  I  say,  here  is  no  grant  of  power,  which  is  the  same  remark  I 
made  with  regard  to  the  last  clause.  But  I  go  further  with  regard  to 
this,  and  say  that  there  are  words  here  to  show  that  the  reference  is 
made  directly  to  the  States.  And  the  words  are  these  :  "No  person 
held  to  service  or  labor  in  07ie  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping 
into  another,  shall  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be 
discharged  from  such  service  or  labor."  There  is  a  prohibition  directed 
to  the  States.  You  shall  not  undertake  by  your  laws  to  discharge  a 
fugitive  from  labor. 

The  prohibition  is,  from  its  nature  as  well  as  its  form,  directed  to  the 
States,  and  cannot  be  directed  to  anybody  else.  The  prohibition  is  to 
the  States  clearly  upon  the  face  of  it ;  and  although  a  judge  might  think 
my  argument  not  of  sufficient  force  in  regard  to  the  former  clause,  yet 
here  the  argument  is  stronger.  Here  is  not  only  no  grant  of  power,  it 
is  not  only  a  power  which  States  can  exercise  as  easily  as  the  general 
government,  (you  may  think  that  the  general  government  w^ould  do  it 
better,  and  I  might  think  it  might  do  it  worse,  which  would  be  a  matter 
of  opinion  ;)  but  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  does  not  give  the  power 
to  congress,  shows  that  it  must  remain  with  the  States  ;  and  then  comes 
the  direct  prohibition  to  the  States.  Then  if  that  prohibition  is  directed 
to  the  States,  what  follow^s ?    "  But  shall  be  delivered  up ! "    Deliveredup  ? 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  61 

By  whom  ?  By  the  party  that  is  prohibited !  The  State  is  commanded, 
not  to  discharge,  and  the  State  is  commanded  to  deliver  np.  If  the  Con- 
stitution meant  that  Congress  should  exercise  the  power,  they  would 
have  said  so.  If  they  meant  to  have  Congress  and  the  States  act  on 
this  subject,  concurrent  power  would  have  been  given.  This,  then,  is  a 
grant  of  power  solely  to  the  States,  or  solely  to  the  general  government ; 
and  as  I  cannot  find  the  grant  to  the  general  government,  as  this  clause 
stands  precisely  as  the  first  clause  in  the  first  section  would,  without  the 
power,  unless  it  is  given,  I  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  power 
is  retained  in  the  States  exclusively.  Here,  both  the  prohibition  and 
the  command  are  addressed  to  the  State.  And  I  am  induced  to  think 
that  this  is  the  view  the  State  of  Georgia  will  ultimately  take  of  the 
subject,  consistently  with  that  system  of  doctrine  which  she  has  always 
advanced,  and  v/ith  that  jealousy  which  she  has  always  manifested  with 
regard  to  the  increase  of  federal  power.  Consistently  with  that  view 
which  they  have  long  maintained,  they  cannot  take  the  latitudinarian 
construction.  And  sure  I  am  that  the  State  of  South  Carolina  would 
necessarily  take  this  view  of  it,  or  else  strangely  depart  from  her  most 
cherished  principles.  I  do  not  urge  this  as  authority  for  your  honor  to 
act  on.  I  simply  bring  forward  that  fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  that  supposition, 
if  it  be  only  a  supposition,  in  order  to  remind  your  honor  that  there  is 
not  a  general  ascertained  consent  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  to 
any  contrary  doctrine. 

It  is  not  certain  that  the  people  of  the  slave-holding  States,  as  a  gen- 
eral thing,  will  hold  this  law  constitutional,  on  the  ground  on  which  I 
am  now  speaking.  Many  of  their  statemen  have  declared  that  it  is  one 
of  the  greatest  encroachments  of  the  federal  power.  Senators  from  the 
South  have  agreed  in  this.  The  Hon.  Jeficrson  Davis,  to  mention  no  other 
name,  contends  that  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  outrages  upon  the  States, 
for  Congress  to  exercise  a  power  not  granted  in  the  Constitution,  and  he 
denies  this  power  to  be  granted.  And  I  undertake  to  say  that  that  feel- 
ing is  increasing,  and  likely  to  increase  everywhere.  For  it  is  most 
important  to  proceed  upon  sound  principles,  and  people  in  a  great  crisis 
go  back  to  sound  principles.  These,  then,  are  the  reasons  why  I  say 
that  this  law  is  unconstitutional. 

There  is  no  grant  of  power  to  enact  it.  It  cannot  be  enacted  without 
such  a  grant.  I  then  go  further  and  say,  which  is  a  mere  recapitulation, 
that  this  law  is  unconstitutional,  because  it  is  in  violation  of  express  pro- 
visions of  this  Constitution.  And  those  I  have  already  argued.  They 
are,  that  judicial  power  shall  be  exercised  only  by  judges  ;  that  in  suits 
at  common  law,  where  the  value  in  controversy  is  more  than  twenty 
dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved.     There  are  various 

6 


62  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

other  propositions  whicli  bear  upon  the  subject,  such  as  that  a  party  shall 
not  be  deprived  of  his  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of 
law.  And  due  process  of  law  includes  trial  by  jury  and  an  impartial 
hearing  with  confronting  of  witnesses.  Liberty  is  of  more  value,  most 
certaiidy,  than  the  sum  of  money  limiting  jury  trials,  or  than  any  other 
conceivable  sum  of  money. 

I  say  that  this  act  is  void,  because  it  contravenes  express  provisions 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  knows  but  three  kinds  of  power:  legislative,  executive,  and 
judicial.  The  executive  power  cannot  be  intrusted  to  anybody  else  than 
the  president,  although  he  may  employ  instruments.  The  legislative 
power  cannot  be  intrusted  to  anybody  else  than  the  legislature.  The 
judicial  power  cannot  be  intrusted  to  anybody  else  than  the  judges. 
And  the  Constitution  does  not  pretend  or  undertake  to  do  otherwise. 

Now  you  might  as  well  say  that  Congress  could  intrust  to  the  executive 
a  portion  of  the  judicial  power,  or  to  the  judges  a  portion  of  the  executive 
power,  or  to  either  of  them  a  portion  of  the  legislative  power,  as  to  say 
that  persons  who  are  not  of  the  judiciary  shall  exercise  judicial  power. 
The  power  under  which  your  honor  is  asked  to  act,  must  be  one  of  these 
three  powers.  Is  it  a  legislative  power  ?  Certainly  not !  Is  it  an  ex- 
ecutive power  ?  Certainly  not !  If  your  honor  is  merely  acting  as  the 
instrument  of  the  government,  in  accordance  with  acts  which  are  con- 
stitutional, we  should  be  glad  to  know  it.  But  in  this  case  the  decision 
of  the  controversy  is  an  act  of  judicial  power,  and  not  an  act  of  executive 
power.  Then  your  honor  must  sit  under  the  authority  of  the  judicial 
power. 

All  executive  power  is  vested  in  the  president.  Is  your  honor  acting 
by  his  orders  ?  If  so,  we  should  be  glad  to  know  it.  Is  your  honor 
acting  by  virtue  of  any  decree  in  the  United  States  Court  ?  No,  again ! 
What  is  it  that  your  honor  is  doing  ?  Trying  a  case,  and  nothing  else  ! 
Wliy,  what  I  read  from  Lord  Coke,  quoted  from  Virgil,  about  the  court 
below,  where  his  honor.  Judge  Rhadamanthus,  first  punished,  and  then 
heard,  was  a  slander  upon  that  court.  It  is  not  so.  The  latest  reporter 
concerning  that  court,  {Dante  Alliglderi,)  has  given  a  different  account 
of  the  judgment  rendered  by  Judge  Minos,  having  concurrent  jurisdiction 
with  Rhadamanthus.     He  tells  us  :  — 

^'  Dicono  e  odono,  e  poi  son  (jiu  volte." 
They  speak,  and  hear,  and  then  are  whirled  below. 

Now,  in  this  case,  is  your  honor  hearing  a  case  as  they  are  heard  in 
all  courts  on  earth,  and  under  the  earth,  a  case  which  is  to  be  decided  on 
judicial  principles,  or  is  your  honor  acting  as  an  executive  officer  ?     In 


OF   KOBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  63 

which  latter  case,  all  the  questions  both  of  fact  and  of  law  would  seem 
to  be  raised  and  heard  to  little  purpose.  I  suppose  that  the  argument  I 
am  making  is  addressed  to  the  judicial  mind  of  the  officer,  and  that  his 
action  on  it  is  a  judicial  action.  If  it  be  a  judicial  act,  where  does  your 
honor  get  the  authority  for  it  ?  Your  honor  gets  it,  if  at  all,  from  that 
part  of  the  Constitution  from  which  the  other  judicial  power  comes.  And 
no  fraction  of  that  can  be  given  to  any  one  except  a  judge.  And  is  not 
your  honor  doing  a  judicial  act,  without  the  functions  of  a  judge  ?  Are 
you  not  doing  such  an  act,  when  you  hear,  weigh,  and  decide  upon  an 
argument  upon  the  constitutionality  of  an  act  of  Congress  ?  Aye,  decide 
without  appeal ! 

There  is  no  escape  from  this  conclusion,  for  there  are  but  three  classes 
of  power  in  the  Constitution.  Is  your  honor  to  suppose  that  this  pre- 
liminary examination,  held  by  an  executive  officer,  is  merely  to  send  a 
man  somewhere  else  where  the  same  question  may  be  tried  ?  Does 
your  honor  suppose  that  the  escape  of  this  man  is  to  be  tried  anywhere 
else  ?  If  your  honor  remands  him  to  Georgia,  it  puts  him  in  the  situa- 
tion of  a  man  already  adjudged  to  be  a  slave.  He  is  tried  by  a  different 
law  there,  from  what  he  is  here.  The  fact  that  he  is  a  colored  man  does 
not  make  a  presumption  against  him  here  that  he  is  a  slave.  In  Georgia, 
the  presumption  of  fact  and  the  presumption  of  law  are,  that  he  is  a 
slave.  You  send  this  man  from  the  place  where  the  presumption  of  law 
and  the  presumption  of  fact  are  that  he  is  free  ;  and  you  send  him  back 
to  Georgia,  where  there  are  two  presumptions,  the  one  of  law,  and  the 
other  of  fact,  which  close  his  mouth  upon  this  question.  The  fact  of  iiis 
ESCAPE  is  settled  here.  Nor  do  I  know  that  there  is  any  law  of  Georgia 
which  would  make  him  free,  if  he  had  been  carried  by  force  from  that 
State  to  this  ;  or  if  that  be  law  in  Georgia,  it  does  not  appear  that  it  is 
so  in  all  other  States.  Or  even  if  it  be  law  in  all  the  States  of  the 
Union,  that  law  may  be  changed  in  any  of  the  States  at  any  time.  There- 
fore your  honor  may  be  finally  deciding  questions  of  law  as  agauist  all 
possible  remedies.     Are  not  these  acts  judicial? 

Why,  ths  court  below,  that  I  spoke  of,  might  be  said  to  be  going 
through  a  preparatory  process,  for  the  convicts  await  final  judgment. 
We  do  not  know  that  this  man  will  have  another  judgment  in  this  world. 
He  may  have  one  on  different  principles  in  the  world  to  come. 

There  are  several  things  that  I  had  intended  to  say  yesterday  upon  the 
other  points  raised,  as  to  where  this  contravenes  positive  provisions  of  the 
Constitution.  But  I  forbear  to  urge  them.  When  the  court  intimated 
that  twenty-four  hours  were  sufficient  to  prepare  for  this  debate,  it  was 
an  intimation  to  the  counsel  that  no  very  wide  range  of  debate  would  be 
allowed  to  be  taken. 


64  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WHITINGS 

There  were  some  minor  points  presented  by  Mr.  Rantoul,  not 
of  general  interest,  relating  to  the  execution  of  the  papers  from 
Georgia,  etc.,  which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  detail  here. 

Charles  G.  Loring,  Esq.,  delivered  a  powerful  and  earnest 
closing  argument  in  favor  of  the  defendant,  and  the  cause  of 
the  claimant  was  argued  by  Seth  J.  Thomas,  Esq. 

On  the  11th,  Geo.  T.  Curtis,  Esq.,  the  commissioner,  delivered 
an  elaborate  written  opinion,  fully  sustaining  the  statute  in  all 
points,  and  executed  a  certificate  remanding  Sims  into  the 
custody  of  the  claimant. 

On  Saturday  the  5th,  Samuel  E.  Sewall,  Esq.,  had  moved  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  This 
was  refused  without  argument.  After  the  refusal,  Mr.  Sewall 
asked  leave  to  speak  in  favor  of  the  petition,  but  this  was  also 
refused.  In  the  course  of  that  day  and  Sunday,  it  was  under- 
stood that  several  gentlemen,  among  whom  Charles  G.  Loring 
and  Franklin  Dexter,  Esquires,  have  been  named,  spoke  pri- 
vately to  the  Chief  Justice  on  the  subject,  urging  the  propriety 
of  a  hearing,  and  it  was  then  intimated  that  the  court  would 
hear  an  argument  on  Monday  morning. 

Accordingly,  on  Monday,  the  7th,  in  the  midst  of  his  pre- 
paration for  the  hearing  before  the  commissioner,  Mr.  Rantoul 
went  into  the  Supreme  Court  and  delivered  an  earnest,  eloquent, 
and  elaborate  argument  in  favor  of  the  granting  of  the  writ. 
As  his  argument  was  on  the  same  points  and  authorities  which 
he  used  before  the  commissioner,  they  need  not  be  repeated 
here. 

R.  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  Esq.,  was  associated  with  Mr.  Rantoul  in  this 
motion  ;  but  Mr.  Dana  stated  that  he  had  been  called  in  without 
a  moment's  notice,  it  being  understood  that  Mr.  Sewall's  mo- 
tion was  refused,  and  left  the  argument  entirely  to  Mr.  Rantoul, 
who  was  prepared  on  the  points,  as  counsel  before  the  com- 
missioner. Mr.  Dana  presented  the  single  point  that  the  court 
must  grant  the  writ,  if  the  petition  was  in  due  form  and  pre- 
sented a  probable  cause,  and  the  hearing  must  be  had  on  the 
return.  lie  admitted  that  the  courts  in  England  had  assumed 
a  discretion,  and  had  been  followed  by  the  courts  of  this  coun- 
try; but  he  argued  that  the  Revised  Statutes  of  Massachusetts, 
ch.  3,  sections  1-4,  intended  to  take  away  this  discretion,  or  to 


CHAPTER  III 


MR.  RANTOUL'S  EARLY  AND  PERSEVERING  DEVOTION  TO  THE  CAUSE 
OF  POPULAR  EDUCATION. 

In  one  to  whom  knowledge  was  as  the  breath  of  life,  to  have 
been  an  active  and  efficient  advocate  of  education,  and  a  zeal- 
ous friend  of  improvement  in  the  means  of  its  general  diffusion, 
was  but  a  natural  and  consistent  expression  of  character. 
Such  were  his  singular  powers  of  acquisition,  and  his  incessant 
industry  as  a  student,  that  his  estimate  of  the  value  of  knowl- 
edge was  formed  as  much  from  his  consciousness,  his  personal 
experience,  as  from  his  observation  of  its  effects  on  the  charac- 
ter of  the  most  useful  and  honored  of  mankind.  While  he 
felt  its  generous  tendencies,  the  enlargement -of  view  it  imparts, 
its  endless  multiplication  of  interesting  objects  of  thought,  and 
of  motives  to  all  kinds  of  excellence,  still  be  maintained,  that 
knowledge  itself  depended  for  its  worth,  its  character  as  good 
or  bad,  beneficent  or  hurtful,  on  the  use  made  of  it.  Like  the 
noon-day  light,  it  may  shine  upon  the  evil  and  the  good,  on  the 
pathway  of  the  just  and  the  unjust. 

"While  he  held  that  knowledge  is  to  be  regarded  as  instru- 
mental, chiefly  a  means,  rather  than  an  end,  since  it  may  be 
power  for  evil  as  well  as  good,  yet  he  looked  to  education  as 
the  great  reforming  principle  of  the  world.  Of  the  marked 
difference  between  the  aims  of  the  present  age,  and  those  of 
any  preceeding  one  in  respect  to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  he 
said :  "  In  past  ages  the  means  of  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge were  only  within  the  reach  of  the  privileged  few,  and 
although  they  were  justly  regarded  as  worthy  of  the  greatest 


68  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  AVRITINGS 

consideration,  yet  their  extensive  diffusion,  and  more  especially 
their  universal  use,  through  all  the  gradations  of  society, 
scarcely  were  thought  of.  Now,  it  is  not  so  much  an  object  of 
inquiry  how  men  may  increase  a  stock  of  learning  and  knowl- 
edge, far  advanced  beyond  a  vast  majority  of  mankind,  but 
rather  how  all  may  be  furnished  with  the  means  of  that  knowl- 
edge which  wdll  enlighten  them  in  regard  to  their  common 
duties,  and  best  promote  the  enjoyment  and  happiness  of 
their  lives." 

In  thus  promoting  the  welfare  of  his  fellow  men,  few,  who 
have  not  made  the  advancement  of  education  a  distinct  profes- 
sion, have  exerted  a  wider,  or  more  beneficial  influence  than 
Mr.  Rantoul.  He  was,  however,  very  far  indeed  from  regard- 
ing the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  or  the  cultivation  of  the  in- 
tellect, the  whole,  or  even  the  principal  part  of  education.  He 
thought  much  more  of  the  training  of  the  sentiments  and 
affections,  which,  as  it  forms  the  moral  character,  renders 
knowledge  a  blessing  or  an  evil.  The  theme  of  one  of  his  earliest 
published  addresses  on  this  subject,  was  "  The  greater  importance 
of  moral  education  than  intellectual."  On  this  distinction  he 
always  insisted  with  great  earnestness.  It  pervaded  all  his 
views  upon  the  subject,  and  involved  a  principle  worthy  of  this 
reiterated  announcement.  Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake 
than  that  the  chief  purpose  of  education  is  accomplished  in 
merely  intellectual  culture.  Enough,  and  more  than  enough  is 
said  of  this.  The  homage  paid  to  it,  if  not  exaggerated,  is  due 
much  more  to  the  culture  and  discipline  of  the  sentiments  and 
affections.  Training  them  in  the  right  direction  is  the  highest 
office  of  the  teacher.  Intellectual  power  alone,  may  indeed  be 
admired,  like  the  mountain  torrent,  or  the  lightning  flash,  for 
force  or  brilliancy ;  but  a  higher  homage  is  due  to  morality, 
that  rectitude  of  aim  which  guides  the  strength  of  the  one,  and 
the  swiftness  of  the  other,  to  beneficent  results. 

Mr.  Rantoul  felt  and  inculcated  this  higher  reverence  for 
moral  worth.  "  The  heart,"  he  says,  "  is  the  only  true  standard 
by  which  the  real  worth  of  man,  a  moral  agent,  can  be  esti- 
mated. Knowledge  is  good  or  bad,  according  as  it  is  well  or 
ill  used.  Morality  is  good  of  itself."  These  principles,  so 
honorable  to  the  convictions  of  his  mature  understanding,  gave 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  65 

declare  it  unlawful.  The  court  overruled  this  point,  as  well  as 
the  points  made  by  Mr.  Rantoul  on  the  unconstitutionality  of 
the  statute  under  which  Sims  was  held,  and  refused  the  writ. 

With  the  decision  of  the  commissioner  ended  the  labors  of 
Mr.  Rantoul  in  behalf  of  the  unhappy  fugitive,  and  in  favor  of 
the  cause  of  freedom  and  humanity,  as  embodied  in  this  case ; 
labor  so  honorable  to  his  heart  and  his  understanding,  but  still 
more  so  to  his  civil  courage  and  disinterestedness. 

The  subsequent  history  of  this  case  is  part  of  the  history  of 
Massachusetts,  for  good  or  for  ill. 

On  Thursday,  April  10th,  Charles  Sumner  and  Richard  H. 
Dana,  Jr.,  Esquires,  presented  a  petition  for  a  habeas  corpus  to 
Judge  Woodbury,  of  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  then  in  the  city. 
A  hearing  was  had  late  at  night,  between  9  and  10  o'clock,  in 
the  Circuit  Court  room,  in  the  midst  of  an  armed  police.  This 
petition  was  to  discharge  Sims  from  the  custody  of  the  mar- 
shal, as  far  as  he  held  him,  under  a  complaint  issued  against 
him  for  resisting  an  officer  of  the  United  States.  It  was  founded 
on  the  reason  that  the  marshal  had  held  him  for  nearly  six  days 
in  custody  under  this  complaint,  without  taking  him  before  a 
magistrate  to  be  examined  or  bailed.  Judge  Woodbury  refused 
the  writ,  on  the  ground  that  the  marshal  had  not,  under  the 
circumstances,  w^antonly  and  unnecessarily  delayed  bringing 
him  before  a  commissioner.  The  object  of  this  proceeding  was 
to  leave  Sims  to  the  operation  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
alone.  If  he  was  held  by  that  alone,  it  was  contended  that  the 
claim  of  the  master,  being  a  merely  civil  claim,  must  yield  to 
the  criminal  process  of  the  State.  And  there  was  at  this  time 
a  criminal  process  in  the  hands  of  the  sheriff  of  the  county, 
requiring  him  to  arrest  Sims  for  an  assault  with  an  intent  to 
kill.  On  this,  it  was  intended  to  try  the  question  of  precedence 
between  the  State  criminal  process  and  the  claim  of  the  master. 
To  avoid  this,  a  complaint  was  made  against  Sims  before  Mr. 
Commissioner  Hallett,  for  resisting  a  United  States  officer,  and 
a  warrant  placed  by  him  in  the  marshal's  hands,  commanding 
him  to  arrest  Sims  and  bring  him  before  a  commissioner  for  a 
hearing.  This  warrant  was  kept  by  the  marshal,  and  he  refused 
to  surrender  Sims  to  the  sheriff,  on  the  ground  that  the  criminal 
process  of  the  United  States  had  the  first  possession.     Judge 

6* 


66  MEMOIRS   OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR. 

Woodbury  refusing  to  discharge  Sims  from  that  warrant,  and 
justifying  the  marshal  in  retaining  him  under  it  without  return 
or  service,  the  marshal  continued  to  hold  Sims  under  it  until 
he  was  out  of  the  limits  of  the  State,  without  ever  bringing 
him  before  a  magistrate  to  be  examined  or  bailed.  And  the 
sheriff  refused  to  take  Sims  from  the  custody  of  the  marshal. 
Thus  he  was  taken  out  of  the  State  under  the  certificate  of 
the  commissioner,  covered  by  a  sham  criminal  process  of  the 
United  States. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  69 

an  ingenuousness  of  character,  a  directness  and  purity  of  pur- 
pose to  his  whole  life.  They  early  turned  his  attention  to  those 
objects  of  moral  reform  in  which  the  public  felt  a  growing  in- 
terest, and  which  he  believed  necessary  to  individual  usefulness 
and  national  prosperity.  His  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  tem- 
perance, of  which  he  was  in  habit  an  example,  was  marked  by 
a  zeal,  free  from  cant  and  extravagance,  and  by  a  respect  for 
those  natural  rights,  which  no  freeman  can  surrender,  of  doing 
his  own  thinking  and  using  his  own  senses  in  his  ow^n  way, 
while  he  duly  regards  the  rights  of  others.  Mr.  Rantoul  was 
not  guilty  of  a  common  injustice  in  the  friends  of  a  good  ob- 
ject, of  denouncing  those  who  happen  to  differ  from  them,  as 
to  the  best  means  of  promoting  it.  For  the  sake  of  a  tempo- 
rary victory,  or  even  a  lasting  triumph,  he  would  not  misstate 
facts,  or  deny  principles  which  his  understanding  justified.  All 
who  know  him  intimately,  honored  the  sentiment,  which  he 
deeply  felt,  of  responsibility  in  the  use  of  his  mental  powers. 
Ambitious,  he  unquestionably  was,  of  the  honor  conferred  by 
intellectual  distinction ;  but  he  would  not  sacrifice  to  it  his 
sense  of  duty,  his  moral  independence.  His  highest  ambition 
was  to  do  true  service  to  his  fellow  men.  He  acted  on  the 
principle,  to  which  his  early  education  had  given  an  abiding 
force,  that  no  success  in  life,  whether  measured  by  wealth  or 
fame,  would  compensate  for  the  loss  of  the  calm  sunshine  of 
conscious  integrity,  or  of  that  just  praise  which  is  awarded  to 
a  life  of  usefulness  and  beneficence. 

It  is  difficult  to  do  justice  to  Mr.  Rantoul  as  an  advocate  of 
popular  education.  His  numerous  speeches  at  conventions  of 
the  friends  of  this  great  cause,  in  the  different  counties  of  his 
native  State,  are  now  to  be  found  only  in  their  effects,  and  the 
memories  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  One  of  these, 
and  not  the  least  eloquent,  was  delivered  under  circumxstances 
of  peculiar  interest.  It  w^as  in  Plymouth  county,  previous  to 
the  establishment  there  of  the  Normal  School,  before  a  large 
convention  of  those  who  favored  it,  and  which  was  also  addres- 
sed by  the  venerable  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Daniel  Webster. 
Mr.  Rantoul's  eloquent  and  effective  appeal  in  behalf  of  educa- 
tion, was  worthy  of  his  association  with  such  men  in  such  a 
cause,  worthy  of  himself,  and  of  his  numerous  and  enlightened 


70  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

auditory.  What  illustrious  examples  of  the  almost  creative 
power  of  education  are  presented  in  the  character  of  the  three 
men,  who  there  stood  up,  amid  scenes  made  holy  by  the  love 
of  liberty  and  religion,  by  the  toils  and  sufferings  of  their  pil- 
grim ancestors,  to  advocate  the  cause  of  moral  and  intellectual 
cultm-e.  What  examples  of  its  power  and  how  well  did  they 
justify  the  respect  paid  to  it  by  the  fathers  of  New  England. 
Could  they  have  looked  down  from  their  celestial  abodes,  upon 
this  gathering  of  their  descendants,  their  heavenly  benedictions 
would  have  descended  upon  this  public  endeavor  to  foster  that 
education,  which  they  honored  as  the  parent  of  national  liberty 
and  guardian  of  true  religion.  The  "  old  man  eloquent,"  who 
had  risen  under  the  plastic  influences  of  domestic,  literary,  and 
political  education,  to  the  highest  honors  of  the  republic  of  let- 
ters, and  the  republic  of  freedom  —  the  chief  magister  of  the 
Union,  who,  the  longer  he  lived,  was  the  more  a  republican, 
whose  knowledge,  in  his  latter  years,  of  the  political  history 
and  the  actual  condition  of  every  government,  every  dynasty, 
every  people  in  the  civilized  world,  was  more  extensive  and  ac- 
curate than  that  of  any  other  man  living ;  he  to  whom  the 
secrets  of  courts  and  cabinets,  of  kings  and  republics,  were 
alike  familiar,  who  in  wisdom,  as  well  as  years,  was  the  coun- 
sellor and  guide  of  the  friends  of  freedom  in  all  lands ;  what 
an  example  was  he  of  the  ennobling  benefits  of  education ! 
And  without  it,  what  would  have  been  the  late  great  orator, 
jurist,  statesman,  Daniel  Webster  ?  He,  whose  mind  was  be- 
lieved to  have  been  modelled  in  the  majestic  proportions  of  his 
physical  frame,  whose  eloquence  in  the  senate  fell  Avith  the 
force  of  the  club  of  Hercules  upon  the  hydra  form  of  disunion, 
and  whose  ability  in  the  cabinet  wrung  from  despotic  courts, 
unwilling  homage  to  the  majesty  and  power  of  republicanism  ; 
the  lofty  structure  of  his  fame  was  founded  as  much  upon  the 
advantages  of  education,  as  on  his  singular  natural  endow- 
ments. Last,  but,  his  years  being  considered,  not  least,  the  la- 
mented Rantoul,  cut  short  so  early  in  a  career  of  public  useful- 
ness and  enduring  fame,  not  inferior  in  the  substantial  acquire- 
ments upon  which  it  was  made  to  rest,  or  in  the  genius  with 
which  it  was  vindicated,  to  any  that  ever  graced  the  halls  of 
American  legislation,  or  gave  a  charm   and  a  blessing  to  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  71 

scenes  of  private  life,  he,  as  wonderful  for  varied  knowledge  as 
for  brilliancy  of  intellect,  most  happily  illustrated  the  beneficent 
results  of  an  ardent  pursuit  of  truth,  and  a  high  moral  culture. 
The  mere  presence  of  such  men  at  a  convention  of  the  friends 
of  popular  education,  was  a  noble  advocacy  of  the  cause.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  the  object  of  this  convention  was  soon 
accomplished  ;  its  failure  was  impossible. 

The  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education  was  established  in 
1836 ;  and  from  that  time  to  1842,  Mr.  Rantoul  was  one  of  its 
most  active  and  efficient  members.  He  not  only  attended  the 
meetings  of  the  Board  furnished  with  information  suited  to  its 
objects,  he  was  ready  to  work  for  their  accomplishment.  His 
zeal  was  guided  by  knowledge,  and  his  industry  was  indefati- 
gable. His  labors  in  that  office  were  congenial  with  his  tastes 
and  principles ;  for  he  felt  that  he  was  at  work  for  the  people, 
and  for  institutions  of  infinite  value,  depending  on  the  people's 
intelligence  and  virtue.  Long,  however,  before  these  public 
and  official  labors  in  the  cause  of  education,  Mr.  Rantoul 
proved  himself  its  active  friend,  by  addresses  from  time  to  time 
delivered  on  kindred  topics,  and  adapted  to  enforce  and  illus- 
trate its  importance.  In  subsequent  chapters,  some  of  these 
productions  will  be  given  to  the  reader.  He  v/as  early,  as  we 
have  seen,  an  advocate  of  those  useful  institutions  for  mutual 
information  and  improvements,  known  throughout  the  country 
under  the  name  of  Lyceums.  He  actually  originated,  at  the 
cost  of  considerable  effort,  several  of  those,  the  earliest  formed 
in  this  Commonwealth.  To  an  address,  extracts  from  which 
are  given  in  No.  6,  Vol.  I,  of  the  Workingmen's  Library,  (1834,) 
reference  has  already  been  made.  Its  subject,  "  Moral  Educa- 
tion more  important  than  Intellectual,"  is  ably  illustrated.  But 
as  the  leading  thoughts  and  valuable  sentiments  of  this  address 
are  incorporated,  with  additional  remarks,  in  an  article  of  his 
on  Education  in  the  North  American  Review,  (Oct.  No.  1838,) 
further  reference  to  that  earlier  production  seems  unnecessary. 
In  1839  was  published  Mr.  Rantoul's  "  Introductory  Discourse 
before  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction,"  which,  together 
with  the  article  on  Education  in  the  following  pages,  is  again 
presented  to  the  public.  In  the  same  year,  1839,  Mr.  Rantoul 
was  requested,  on  the  spur  of  a  sudden  emergency,  when  he 


72  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

was  pressed  for  want  of  time  for  other  engagements,  which  he 
deemed  indispensable,  to  prepare  the  "  Introdactory  Essay  to 
the  School  Library,"  a  series  of  works  sanctioned  by  the  Board 
of  Edacalion.  How  well  he  performed  a  task  so  unexpectedly 
imposed,  which  had  been  assigned  to  another,  and  for  which 
Mr.  Rantoiil  was  allowed  scarcely  an  hour  for  immediate  pre- 
paration, any  one  can  judge  by  turning  to  Vol.  I.  of  that  work. 
This  essay  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  readiness  with  which 
he  commended,  in  appropriate  extracts,  the  best  things  which 
had  been  said,  either  in  legislative  assemblies  or  by  distin- 
guished individuals,  in  public  or  private  life,  on  the  subject  of 
popular  education,  and  the  kind  of  books  best  suited  to  the 
dissemination  of  useful  knowledge  among  the  readers  furnished 
by  the  common  schools.  Its  republication,  however  desirable, 
would  scarcely  be  consistent  with  the  design  of  this  volume. 

On  the  whole,  the  labors  of  Mr.  Rantoul  in  the  cause  of  pop- 
ular education  will  long  be  held  in  honor  by  the  friends  of 
American  liberty,  and  especially  by  the  citizens  of  his  native 
State.  He  was  unquestionably  one  of  its  ablest,  most  con- 
sistent and  persevering  advocates. 

In  the  midst  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  professional  and  political 
career,  and  the  innumerable  calls  for  his  services  in  the  cause  of 
education  and  reform,  he  found  time  to  collect  and  arrange  a 
mass  of  materials  for  a  history  of  France.  For  this  purpose 
he  had  rendered  his  library  rich  and  voluminous  in  the  treasures 
of  French  literature  and  science,  necessary  to  an  accomplished 
historian  of  that  country.  Some  thirteen  hundred  volumes  of 
the  best  French  authorities,  which  he  had  selected  with  great 
care,  afforded  him  the  means  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  a 
subject  so  interesting  to  him. 

He  often  remarked  that  the  history  of  France  ought  to  be 
written  by  an  American ;  and  he  had  written  an  introduction 
to  such  a  work,  and  matured  a  plan  of  the  whole.  Had  he 
lived  to  complete  this  undertaking,  his  learning  and  talents  give 
ample  pledge  that  it  would  have  been  a  noble  monument  to  his 
fame. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  73 

REMARKS    O:^^   EDUCATION. 

FIRST    rUBLISIIED    IN    THE    NORTH    AMERICAN    REVIEW. 

1.  Tlie  Constitution  of  the  Commomcealtli  of  Massachusetts,  Chapter'  Fifth. 

2.  The  Revised  Statutes  of  the  Comiaonivealth  of  Massachusetts,  passed  November  4tli, 

1835,  Chapter  Tiventy-third. 

3.  An  Act  authorizing  the  Establishment  of  District  School  Libraries.     April  12th,  1837. 

4.  An  Act  to  establish  a  Board  of  Education.     April  20tli,  1837. 

5.  An  Act  concerning  Schools.     April  13th,  1838. 

6.  First  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education,  together  icith  the  First  Annual  Report 

of  the  Secretary  of  the  Board.  Printed  Document  of  the  Senate,  No.  26.  February 
1st,  1838.     pp.  75. 

7.  Report  of  the  Secretary/  of  the  Board  of  Education  on  the  Subject  of  School  Houses,  sup- 

plementary to  his  First  Annual  Report.  Printed  Document  of  the  Senate,  No.  80. 
March  29th,  1838.     pp.  04. 

8.  Report  on  Elementary  Public  Instruction  in  Europe,  made  to  the  Thirty-sixth  General 

Assembly  of  the  State  of  Ohio.  December  19,  1837.  By  C.  E.  Stowe.  Reprinted 
by  Order  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts.  March 
29th,  1838.     Printed  Document  of  the  House,  No.  64.     pp.  68. 

9.  Report  and  Resolves  relative  to  qucdifying  Teachers  of  Common  Schools.     Pr lifted  Doc- 

ument of  the  House,  No.  57.     pp.  8. 

10.  Abstract  of  the  Massachusetts  School  Returns,  for  1837.    January  1st,  1838.    pp.  302. 

11.  Resolves  relative  to  qucdifying  Teachers  for  Common  Schools.     April  19th,  1838. 

Perhaps  no  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  were  ever  more  deeply 
imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  providing  for  all  the  children  of 
the  community  a  wholesome  education,  than  the  Pilgrims  who  landed 
on  the  rock  of  Plymouth,  and  their  immediate  descendants  and  suc- 
cessors, the  founders  of  the  New  England  States.  They  indeed  seem, 
like  that  Eastern  monarch  wdio  excelled  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  in  the 
homely  wisdom  of  common  sense,  as  much  as  in  all  the  learning  of  his 
time,  to  have  regarded  the  training  up  of  the  rising  generation  in  the' 
way  they  should  go,  as  the  only  effectual  preparation  to  fit  them  to 
walk  in  the  path  of  virtue.  They  were  not  the  men  to  neglect  any 
known  duty ;  and,  accordingly,  their  conduct  evinces  an  anxious  deter- 
mination, from  the  very  first,  to  bequeath  to  their  posterity,  wisdom, 
knowledge,  and  virtue,  generally  diffused,  to  be  the  stability  of  their 
times,  their  trust  and  stay  amid  all  coming  dangers.  No  one  who 
reviews  their  early  legislation  can  fail  to  perceive  that  they  regarded 
Education  as  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  public  welfare,  the  essential  secu- 
rity of  the  highest  temporal  and  eternal  interests  of  the  mighty  family 
of  nations;  in  whose  majestic  march,  conquest,  and  occupation,  over 

7 


74  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND   WRITINGS 

this  newly  discovered  continent,  God's  Providence  had  ordained  them 
to  be  the  pioneers. 

If  an  undertaking,  commenced  upon  the  principles  of  Anglo- Ameri- 
lean  colonization  had  totally  miscarried,  if  the  various  obstacles  which 
the  adventurous  fothers  of  the  Western  world  were  destined  to  encounter 
had  forever  frustrated  and  extinguished  their  enterprise,  it  would  still 
have  interested  us  intensely  as  an  object  of  philosophical  curiosity. 
But,  when  we  know  that  it  has  succeeded,  and  consider  the  consequences 
of  its  success,  it  stands  out  in  prominent  relief  above  all  other  fixcts,  the 
original,  peculiar,  heaven-directed  phenomenon  of  human  history.  Love 
to  God  and  man,  freedom,  light  and  progress  were  the  guiding  and  gov- 
erning motives  of  their  holy  work.  When  we  look  back  npon  those 
chosen  instruments  of  our  redemption  from  the  fetters  v,diich  yet  bind 
speech  and  action,  nay,  thought  and  conscience,  in  the  world  from  which 
they  came  out,  their  magnanimous  purpose,  carried  into  eifect  as  it  was, 
with  the  stern  inflexibility  of  an  abiding  conviction  of  duty,  kindles  in 
our  hearts  a  glow  of  admiration  and  gratitude.  But  when  we  view 
their  great  design  accomplished,  and  regard  the  immensity  of  its  results, 
the  moral  grandeur  of  the  spectacle  rises  to  a  character  of  sublimity 
that  can  never  be  surpassed,  and  can  scarcely  be  paralleled. 

A  refined  civilization,  and  a  superior  political  organization,  at,  or  near, 
the  close  of  the  present  century,  will  have  peopled  the  States  of  the 
American  Union  with  one  hundred  millions  of  inhabitants,  and  children 
are  already  born  who  will  live  to  be  the  fellow  countrymen  of  more 
than  double  that  number.  Why  is  it  impossible  that  these  hundred,  or 
two  hundred  millions  of  human  beings  should  be  doomed  to  live  slaves  ? 
Because  their  fathers  were  educated  in  freedom.  Why  is  it  impossible 
that  they  should  grovel  in  sensuality,  or  debase  themselves  into  a  sordid 
selfishness  ?  Because  their  fathers  were  educated  in  Christianity.  Why 
is  it  impossible  that  they  should  groan  in  want,  dragging  out  their  exis- 
tence in  pauperism  and  misery  ?  Because  their  fathers  have  been  edu- 
cated in  the  application  of  the  sciences  to  the  useful  arts,  and  in  the 
prudent  and  wise  economy  of  public  and  private  duty,  of  social  and  do- 
mestic life. 

If  confidence  animates  our  anticipations,  and  hope  gilds  our  prospect, 
it  is  because  we  are  educated  to  the  capacity  of  enjoyment.  If  a  doubt 
sometimes  overclouds  the  future,  it  is  when  the  fear  steals  upon  us  — 
may  it  prove  an  idle  apprehension — that  we  shall  not  hold  true  to  the 
trust  confided  to  us,  and  that  the  cause  of  education  may  suffer  in  our 
hands.  Should  our  fortunes  come  to  that  issue,  we  should  be  left  with- 
out excuse  ;  the  whole  world  would  cry  out  against  us,  and  we  should 
condemn  ourselves,  degenerate  sons  of  noble  ancestors. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  75 

The  foundation  of  tlie  College,  and  the  instruction  of  all  the  children 
in  the  English  tongue,  the  capital  laws,  and  the  grounds  and  principles 
of  religion,  were  among  the  first  objects  of  attention  in  the  Massachu- 
setts colony.  In  the  Colony  Laws,  under  date  of  1642,  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing enactment :  — '^ 

"  Whereas,  through  the  good  hand  of  God  upon  us,  there  is  a  college 
founded  in  Cambridge,  in  the  county  of  Middlesex,  called  Harvard  Col- 
lege, for  the  encouragement  whereof  this  court  hath  given  the  sum  of 
four  hundred  pounds,  and  also  the  revenue  of  the  ferry  betwixt  Charles- 
town  and  Boston ;  and  that  the  well  ordering  and  managing  of  the  said 
college  is  of  great  concernment ;  Tt  is  therefore  ordered,  that  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Deputy,  and  all  the  magistrates  within  the  jurisdiction,  to- 
gether with  the  teaching  elders  of  Cambridge,  Watertown,  Charlestown, 
Boston,  Roxbury,  and  Dorchester,  and  the  president  of  the  college,  shall 
have  power  to  establish  statutes  and  constitutions  for  the  instituting, 
guiding,  and  furthering  of  the  members  thereof  in  piety,  morality,  and 
learning,  and  also  to  manage  the  revenues." 

In  May,  1650:  — 

"  Whereas,  through  the  good  hand  of  God,  many  well  devoted  per- 
sons have  been,  and  daily  are,  moved  and  stirred  up  to  give  and  bestow 
sundry  gifts,  legacies,  lands,  and  revenues  for  the  advancement  of  all 
good  literature,  arts,  and  sciences,  etc.  *  *  *  and  for  all  necessary  pro- 
visions that  may  conduce  to  the  education  of  the  English  and  Indian 
youth  of  this  country  in  knowledge  and  godliness ;  It  is  therefore  order- 
ed for  the  furthering  of  so  good  a  work,  that  the  college  shall  be  hence- 
forth a  corporation,  etc." 

The  act  went  on  to  grant  sundry  exemptions  of  their  lands  from  taxes, 
their  goods  from  tolls,  customs,  and  excises,  and  their  servants  and  offi- 
cers from  civil  and  military  services,  watchings,  and  wardings. 

In  1654:  — 

"  Whereas,  we  cannot  but  acknowledge  the  great  goodness  of  God 
towards  his  people  in  this  wilderness,  in  raising  up  schools  of  learning, 
and  especially  the  college,  from  whence  there  hath  sprung  many  instru- 
ments, both  in  church  and  commonwealth,  both  to  this  and  other  places, 
***  fearing  lest  we  should  show  ourselves  ungrateful  to  God,  or  un- 
faithful to  posterity,  if  so  good  a  seminary  of  knowledge  and  virtue 
should  fall  to  the  ground  through  any  neglect  of  ours ;  It  is  therefore 
ordered,  that  one  hundred  pounds  be  yearly  added  to  the  country  rate,  to 
be  paid  to  the  college  treasurer  for  the  behoof  and  maintenance  of  the 
president  and  fellows  of  the  college." 

Since  that  time  the  bounty  of  the  Colony,  Province,  and  Common- 
wealth, has  been  extended  to  our  ancient  University,  in  donations  of 


76  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

land  and  money,  to  an  amount  far  beyond  tlie  patronage  of  any  otlier 
State  of  our  Union,  to  any  other  seminary. 

In  May,  1042,  the  legislature  gave  their  attention  to  domestic  edu- 
cation :  — 

"  Forasmuch  as  the  good  education  of  children  is  of  singular  behoof 
and  benefit  to  any  commonwealth,  and  whereas  many  parents  and  mas- 
ters are  too  indulgent  and  negligent  of  their  duty  in  that  kind  ;  the 
selectmen  of  every  town,  in  the  several  precincts  and  quarters  where 
they  dwell,  shall  have  a  vigilant  eye  over  their  brethren  and  neighbors, 
to  see,  first,  that  none  of  them  shall  suffer  so  much  barbarism  in  any  of 
their  families,  as  not  to  endeavor  to  teach,  by  themselves  or  others,  their 
children  and  apprentices,  so  much  learning,  as  may  enable  them  perfect- 
ly to  read  the  English  tongue,  and  knowledge  of  the  capital  laws ;  upon 
penalty  of  twenty  shillings  for  each  neglect  therein. 

"  Also,  that  all  masters  of  families  do  once  a  w^eek  (at  the  least)  cate- 
chize their  children  and  servants  in  the  grounds  and  principles  of 
relio'ion  ;  and  if  any  be  unable  to  do  so  much,  that  then,  at  the  least,  they 
procure  such  children  and  apprentices  to  learn  some  short  orthodox  cat- 
echism without  book,  that  they  may  be  able  to  answer  unto  the  ques- 
tions that  shall  be  propounded  to  them  out  of  such  catechism,  by  their 
parents  or  masters,  or  any  of  the  selectmen  when  they  shall  call  them  to 
a  trial  of  what  they  have  learned  in  that  kind. 

"  And,  further,  that  all  parents  and  masters  do  breed  and  bring  up 
their  children  and  apprentices  in  some  honest  lawful  calling,  labor,  or 
employment,  cither  in  husbandry  or  some  other  trade,  profitable  for 
themselves  and  the  commonwealth,  if  they  will  not  or  cannot  train  them 
up  in  learning,  to  fit  them  for  higher  employments. 

"  And  if  any  of  the  selectmen,  after  admonition  by  them  given  to 
such  masters  of  families,  shall  find  them  still  negligent  of  their  duty  in 
the  particulars  aforementioned,  whereby  children  and  servants  become 
rude,  stubborn,  and  unruly  ;  the  said  selectmen  wdth  the  help  of  two 
magistrates,  or  the  next  county  court  for  that  shire,  shall  take  such  chil- 
dren or  apprentices  from  them,  and  place  them  with  some  masters  for 
years,  (boys  till  they  come  to  tw^enty-one,  and  girls  eighteen  years  of 
age  complete,)  which  will  more  strictly  look  unto,  and  force  them  to  sub- 
mit unto  government,  according  to  the  rules  of  this  order,  if  by  fair 
means  and  former  instructions  they  will  not  be  drawn  unto  it." 

And  in  1G54  :  — 

"  Forasmuch  as  it  appcarcth  by  too  much  experience,  that  divers  chil- 
dren and  servants  do  behave  themselves  disobediently  and  disorderly 
towards  their  parents,  masters,  and  governors,  to  the  disturbance  of  fam- 
ilies and  discouragement  of  such  parents  and  governors ;  It  is  ordered. 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  .  77 

that  any  magistrate  may  sentence  the  offender  to  corporal  punishment, 
by  whipping  or  otherwise,  not  exceeding  ten  stripes." 

Meanwhile  other  securities  had  been  found  necessary.  In  1617,  was 
adopted  the  following  provision  :  — 

"  Whereas,  sundry  gentlemen  of  quality,  and  others,  oft-times  send 
over  their  children  into  this  country  to  some  friends  here,  hoping  (at 
least)  thereby  to  prevent  their  extravagant  and  riotous  courses,  who, 
notwithstanding  (by  means  of  some  unadvised  or  ill  aifected  persons, 
which  give  them  credit,  in  expectation  their  friends  either  in  flivor  to 
them,  or  prevention  of  blemisli  to  themselves,  will  discharge  their  debts) 
they  are  no  less  lavish  and  profuse  here,  to  the  great  grief  of  their 
friends,  dishonor  of  God,  and  reproach  of  the  country ;  it  is,  therefore, 
ordered,  that  credits  given  to  minors  should  be  forfeited,  and  penalties 
incurred  by  minors,  by  means  of  their  creditors,  beyond  their  own  abil- 
ity to  discharge,  should  be  paid  by  their  creditors." 

And  in  1G51  :  — 

"Upon  information  ^f  divers  loose,  vain,  and  corrupt  persons,  both 
such  as  come  from  foreign  parts,  as  also  some  others  here  inhabiting  or 
residing,  which  insinuate  themselves  into  the  fellowship  of  the  young 
people  of  this  country,  drawing  them  both  by  night  and  day,  from  their 
callings,  studies,  and  honest  occupations,  and  lodging-places,  to  the  dis- 
honor of  God,  and  grief  of  their  parents,  masters,  tutors,  guardians,  and 
overseers ;  It  is  ordered,  that  whoever  shall  entertain  children,  servants, 
apprentices,  scholars  belonging  to  the  college,  or  any  Latin  school,  and 
shall  not  discharge  and  hasten  all  such  youths  to  their  several  employ- 
ments and  places  of  abode  or  lodging,  shall  forfeit  forty  shillings,  on 
conviction  before  a  magistrate,  or  commissioner  authorized  to  end  small 
causes." 

The  peculiar  glory  of  Massachusetts  is,  that  she  led  the  way  in  estab- 
lishing a  system  of  common  schools.  Not  to  keep  and  maintain  the 
schools  required  by  law,  has  been  an  indictable  offence  in  Massachusetts, 
since  1647.     The  following  is  an  act  of  that  year  :  — 

"  It  being  one  chief  project  of  Satan  to  keep  men  from  the  knowledge 
of  the  Scripture,  as  in  former  times  keeping  them  in  unknown  tongues, 
so  in  these  latter  times  by  persuading  from  the  use  of  tongues,  that  so 
at  least  the  true  sense  and  meaninc^  of  tlie  oriofinal  mif^rht  be  clouded 
and  corrupted  with  false  glosses  of  deceivers ;  to  the  end  that  learning 
may  not  be  buried  in  the  graves  of  our  forefathers,  in  church  and 
commonwealth,  the  Lord  assisting  our  endeavors ; 

"  It  is  therefore  ordered  by  this  court  and  the  authority  thereof,  that 
every  township  within  this  jurisdiction,  after  the  Lord  hath  increased 

ri  * 


78  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

them  to  the  number  of  fifty  householders,  shall  then  forthwith  appoint 
one  within  their  towns  to  teaeh  all  such  children  as  shall  resort  to  him 
to  wa-ite  and  read,  whose  wages  shall  be  paid  either  by  the  parents  or 
masters  of  such  children,  or  by  the  inhabitants  in  general,  by  way  of 
supply,  as  the  major  part  of  those  that  order  the  prudentials  of  the  town 
shall  appoint ;  provided  that  those  wdio  send  their  children  be  not  op- 
pressed by  paying  much  more  than  they  can  have  them  taught  for  in 
other  towns. 

"  And  it  is  further  ordered,  that  wdiere  any  town  shall  increase  to  the 
number  of  one  hundred  families  or  householders,  they  shall  set  up  a 
grammar  school,  the  master  thereof  being  able  to  instruct  youth  so  far 
as  they  may  be  fitted  for  the  university  ;  and  if  any  town  neglect  the 
performance  hereof  above  one  year,  then  every  such  town  shall  pay  five 
pounds  per  annum  to  the  next  such  school,  till  they  shall  perform  this 
order." 

The  religious  qualifications  of  teachers  were  not  overlooked. 

"  Forasmuch  as  it  greatly  concerns  the  welfare  of  this  country,  that 
the  youth  thereof  be  educated,  not  only  in  good  literature,  but  in  sound 
doctrine,  the  court  therefore  commends  it  to  the  serious  consideration 
and  special  care  of  the  overseers  of  the  college,  and  the  selectmen  in 
the  several  towns,  not  to  suffer  in  the  office  of  instructing  youth,  any 
that  have  manifested  themselves  unsound  in  the  faith,  or  scandalous  in 
their  lives,  and  have  not  given  satisfaction  according  to  the  rules  of 
Christ." 

In  May,  1671,  the  court  upon  weighty  reasons  judged  meet  to  double 
the  penalty  upon  towns  of  one  hundred  families  neglecting  to  keep 
a  grammar  school.  In  October,  IG80,  the  court  ordered  every  town 
consisting  of  more  than  five  hundred  families  to  set  up  and  maintain  two 
grammar  schools,  and  two  writing  schools.  The  Province  Law  of  1692 
reenacted  the  Colony  Laws,  except  that  of  1683. 

All  these  laws  were  found  to  be  less  effectual  than  the  legislators  had 
hoped,  and  from  time  to  time  measures  were  taken  to  enforce  them.  A 
colony  law,  reciting  the  requisition  that  all  children  and  youth  be  taught 
to  read  perfectly  the  English  tongue,  knowledge  in  the  capital  laws, 
some  orthodox  catechism,  and  some  honest  employment,  —  "  the  neglect 
whereof,  as  by  sad  experience  from  court  to  court  abundantly  appears, 
doth  occasion  much  sin  and  profaneness  to  increase  among  us,  to  the 
dishonor  of  God,  and  the  ensnaring  of  many  children  and  servants,  and 
is  a  great  discouragement  to  those  family  governors,  who  conscientiously 
endeavor  to  bring  up  their  youth  in  all  Christian  nurture,  as  the  laws  of 
God  and  this  commonwealth  require  ;"  —  orders  that  it  be  notified  to  the 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  79 

selectmen  in  every  town,  that  the  former  laws  must  be  obeyed,  and  di- 
rects lists  to  be  made  out,  and  returned  to  the  next  court,  of  all  young 
persons  who  live  from  under  family  government. 

In  1702,  it  was  recited,  that  the  school  law  was  shamefully  neglected 
by  divers  towns,  tending  greatly  to  the  nourishment  of  ignorance  and 
irreligion,  and  the  penalty  for  non-observance  of  the  law  was  fixed  at 
twenty  pounds  per  annum.  It  was  enacted,  that  the  grammar  school- 
master should  be  approved  by  the  ministers  of  the  town  and  the  two 
next  adjacent  towns,  that  no  minister  of  any  town  should  be  the  school- 
master of  the  town,  and  that  the  grand  jurors  should  present  all 
breaches  and  neglect  of  the  school  laws. 

In  1712:  — 

"  Forasmuch  as  the  well  educating  and  instructing  of  children  and 
youth  in  families  and  schools  are  a  necessary  means  to  proj^agate  re- 
ligion and  good  manners,  and  the  conversation  and  example  of  heads  of 
families  and  schools  having  great  influence  on  those  under  their  care  and 
government  to  an  imitation  thereof;  it  is  enacted,  that  none  shall  keep 
school,  but  such  as  are  of  sober  and  good  conversation,  w^ith  the  allow- 
ance of  the  selectmen,  and,  if  any  person  shall  be  so  hardy  as  to  set  up 
a  school  without  such  allowance,  he  shall  forfeit  forty  shillings  to  the  use 
of  the  poor  of  the  town." 

In  1718,  it  being  found  by  sad  experience  that  many  towns,  very  able 
to  support  a  grammar  school,  chose  rather  to  pay  their  fines,  the  penalty 
was  raised  to  thirty  pounds  on  towns  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  families, 
forty  pounds  for  two  hundred  families,  and  in  the  same  proportion  for 
two  hundred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred  families. 

In  17G7,  "whereas,  the  encouragement  of  learning  tends  to  the  pro- 
motion of  religion  and  good  morals,  and  the  establishment  of  liberty, 
civil  and  religious,"  school  districts  were  authorized  to  levy  taxes  to  de- 
fray the  charges  of  supporting  schools,  in  addition  to  the  taxes  levied  by 
the  tovv^s. 

In  framing  the  constitution  of  1780,  the  fifth  chapter  of  that  instru- 
ment was  devoted  to  the  University  at  Cambridge  and  encouragement 
of  literature.     The  second  section  of  that  chapter  is  in  these  w^ords. 

"  Wisdom  and  knowledge,  as  w^ell  as  virtue,  diffused  generally  among 
the  body  of  the  people,  being  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  their 
rights  and  liberties ;  and  as  these  depend  on  spreading  the  opportunities 
and  advantages  of  education  in  the  various  parts  of  the  country,  and 
among  the  different  orders  of  the  people  ;  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  legis- 
latures and  magistrates,  in  all  future  periods  of  this  Commonwealth,  to 
cherish  the  interests  of  literature  and  the  sciences,  and  all  seminaries  of 


80  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  AVPJTINGS 

them ;  especially  the  University  at  Cambridge,  public  schools,  and 
grammar  schools  in  the  towns  ;  to  encourage  private  societies,  and  pub- 
lic institutions  with  rewards  and  immunities,  for  the  promotion  of  agri- 
culture, arts,  sciences,  commerce,  trades,  manufactures,  and  a  natural 
history  of  the  country  ;  to  countenance  and  inculcate  the  principles  of 
humanity  and  general  benevolence,  public  and  private  charity,  industry 
and  frugality,  honesty  and  punctuality  in  their  dealings,  sincerity,  good 
humor,  and  all  social  aifections,  and  generous  sentiments  among  the  peo- 
ple." 

Under  this  Constitution  our  common  school  system  has  continued  to 
command  the  frequent  attention  of  the  State  Government.  June  25th, 
1789,  an  act  was  passed,  consisting  of  twelve  sections,  and  entitled  "an 
act  to  provide  for  the  instruction  of  youth,  and  for  the  promotion  of  good 
education."     This  act  sets  forth,  that, 

"  Whereas  the  Constitution  of  this  Commonwealth  hath  declared  it  to 
be  the  duty  of  the  General  Court  to  provide  for  the  education  of  youth ; 
and  whereas  a  general  dissemination  of  knowledge  and  virtue  is  neces- 
sary to  the  prosperity  of  every  State,  and  the  very  existence  of  a  Com- 
monwealth ;  it  is  enacted,  that  schools  be  kept  in  all  towns  according  to 
the  number  of  families  ;  and  in  towns  of  two  hundred  families,  a  gram- 
mar school ;  and  it  is  enjoined  on  all  instructors  of  youth  to  take  diligent 
care,  and  to  exert  their  best  endeavors,  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren and  youth  committed  to  their  care  and  instruction,  the  principles  of 
piety,  justice,  and  a  sacred  regard  to  truth,  love  to  their  country,  hu- 
manity, and  universal  benevolence,  sobriety,  industry  and  frugality,  chas- 
tity, moderation  and  temperance,  and  those  other  virtues  which  are  the 
ornament  of  human  society,  and  the  basis  upon  which  the  republican 
constitution  is  structured,  and  to  endeavor  to  lead  those  under  their  care 
into  a  particular  understanding  of  the  tendency  of  the  before-mentioned 
virtues  to  preserve  and  perfect  a  republican  constitution,  and  to  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty,  as  well  as  to  promote  their  future  happiness ; 
and  the  tendency  of  the  opposite  vices  to  slavery  and  ruin." 

Several  additional  acts  were  passed,  from  time  to  time,  the  essential 
provisions  of  which  were  consolidated,  with  some  alterations,  into  the 
Act  of  182G,  Chapter  143;  and  afterwards  embodied  in  the  Twenty- 
third  Chapter  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  on  which,  with  a  few^  short  sub- 
sequent acts,  and  the  original  constitutional  provision,  the  school  system 
of  Massachusetts  now  depends. 

It  is  not  to  be  disguised,  that  the  progress  of  our  Common  Schools 
since  the  Revolution  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  advancement  of  society 
j_enerally ;  but,  before  proceeding  to  discuss  the  present  state  of  the  sys- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  81 

tern,  its  defects  and  the  requisite  reforms,  we  trust  our  readers  will  in- 
dulge us  in  a  few  remarks  upon  the  all-important  subject  of  Education . 
itself;  upon  which,  to  avoid  tediousness,  we  promise  to  be  brief. 

What  is  education,  such  education  as  deserves  the  name  ?  Not  the 
getting  by  rote  set  forms  of  words  which  may  be  altogether  barren  of 
profitable  fruit ;  no,  nor  barely  storing  the  memory  with  the  information 
of  facts,  however  extensive  and  useful.  An  abundant  stock  of  these, 
judiciously  laid  in,  may  doubtless  prove  of  wonderful  advantage  in  tlie 
after  occasions  of  life.  But  education,  truly  and  faithfully  accomplished, 
is  the  full  and  well-proportioned  development  of  all  a  man's  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  capacities  ;  such  as  sends  him  into  the  conflict  of 
his  earthly  probation,  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body,  to  fulfil  the  dictates 
of  a  sound  heart.  Training,  aptly  administered  to  this  end,  fosters  and 
confirms  all  virtuous  dispositions,  checks  and  finally  eradicates  all  un- 
worthy propensities.  The  scholar  learns  to  scorn  ignoble  objects  of  pur- 
suit, and  wisely  bends  his  undivided  energies,  with  an  ingenuous  ardor, 
to  effect  the  liberal  purposes  of  a  comprehensive  benevolence.  He 
places  his  supreme  happiness  in  the  solid  satisfaction  of  duty  well  per- 
formed. He  knows  how  to  choose  the  right ;  and,  having  made  his 
election,  his  understanding  and  all  his  corporeal  faculties,  operate  in 
their  several  functions  in  due  subordination  to  realize  his  will.  He  is 
nerved  for  the  fight,  he  can  breast  himself  manfully  against  every  as- 
sault, he  will  triumph  victoriously  over  all  opposition,  for  he  feels  him- 
self strengthened  to  every  good  word  and  work,  both  in  the  inner  and 
outer  man.  "  I  call,  therefore,  a  complete  and  generous  education," 
says  Milton,  "  that  which  fits  a  man  to  perform  justly,  skilfully,  and 
magnanimously,  all  the  ofliices  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and 
war." 

Under  such  instruction  he  will  grow  up  to  understand  and  realize  his 
position  in  the  universe,  and  his  relations  to  his  fellow  creatures,  and 
what  it  is  incumbent  on  him  to  be  and  to  do,  by  virtue  of  their  mutual 
dependencies.  Society  has  done  much  for  him.  It  has  raised  him 
above  the  level  of  the  brutes,  and  he  owes  to  society  a  return, —  a  large 
return,  —  vastly  more  than  he  can  ever  pay,  though  he  were  a  Bacon 
or  a  Newton,  a  Lafayette  or  a  Washington ;  but  his  inability  to  repay 
all  does  not  release  and  cancel  the  debt  of  gratitude. 

There  is  an  indefeasible  obligation  upon  every  man  to  do  something 
for  the  world  he  lives  in.  He  should  ever  bear  it  on  his  conscience  to 
discharge  this  duty.  "With  the  blessing  of  God,  he  should  say  to  him- 
self, "  The  world  shall  be  somewhat  better  that  1  have  lived  in  it."  He 
who  does  not  say  this,  in  sincerity  and  truth,  is  no  nobler  than  the  beasts 
that  perish.     Morally  he  is  beneath  them;  for  they  act  up  to  their  light. 


82  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  feel  no  responsibility  for  whicli  they  are  not  ready  to  give  an 
account,  while  he  lives  in  the  daily  sense  that  his  part  in  the  world's 
work  is  unperformed.  While  he  yields  no  fruit,  he  only  cumbers 
God's  vineyard  ;  and,  when  he  is  cut  down,  but  few  will  mourn  over 
him. 

Far  otlierwise  is  it  with  him  in  whose  daily  meditations  philanthropy 
is  ever  present  as  a  governing  principle.  Who  are  the  truly  useful? 
To  whom  is  the  world  indebted  for  those  magnificent  benefactions,  which 
have  blessed  millions  and  generations,  —  improvements  in  government, 
advancement  in  religion,  and  in  civilization  ?  To  whom  are  mankind 
indebted  for  the  noiseless  but  resistless  progress  of  good  principles, 
W'hereby  greater  changes  are  effected  in  the  condition  of  the  whole  hu- 
man family,  than  have  grown  out  of  the  efforts  of  the  mightiest  con- 
querors, or  than  have  followed  the  most  renowned  revolutions  of  empire? 
To  those  whose  moral  education  has  fixed  in  their  hearts  permanent  and 
actuating  principles  of  conduct.  There  have  been  men  of  erudition, 
whose  memories  were  libraries  for  the  singular  benefit  of  their  asso- 
ciates, but  whose  learning  died  with  them.  There  have  been  men  of 
forecast  and  sagacity  unsurpassed,  —  our  own  times  have  witnessed 
some  of  them,  —  who,  having  no  rule  of  action  except  their  own  imme- 
diate advantage,  have  been  governed  by  circumstances,  instead  of  sub- 
jecting circumstances  to  their  own  control.  But  those  who  are  widely 
and  lastingly  useful,  are  the  men  upon  the  stability  of  whose  moral 
character  reliance  can  be  safely  reposed.  With  such  the  sense  of  duty 
is  habitual ;  and,  therefore,  even  if  they  cannot  boast  of  uncommon  tal- 
ents, extensive  acquirements,  or  a  broad  field  of  action,  still,  as  all  their 
acts  have  the  same  tendency,  their  influence  is  always  in  the  same  direc- 
tion ;  and,  operating  silently  and  unseen,  is  the  cause  of  meliorations  in 
the  moral  tone  of  society,  perceived  after  a  few  years  by  all,  but  under- 
stood while  they  are  going  on  only  by  a  few  reflecting  observers.  With 
such,  the  performance  of  duty  is  pleasant,  because  all  their  desires  are 
trained  to  accordance  with  the  moral  sense ;  and  they,  therefore,  do  good 
naturally,  and  as  of  course,  with  less  effort  and  internal  struggle  than 
the  bad  experience  when  they  do  evil. 

It  has  sometimes  been  strangely  questioned,  whether  a  popular  sound 
morality  might  not  be  the  natural  offspring  of  ignorance  and  delusion, 
and  whether  a  refined  education  did  not  weaken  in  the  soul  the  sanctions 
of  religion,  and  relax  those  bonds  which  hold  together  the  compact  of 
society.  But  were  it  not  blasphemy  against  the  God  of  truth  to  doubt, 
that  the  illumination  of  the  intellect  with  the  radiance  of  wisdom  infuses 
into  the  heart  the  love  of  virtue  ?  Goodness  is  the  imprint  which  the 
sense  of  truth  stamps  indelibly  upon  the  character.     All  noble  thoughts 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  83 

are  types  of  noble  action.  From  the  contemplation,  to  the  imitation  of 
ideal  excellence,  the  transition  is  natural  and  easy.  The  divine  light  of 
moral  science  sheds  a  clear  distinctness  over  our  true  interests,  and 
shows  the  path  of  duty  marked  in  a  bold  outline.  Before  its  purifying 
beams,  all  evil  thouglits  and  low  desires  vanish  as  the  noonday  splendor 
dissipates  the  mists  of  the  valley.  The  well-educated  man  stands  before 
the  world  the  image  of  his  Maker,  having  attained  as  nearly  as  may  be 
to  the  perfection  of  his  moral  nature.  lie  exhibits  not  merely  a  specu- 
lative but  an  active  virtue,  and  all  beholders  are  constrained  to  confess 
that  wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children. 

If  indeed  the  security  of  the  public  morality  reposed  on  the  public 
ignorance,  if  delusion  were  the  palladium  of  our  well-being,  miserable 
would  be  the  condition  of  humanity ;  for  ignorance  is  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  and  must  soon  pass  away.  But  the  progress  and  prosperity  of 
our  race  rest  on  no  temporary  and  precarious  reliance.  When  delusion 
has  died  of  old  age,  truth  will  still  flourish  in  eternal  vigor.  She  renew^s 
her  youth  like  the  eagle.  When  to  mortal  eyes  she  appears  vanishing 
for  ever,  behold,  like  the  young  sun  rejoicing  in  his  course,  she  rises 
again.  She  is  not  of  created  things,  and  is,  therefore,  exempt  from 
their  destiny.  God's  well-beloved  daughter  knows  neither  age  nor  de- 
cay. Before  the  w^ork  of  creation  began,  she  was  with  the  Father  of 
all  things  ;  and,  when  Time  shall  have  ceased  to  be,  she  will  stand 
before  his  throne,  and  still  bask  in  the  living  light  of  the  ineffable 
presence. 

It  is  not  merely  poetry,  but  the  ultimate  result  of  all  moral  argument, 
that  "  true  self-love,  and  social,  are  the  same."  "  This  is  the  foundation 
of  all  human  wisdom,"  says  Le  Pcre  Buffier,  "the  source  from  which 
all  virtues,  purely  natural,  flow,  the  general  principle  of  all  morals,  and 
of  all  human  society,  that  while  I  live  with  other  men,  who  equally 
with  myself  desire  to  be  happy,  I  must  try  to  discover  the  means  of  in- 
creasing my  own  happiness,  by  augmenting  that  of  others."  Cicero  re- 
garded it  as  the  basis  of  ethics,  "  ut  eadem  sit  utilitas  uniuscujusque  et 
universorum."  A  higher  authority  than  Cicero  has  established  a  whole 
code  of  duty  upon  the  maxim,  "  Do  ye  therefore  unto  others  as  ye  would 
that  others  should  do  unto  you." 

It  is  impossible,  therefore,  that  the  study  even  of  temporary  interests 
should  derogate  from  the  just  influence  of  moral  principles,  at  least 
while  conducted  on  broad  and  comprehensive  views  ;  since  there  is  no 
contrariety  betw^een  them,  but  rather  a  strict  conformity,  the  more  evi- 
dent as  those  interests  are  better  understood. 

-.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  that  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect  is  but 
a  part,  and  not  the  most  important  part  of  a  good  and  perfect  education. 


84  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

The  preeminent  wortli  of  moral  cultivation  slionld  be  strongly  impressed 
on  every  parent  and  teacher.  With  a  little  care,  many  salutary  pre- 
cepts may  be  instilled  into  the  minds  of  youth,  such  as  shall  deserve  to 
be  treasured  up  among  the  guiding  maxims  of  their  lives,  and  meditated 
upon  as  the  fundamental  principles  of  practical  wisdom.  These,  being 
firmly  rooted  in  their  memories,  will  help  them  to  form  solid  and  sub- 
stantial characters,  which  in  after  life  will  stand  the  test  of  every  trial. 
Correct  habits  must  be  acquired,  the  sovereignty  of  conscience  over  the 
whole  man  must  be  established,  the  power  of  self-reliance  must  be 
gained,  and  the  sentiment  of  independence  nourished.  Imbued  with 
virtuous  principles,  and  having  learned  to  prize  above  all  price  and  to 
preserve  at  every  hazard  the  testimony  of  an  approving  conscience,  the 
youth  goes  into  the  world  armed  at  all  points.  To  gird  him  with  this 
panoply  should  be  the  endeavor  of  his  moral  education. 

Almost  the  best  defence,  at  least  one  of  the  strongest  safe-guards  of 
morality,  is  the  feeling  of  independence.  If  the  world  thinks  that  to  be 
right  which  you  think  to  be  wrong,  follow  your  own  opinion,  and  pre- 
serve your  self-respect.  Consider  that  you  would  rather  be  honorable 
and  despised,  than  be  honored  and  despicable.  If  the  world  holds 
you  in  light  esteem  because  it  misunderstands  your  character,  every 
mark  of  disrespect  which  it  bestows  upon  you  is  a  certificate  of  the 
beauty  and  excellence  of  those  virtues  in  which  it  erroneously  supposes 
you  to  be  deficient.  But  if  the  world,  while  it  knows  your  character, 
disesteems  you,  because  the  principles  that  regulate  your  conduct  are 
above  the  received  standard  of  morality,  and  it  is  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating them,  retire  Avithin  your  own  bosom  and  enjoy  that  serene  con- 
sciousness of  rectitude,  which  can  sustain  undisturbed  the  hoarse  clamor 
of  popular  invective.  lie  who  has  the  fortitude  and  the  constancy  to  do 
this,  and  to  go  on  steadily  in  the  path  of  duty  visible  to  his  eyes  alone, 
experiences  not  merely  that  tranquil  satisfaction  which  a  sense  of  obli- 
gation fulfilled  brings  always  w^ith  it,  but  a  loftier,  nobler,  prouder  plea- 
sure, even  the  most  exalted  of  which  our  nature  is  susceptible  here  on 
earth,  that  unalloyed  felicity  which  is  the  prerogative  of  integrity  invin- 
cible amid  allurement  or  peril.  The  stern  and  solemn  joy  which  bore 
the  martyrs  triumphant  and  exulting  through  their  trials,  which  sup- 
ported them  and  gave  them  the  victory  over  shame  and  anguish  and 
death  itself,  is  the  due  reward  of  original  and  peculiar  virtue,  of  virtue 
manifested  in  spite  of  temptation,  —  in  spite  of  what  is  still  harder  to 
be  resisted,  ridicule,  opprobrium,  and  scorn. 

He  who  is  educated  as  all  the  youth  of  a  Republic  should  be,  his  vir- 
tuous dispositions  corroborated  into  fixed  habits,  his  knowledge  of  his 
own  powers  and  capacities  perfected  into  a  modest  but  confident  self- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  35 

reliance,  his  heart  steeled  with  the  inflexible  determination  to  guard  and 
preserve  unviolated  the  sanctity  of  his  own  self-approval,  while  an  en- 
lightened conscience  with  a  distinct  and  unequivocal  bidding  calls  him 
onward  and  upward  in  the  path  of  a  purer  morality,  though  the  blan- 
dishments of  fashionable  example  draw  him  backward  and  downward 
with  the  witchery  of  sympathy,  will  never  yield  to  the  seduction,  nor  be 
disobedient  to  the  dictates  of  that  monitor  whose  precepts  are  not  set  at 
nought  without  punishment.  He  will  not  follow  the  multitude  to  do  evil 
against  light  and  conviction.  The  mean  and  cowardly  abandonment  of 
principle  for  precedent,  the  despicable  dereliction  of  that  course,  straight 
though  solitary,  in  which  the  very  instinct  of  a  noble  spirit  urges  him 
on,  never  suggests  itself  to  his  contemplation  as  within  the  range  of  pos- 
sible alternatives.  Tie  will  not  sacrifice  that  pure  delight  which  neither 
the  smiles  of  the  world  can  give,  nor  their  frowns  take  away.  He  will 
not  surrender  himself  an  unwilling  and  a  miserable  slave  to  the  tyranny 
of  custom,  a  servitude  which  becomes  every  day  more  and  more  intoler- 
able, which  exacts  compliances  still  more  and  more  degrading,  which 
never  loosens  its  hold  till  it  has  reduced  the  spirit,  created  to  be 
free,  to  a  grovelling  dependence  on  the  decisions  and  caprices  of 
others. 

With  youth  so  educated,  we  should  have  none,  of  that  dissipation, 
without  relish,  endured,  under  a  secret  disgust,  for  fashion's  sake  ;  none 
of  that  servility  of  manners,  the  corruption  engendered  in  the  dotage  of 
feudalism,  preposterously  imported  into  the  wholesome  simplicity  of  a 
vigorous  republic ;  no  prevarication  in  business,  no  equivocation  in  pro- 
fessions, no  cant  in  criticism,  no  shuffling  in  politics,  no  temporizing  in 
morals,  no  hypocrisy  in  religion.  We  should  live  in  an  honest  and 
straight-forward  world.  Far  distant  though  the  dawning  of  this  millen- 
nium may  be,  it  is  none  the  less  desirable  to  hasten  it  onward ;  and 
though  it  were  taken  for  certain,  that  neither  we  nor  our  children  should 
ever  enjoy  the  full  fruition  of  so  blessed  a  state,  we  should  none  the  less 
strive  for  the  nearest  approach  that  we  can  attain  to  it. 

What  we  may  reasonably  hope  from  the  diffusion  of  education,  may  in 
some  degree  be  estimated  by  observing  what  it  is  that  education  has 
done  for  us  already.  It  has  constituted  the  essential  differences  between 
different  men,  and  also  between  different  nations.  It  is  the  correct  un- 
derstanding of  his  own  true  interests  that  makes  one  man  happily  virtu- 
ous, and  it  is  because  he  is  not  thus  enlightened  that  another  becomes 
miserably  vicious.  In  one  nation,  brutalizing  superstition,  abject  poverty, 
and  veneration  for  ancient  abuses,  forbid  improvement,  and  keep  the 
people  stationary  in  the  first  stages  of  their  natural  progress  ;  so  that 
generation  after  generation  drags  out  its  wretched   existence,   toiling 

8 


86  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

barely  to  support  life  and  to  secure  a  few  of  tlie  baser  animal  gi'atifica- 
tions,  because  no  ray  of  knowledge  has  pierced  the  thick  darkness  which 
envelopes  them,  to  discover  to  them  any  more  substantial  good,  or  to 
enlarge  the  narrow  horizon  which  limits  their  experience,  their  desires, 
their  hopes,  and  their  pleasures ;  while,  in  another  nation,  each  succeed- 
ing generation,  inheriting  the  full  capacity  for  happiness  which  its  pre- 
decessors possessed,  opens  for  itself  new  sources  of  enjoyment,  till  it 
reaches  the  most  refined  and  exalted,  diffuses  their  blessings  till  they 
become  accessible  to  countless  multitudes,  and  thus  purifies  their  pas- 
sions, advances  them  in  virtue,  and  raises  them  in  the  scale  of  moral  and 
intellectual  being,  because  divine  science  has  illuminated  their  minds, 
and  has  shown  them  the  inducement,  the  means,  and  the  practicability 
of  being  happy.  One  nation  grovels  in  slavery,  because  it  does  not 
know  its  rights  ;  another  preserves  but  a  small  portion  of  liberty,  because 
it  knows  not  how  to  defend  what  it  has  obtained,  or  to  regain  what  it  has 
lost ;  while  another  exults  in  the  unrestrained  exercise  of  its  energies, 
because  it  knows  what  freedom  is,  and  knows  how  to  value  and  to  guard 
it.  We  have  seen,  from  their  legislative  declarations,  that  our  fathers 
were  duly  sensible  of  this  great  truth,  and  that  therefore,  anticipating 
the  evils  which  ignorance  would  inevitably  bring  upon  their  posterity, 
they  established  the.  common-school  system,  —  an  institution  singularly 
well  calculated  to  perpetuate  general  information,  —  in  the  hope  that  we 
should  not  suffer  the  flame  of  knowledge  to  expire,  but  rather  keep  alive 
the  sacred  torch,  and  hand  it  down  from  age  to  age  with  undiminished 
lustre. 

To  show  the  whole  extent  of  the  change  produced  by  education,  and 
to  exhibit  it  in  the  most  striking  light,  we  might  take  that  bare,  forked, 
unsophisticated  animal,  the  human  savage,  examine  his  condition,  and 
mark  the  slow  degrees  by  which  he  rises.  His  instincts  are  less  clear, 
his  senses  less  acute,  his  strength,  and  swiftness,  and  vigor  less  extra- 
ordinary than  those  of  several  of  the  quadrupeds.  Necessity  drives  him 
to  observe  the  qualities  of  things,  and  to  take  advantage  of  such  as  he 
can  make  serviceable  to  his  purposes.  Nature  seems  at  first  sight  to 
have  treated  him  like  a  step-son.  She  sets  him  down  upon  the  barren 
waste  naked  and  houseless,  yet  needing  clothing  and  shelter ;  without 
swiftness  to  overtake  the  herds  that  wander  over  the  pastures,  or  force 
to  conquer,  or  weapons  to  defend  himself  against  the  fierce  monsters  that 
prey  upon  them ;  in  short,  destitute,  weak,  and  helpless.  Knowledge 
gives  him  clothing,  shelter,  food,  and  tools.  With  tools  he  constructs 
machines,  with  machines  he  manufactures  comforts  and  luxuries,  and 
with  all  these  he  accumulates  wealth,  for  his  own  future  enjoyment,  and 
to  bequeathe  to  his  children  after  him.     He  establishes  governments  to 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  37 

protect  his  life  and  wealth  ;  under  whose  wing  he  prosecutes  his  researches 
and  improvements,  till  he  considers  him  ignorant  whom  earlier  ages 
would  have  called  wise,  and  him  poor  whom  the  first  stages  of  society 
would  have  styled  rich. 

But,  without  insisting  upon  so  broad  a  contrast  as  that  between  man 
sunk  in  the  brutal  stupor  of  absolute  ignorance,  and  man  elevated  to  the 
highest  refinement  of  Christian  civilization,  let  us  consider  the  effect  of 
the  sudden  diffusion  of  information  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century. 

So  soon  as  knowledge  began  to  shed  her  beams  over  benighted  Eu- 
rope, the  beneficial  effect  of  her  influence  was  apparent.  A  spirit  of 
innovation,  a  spirit  full  of  hope,  though  sometimes  ill  directed,  was 
abroad  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation.  That  great  con- 
vulsion, though  it  did  not  free  faith,  at  once,  from  all  its  absurdities,  and 
though  it,  at  first,  only  restored  reason  to  a  divided  empire,  yet  delivered 
the  intellect  from  shackles  more  galling  than  any  that  yet  remain  ;  from 
venerable  superstitions  and  inveterate  prejudices.  Those  which  remain 
are  shaken,  and  totter,  now  that  so  many  collateral  errors  which  sup- 
ported them  are  overthrown.  Those  which  have  sprung  up  since  are 
temporary,  and  scarcely  to  be  feared. 

The  excitement  which  the  discussion  of  questions,  in  which  every  man 
felt  himself  so  deeply  concerned,  was  naturally  calculated  to  generate, 
the  political  considerations  with  which  they  were  complicated  tended 
still  more  to  heighten.  The  impulse  which  the  intellect  then  received, 
carried  it  far  beyond  the  intention  or  expectation  of  the  movers.  "We 
can  form  some  idea  of  its  influence  by  tracing  out  its  ramifications  into 
all  the  controversies,  theological,  metaphysical,  moral,  and  political  of 
the  present  day.  We  shall  not  overrate  its  importance,  if  we  ascribe  to 
it  all  the  superiority  which  the  Protestant  nations,  as  a  body,  may  claim 
over  the  Catholic.  In  learning  and  in  refinement,  in  wealth  and  in  en- 
terprise, Italy,  Spain,  and  Portugal,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  were  in  advance  of  Great  Britain,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Prussia, 
and  the  other  now  Protestant  states  of  Germany.  But  how  stands  the 
comparison  subsequently  ?  Their  history  since  that  time  has  been  that 
of  the  rise  of  the  Protestant,  and  the  decline  of  the  Catholic  nations  ; 
and  for  this  no  other  sufficient  reason  can  be  assigned  than  the  compa- 
rative freedom  of  thought  and  speech  in  the  one,  and  the  repose  and 
constraint  of  the  faculties  in  the  other.  But  the  contrast,  startling  as  it 
is,  does  not  exhibit  the  full  measure  of  what  \Ye  owe  to  the  Reformation. 
Even  the  Catholic  nations  have  been  compelled  in  self-defence  to  cultivate 
literature  and  the  sciences ;  even  they  have  been  led  to  reform  abuses, 
and  finally,  in  a  most  praiseworthy  degree,  to  practise  tolerance ;  so  that 


88  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

we  must  pass  to  the  credit  of  tlie  Reformation  not  only  the  superiority 
of  the  Protestant  nations,  but  also  much  that  is  excellent  in  the  conduct 
of  the  Catholics  ;  and  whatever  good  the  Reformation  may  have  effected 
is  to  be  primarily  attributed  to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  among  the 
people. 

If  we  examine  the  progress  which  those  occupations  on  which  the 
greater  part  of  mankind  depend  for  their  subsistence  have  made  in 
modern  times,  we  shall  find  the  same  cause  operating  here.  Not  merely 
the  increase  of  knowledge,  but  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  generally 
among  the  people,  has  produced  most  of  the  phenomena  of  our  present 
situation. 

Agriculture  was  formerly  carried  on  in  so  slovenly  and  improvident  a 
manner,  that  terrible  famines  frequently  devastated  countries,  which 
then  contained  not  half  the  population  they  now  support  in  plenty. 
Those  who  tilled  the  soil  had  no  immediate  personal  interest  in  the  profit 
or  loss  of  the  harvest.  The  land  was  in  the  hands  of  the  hereditary 
nobility,  and  there  it  would  have  remained,  if  what,  in  Europe,  are  called 
the  lower  classes,  had  continued  in  ignorance.  But  since  the  diffusion 
of  knowledge  has  brought  about  the  Reformation,  the  independence 
and  freedom  of  America,  the  French  Revolution,  the  downfall  of  the 
feudal  system,  and  the  consequent  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the 
laboring  classes,  agriculture  is  carried  on,  in  several  nations  of  the  world, 
by  those  who  reap  the  benefit  of  the  product.  It  is  no  longer  monopo- 
lized by  lords,  nor  cultivated  by  slaves.  In  those  countries  where  the 
land  is  in  the  possession  of  an  inteUigent  and  independent  yeomanry,  it 
has  become  a  garden  of  fertility.  The  dense  population  of  England  and 
of  Holland,  and  the  thirty  millions  of  France,  import  but  little  food,  and 
yet  are  better  fed  in  years  of  scarcity  than  the  scanty  and  beggarly 
population  of  the  same  countries  three  centuries  and  a  half  ago. 

Manufactures  also  owe  their  development  to  the  growing  importance 
of  the  new  classes,  to  v/hom  knowledge  has  given  wealth,  and  to  the  in- 
fluence they  have  had  in  altering  the  habits  and  wants  of  the  old  exclu- 
sive proprietors.  While  the  feudal  baron  lived  in  his  castle,  consumed 
the  harvest  of  his  domains  to  maintain  state  in  his  hall,  and  devoted  his 
surplus  revenue,  if  he  had  any,  to  service  in  the  wars,  or  to  quarrels 
with  his  neighbors,  manufactures  were  few  and  simple ;  but  since  the 
class,  having  numerous  wants  and  ample  means  of  gratifying  them,  has 
been  so  vastly  increased.  Philosophy  has  employed  herself  in  the  service 
of  the  useful  arts,  the  whole  force  of  chemistry  has  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  processes  of  manufacture,  and  ingenuity  now  invents 
more  machinery  for  cheapening  and  perfecting  operations,  in  a  single 
year,  than  formerly  would  have  sufficed  to  be  the  boast  of  a  whole  cen- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  89 

tury.  The  consequence  of  tliis  change  lias  been  the  amazing  facility 
and  rapidity  with  which  manufacturing  industry  multiplies  its  produc- 
tions ;  so  that  articles,  which,  fifty  years  ago,  were  esteemed  luxuries, 
are  now  ranked  among  the  ordinary  comforts  of  life,  and  the  daily  labor 
of  a  working  man  will  now  earn  for  him  a  reasonable  supply  of  many 
accommodations  and  pleasures,  which,  before  the  mechanical  age  com- 
menced, were  only  within  the  reach  of  the  wealth  of  princes. 

Internal  intercourse,  the  convenience  of  travel  and  transportation,  are 
almost  altogether  of  modern  growth.  Savages  have  no  roads,  and  yet 
without  roads  it  is  impossible  to  make  any  great  progress  in  civilization. 
You  may  have  mines  of  coal  in  one  county,  mines  of  the  best  iron  ore 
in  the  next  county,  and  both  be  useless  for  want  of  vehicles  and  means 
of  transportation.  A  bad  road,  such  as  the  roads  in  Poland  at  the 
present  day,  or  such  as  the  best  roads  in  England  two  hundred  years 
ago,  doubles  the  price  of  a  bulky  article,  like  wheat,  in  thirty  or  forty 
miles'  carriage.  Of  course,  with  such  roads,  there  could  be  little  traffic. 
Now,  thanks  to  the  genius  of  Clinton  and  Fulton,  bulky  articles,  such 
as  pork  and  flour,  are  furnished  to  the  consumer,  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  from  the  producer,  cheaper  than  they  could  be  raised  in  his  imme- 
diate neighborhood ;  and  the  cost  is  equalized  over  a  whole  vast  conti- 
nent. The  improvement  in  travelling  is  not  the  least  of  the  miracles  which 
steam  has  wrought.  In  1703,  Prince  George  had  occasion  to  go  from 
Windsor  to  Petworth,  about  forty  miles.  An  attendant  describes  the 
journey.  "  We  set  out  at  six  in  the  morning,  by  torchlight,  to  go  to 
Petworth,  and  did  not  get  out  of  the  coaches,  save  only  when  we  were 
overturned  or  stuck  fast  in  the  mire,  till  we  arrived  at  our  journey's  end. 
'Twas  a  hard  service  for  the  Prince,  to  sit  fourteen  hours  in  the  coach 
that  day,  without  eating  any  thing,  etc."  The  rest  of  the  account  is 
equally  dismal.  Now,  by  the  potent  urgency  of  steam,  one  rushes  from 
London  to  Liverpool  almost  with  the  speed  of  the  wind.  Before  the 
Revolution,  the  journey  between  New  York  and  Boston  was  quite  a 
serious  undertaking ;  now  you  take  your  tea  in  New  York,  enjoy  a 
night's  sound  sleep,  and  breakfast  in  Boston  the  next  morning. 

The  transmission  of  inteUigence  by  letters  and  newspapers  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  results  of  modern  information.  Nothing  important 
takes  place  in  Arkansas  or  Wisconsin,  that  is  not  known,  as  fast  as 
steam  can  carry  it,  from  Georgia  to  Maine.  Nearly  three  thousand 
newspaper  establishments  disseminate  it,  and  more  than  thirteen  thou- 
sand post-offices  forward  and  distribute  it,  receiving  more  than  four  mil- 
lions of  dollars  a  year  for  the  postage  of  letters.  These.facts  could  not 
exist  except  Avhere  the  power  of  reading  and  writing  is  universal.  Al- 
fred the  Great  complained,  that,  from  the  Humber  to  the  Thames,  there 

8* 


90  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

was  not  a  priest  who  understood  the  liturgy  in  his  mother  tongue,  and 
from  the  Thames  to  the  sea  they  were  still  more  ignorant.  As  late  as 
the  fourteenth  century,  Du  Guesclin,  constable  of  France,  the  greatest 
man  in  the  state,  and  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  age,  could  neither 
read  nor  write.  Of  course,  neither  Alfred,  nor  Du  Guesclin,  nor  their 
countrymen,  patronized  either  newspapers  or  post-offices ;  yet  how  much 
of  civilization  is  due  to  the  prompt  and  general  intercommunication  of 
ideas,  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine.  It  is  in  fact  the  application  of 
steam  to  the  process  of  thought,  transmitting  a  train  of  reasoning  com- 
menced in  one  mind,  to  be  completed  in  another,  though  a  continent 
may  intervene.  The  effect  of  this  division  of  labor,  and  multipli- 
cation of  laborers,  in  the  intellectual  world,  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. 

While  ignorance  confined  men's  Tiews  within  narrow  limits,  they 
scarcely  dreamed  of  appropriating,  and  bringing  into  common  use,  any 
thing  which  they  must  resort  to  distant  countries  to  obtain.  Before 
science  had  brought  navigation  to  a  higher  state  of  perfection  than  it 
ever  obtained  among  the  ancients,  it  could  not  have  ventured  across 
pathless  oceans;  since  the  discovery  of  America,  it  has  changed  the 
condition  of  the  world.  It  has  been  the  chief  source  of  the  great  accu- 
mulations of  capital  in  modern  times ;  it  has  been  the  great  promoter  of 
civilization,  and  has  done  more  than  any  other  agent  to  bring  about  that 
community  of  interest  and  of  feeling,  which  is  beginning  to  unite  nations 
in  bonds  more  durable  than  the  fragile  treaties  framed  by  jealous  poli- 
ticians. Through  its  benignant  power,  the  blessings,  which  Providence 
had  allotted  to  one  region,  are  participated  in  by  all ;  and  climates,  soils, 
and  countries  have  not  been  diversified  in  vain. . 

The  New  World  has  received  from  the  Old  the  invaluable  gift  of  a 
noble  race  of  men,  more  civilized  and  better  informed  than  ever  were 
colonists  before.  They  came  in  the  fulness  of  time  ;  they  have  estab- 
lished here,  where  they  were  embarrassed  by  the  obstacles,  which  still 
retard  the  progress  of  their  brethren  left  behind,  those  free  institutions 
which  are  the  admiration  of  mankind,  and  which  keep  alive  the  hope 
of  the  almost  desponding  patriot,  who,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
sends  up  his  ardent  aspirations  to  Heaven  that  he  may  enjoy  such  lib- 
erty with  such  protection.  The  New  World  is  repaying  to  the  Old, 
richly  repaying,  the  debt  she  owes  her,  by  the  example  she  holds  out  for 
imitation ;  an  example  whose  value  cannot  now  be  estimated,  but  which 
the  future  philosopher  and  historian  will  discuss,  as  well  as  record.  Not 
the  least  brilliant  trait  in  this  example  is  our  common-school  system, 
which  insures  the  perpetuity  of  that  wisdom  and  virtue,  which  are  the 
only  safe   foundation  of  republics,  an  institution  which  the  Prussian 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  91 

monarchy  has  not  liesitated  to  adopt,  and  in  some  respects  improve. 
Let  Massachusetts  take  heed,  that  Prussia  does  not  leave  her  behind  in 
the  career  of  improvement. 

The  aggrandizement  of  the  whole  society,  as  a  body  politic,  is  not  now 
so  much  the  object  of  good  government  as  to  afford  the  fairest  opportu- 
nities for  the  perfection  of  the  individual  character.  Having  observed 
those  momentous  revolutions,  which  the  dissemination  of  knowledge  has 
effected  through  the  world  at  large,  let  us  study  the  influence  of  educa- 
tion upon  the  individual. 

The  laws  of  hygiene  having  been  first  obeyed,  the  objects  of  educa- 
tion are  twofold ;  to  enlighten  and  instruct  the  understanding,  and  to 
perfect  the  moral  sense  and  form  the  heart.  The  first  of  these  is  subor- 
dinate in  importance,  and  subsidiary  in  purpose  to  the  second,  because 
the  intellect  is  only  the  agent  for  carrying  into  effect  the  determinations 
of  the  will.  If  these  determinations  are  righteous,  it  will  be  well  for 
mankind  when  vigorous  and  cultivated  mental  powers  are  subservient  to 
their  sway ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  iniquitous,  it  is  a  deplorable 
and  a  wide-felt  calamity,  that  talents  and  information  should  be  employed 
to  accomplish  them.  A  bold  bad  man  is  an  enemy  to  be  feared,  and 
watched,  and  hedged  in  on  every  side.  A  man  possessing  and  abusing 
the  highest  order  of  faculties,  natural  and  acquired,  should  be  shown 
less  countenance,  and  command  less  respect,  than  an  ignoramus  or  an 
imhecile  ;  for  all  the  deference  paid  to  his  formidable  eminence  is  so 
much  homage  to  the  power  of  evil.  Whatever  degree  of  influence  is 
yielded  to  him,  so  far  the  social  interests  and  the  public  and  private  vir- 
tues are  endangered,  or,  it  should  rather  be  said,  must  necessarily  suffer. 
Knowledge,  then,  like  all  other  power,  may  prove  a  blessing  or  a  curse 
to  him  who  wields  it,  and  to  those  who  experience  its  pervading,  over- 
coming strength,  operating  upon  their  condition,  circumstances,  and 
character. 

Knowledge  is  good  or  bad,  according  as  it  is  well  or  ill  used ;  and  how  it 
shall  be  used  depends  upon  the  moral  sense,  the  product  mostly  of  the  moral 
education.  We  cannot  say  of  a  confirmed  morality  that  it  is  good  or  bad, 
according  to  the  amount  of  knowledge  one  possesses  with  it.  Morality  is 
good  of  itself,  whether  one  be  well-informed  or  altogether  unlearned.  One 
may  hold  all  the  truth  in  unrighteousness,  and  deserve  the  more  to  be  con- 
demned because  he  holds  it;  but,  if  any  one  does  the  will  of  his  Maker,  if  he 
does  always  what  is  just  and  right,  though  ignorant  and  humble  and  desj^is- 
ed,  he  has  chosen  that  good  part  of  a  complete  education,  which  cannot  be 
taken  away  from  him,  and  without  which  all  the  rest  of  the  most  fin- 
ished education  that  genius  could  conceive,  would  be  only  the  worthless 
adorning  of  a  base,  superficial,  unsubstantial  hollow-heartedness,  covered 


92  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

with  an  outward  show  of  false  pretences,  but  destitute  of  any  fixed,  in- 
ternal, permanent  principle  of  conduct.  It  follows,  that  morality  is  to 
be  regarded  as  the  basis  and  foundation  of  the  character,  and  that,  to 
instil  into  the  youthful  breast  sound  moral  principles, — principles  of 
benevolence,  uprightness,  justice,  and  honor,  —  and  to  confirm  and  guard 
these  principles  with  such  belief,  impressions,  and  habits,  as  shall  make 
their  stability  through  all  possible  vicissitudes  of  life  almost  infallibly 
certain,  should  be  the  primary  object,  the  grand  end  and  aim,  of  a  well- 
directed  education.  In  accordance  with  this  design,  and  as  contributing 
most  eflectually  to  secure  it,  intellectual  cultivation  should  not  be  neg- 
lected ;  but  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  that  the  means  are  valuable  only 
in  so  far  as  they  conduce  to  the  end,  and  that  knowledge,  a  treasure 
above  all  price  in  the  service  of  philanthropy,  becomes  an  inexhaustible 
fountain  of  woe,  when,  pressed  into  the  employment  of  vice,  its  natural 
tendency  is  perverted,  and  its  mighty,  effective  energies  are  devoted  to 
the  infliction  of  evil. 

These  general  considerations  are  quite  sufficient  of  themselves  to  sat- 
isfy us  with  what  fundamental  views  w^e  ought  to  set  about  the  education 
of  our  children.  But  perhaps  the  conclusion  to  which  we  have  already 
arrived  will  be  impressed  more  deeply  on  our  minds,  if  we  examine  a 
little  in  detail  into  the  ordinary  consequences  of  moral  character.  Let 
us  cast  a  penetrating  glance  through  the  innumerable  varieties  of  moral 
disposition  and  of  external  circumstances  in  the  world  about  us,  and  in- 
quire whose  lot  and  situation  are  on  the  whole  desirable,  and  whose  are 
earnestly  to  be  deprecated.  It  will  be  easy  to  decide,  whether  happi- 
ness, usefulness,  and  genuine  wisdom  are  not  uniformly  to  be  found  as- 
sociated with  a  pure  morality.  If  it  is  apparent,  undeniable,  that  they 
are  so,  let  us  then  ask  ourselves,  whether  w^e  can  begin  too  early,  or 
labor  too  assiduously,  to  establish  broad,  solid,  and  lasting  foundations 
for  a  virtuous  character. 

Who  are  the  truly  happy  ?  Whatever  be  the  enjoyments  in  which 
we  make  happiness  to  consist,  it  will  still  be  a  demonstrable  truth,  that 
morality  furnishes  the  only  plain  and  certain  road  to  its  attainment. 

If  we  wish  to  derive  from  the  indulgence  of  our  senses  the  greatest 
aggregate  of  satisfaction  they  can  afford,  wealth  supplies  the  means. 
How  can  wealth  be  accumulated  ?  Various  as  are  the  expedients  of 
different  men,  one  general  rule  applies  to  them  all,  a  rule  so  universally 
recognized  that  it  is  condensed  into  a  proverb,  never  doubted  by  any 
man  endowed  with  common  sense,  the  rule  that  "  honesty  is  the  best 
policy." 

In  the  infancy  of  society,  when  the  right  of  property  was  but  little 
respected,  the  advantage  of  honesty  as  a  matter  of  policy  merely,  to  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  93 

few  who  practised  it,  must  have  been  small,  compared  to  the  benefit  of 
a  strict  adherence  to  that  virtue  in  times  when  it  is  generally  practised 
and  universally  professed.  Still,  in  the  rudest  savage  state,  a  code  of 
virtue  originates  in  the  necessities  of  men's  situation ;  simple,  yet  soon, 
from  its  obvious  utility,  approved  by  all,  and  enforced  by  public  opinion. 
The  necessity  of  good  faith  in  the  world  was  a  fact  felt  to  be  real  as  soon 
as  human  intercourse  began.  The  heathen  nations,  though  they  aban- 
doned themselves  to  the  practice  of  many  gross  vices,  were  so  sensible 
of  the  beauty  and  excellence  of  virtue,  that  they  applauded  philosophers 
who  taught  a  morality  almost  as  strict  as  that  of  modern  Christendom  ; 
and  so  correct  were  the  decisions  of  their  consciences,  as  to  draw  from  an 
Apostle  the  observation,  that  the  Gentiles  being  without  a  law,  were  a 
law  unto  themselves.  In  the  Roman  commonwealth,  during  the  earlier 
period  of  its  history,  the  sterner,  and  what  may  properly  be  called  the 
more  republican  virtues,  were  more  severely  practised  and  held  in  higher 
honor  than  they  have  ever  been  among  any  modern  nation,  from  the 
strong  conviction  rooted  in  the  breasts  of  that  people  of  their  expe- 
diency, or  rather  their  necessity  for  the  gratification  of  the  master-pas- 
sion, the  desire  of  aggrandizing  the  Roman  power.  As  society  has  be- 
come more  civilized,  it  has  been  seen  more  plainly,  that  mutual  confi- 
dence is  the  only  tie  that  can  bind  mankind  together  in  communities  ; 
and  that  a  general  observance  of  the  laws  of  morality  is  the  only  basis 
upon  which  mutual  confidence  can  be  durably  established. 

He  who  acts  in  defiance  of  these  principles  is  treated  as  a  common 
enemy.  Such  being  the  consent  of  all  men  in  civilized  society,  while 
they  all  agree  in  the  grand  outlines  of  general  morality,  and  not  only 
believe,  but  feel,  each  one,  a  personal  and  immediate  interest  in  their 
binding  obligation,  he  who  contravenes  them  sets  himself  in  controversy 
with  the  rest  of  his  species.  He  sets  himself  at  war  also  with  universal 
interests,  and  with  immutable  principles.  He  might  as  well  oppose  the 
order  of  physical  nature,  and  think  to  evade  the  law  of  gravitation,  as 
attempt  to  move  counter  to  the  elements  of  civil  society ;  in  either  case, 
and  just  as  infallibly  in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  the  result  must  be  his 
entire  discomfiture. 

Compare  the  general  results  of  opposite  systems  of  conduct.  Of  the 
artificers  of  their  own  fortunes,  rarely  can  one  be  found  who  has  built 
himself  up  by  the  force  of  a  superior  intellect  in  defiance  of  the  obliga- 
tions of  morality.  If  here  and  there  you  may  meet  with  a  single  un- 
principled and  profligate  example  of  undeserved  success,  who  seems  to 
be  basking  in  the  sunshine  of  prosperity,  suspend  your  judgment  awhile, 
and  mark  well  the  issue.  Almost  invariably,  some  sudden  catastrophe, 
the  consequence  of  his  violation  of  the  principles  of  rectitude,  arrests 


94  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

him  in  his  brief  career,  find  overwhehns  him  with  calamity.  But  of  the 
same  class  of  self-made  men,  fortunately  under  our  republican  institu- 
tions a  very  numerous  class,  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  have  risen, 
not  by  strength  of  talents,  but  by  an  unexceptionable  course  of  direct 
and  upright  dealing  in  all  their  concerns.  Turn  to  the  other  side  of  the 
account,  and  who  people  our  prisons  and  houses  of  correction  ?  Men 
not  wanting  in  talents,  but  of  unbalanced  minds,  and  irregular  and  de- 
fective development  of  character.  Men  born  with  capacities  for  great- 
ness and  goodness,  but  wrecked  and  ruined  in  the  outset,  because  their 
moral  education  has  been  neglected  or  conducted  on  false  principles. 
Men  mighty  to  perpetuate  evil,  to  corrupt  and  contaminate  others,  but 
imbecile  for  virtuous  action,  because  their  vilest  passions,  left  unchecked 
when  they  should  have  been  subdued,  have  acquired  a  vigor  and  energy 
which  conscience  cannot  curb  nor  prudence  restrain,  and  have  assumed 
the  complete  mastery  over  their  whole  nature.  The  inmates  of  prisons 
make  rapid  progress  in  all  the  mysteries  of  wickedness ;  yet  the  ablest 
of  those  pupils  of  sin,  once  discharged  from  their  dismal  abode,  are  the 
soonest  to  return ;  so  little  do  tact  and  skill  avail  an  individual  in  a 
struggle  with  the  universal  interests  of  society,  and  so  surely  do  vicious 
habits  and  propensities,  fastening  upon  him  like  an  incubus  which  can- 
not be  shaken  off,  bear  down  their  victim  with  a  pressure  under  which 
he  cannot  rise.  These  men  employ  talents,  oftentimes,  and  exercise  an 
ingenuity  and  an  application,  the  tenth  part  of  which  would  have  been 
sufficient  to  insure  success  in  any  prudent  course  of  virtuous  enterprise, 
but  which,  misdirected  by  the  impulses  of  a  bad  heart,  earn  for  them 
nothing  but  poverty,  wretchedness,  and  just  contempt,  and  only  sink  them 
deeper  in  the  abyss  of  despair. 

Thus  much  of  the  influence  on  our  condition  in  life  of  moral  charac- 
ter, the  product  of  moral  education,  treating  only  of  extreme  cases  ;  yet 
the  majority,  who  occupy  intermediate  stations,  are  subject  to  the  same 
laws.  Among  us,  few  are  absolutely  destitute  without  some  fault  of 
their  own,  though  multitudes  suffer  under  j)rivations,  if  not  extreme 
want,  who  are  honest  and  worthy  citizens,  or,  at  least,  never  guilty  of 
any  heinous  crime.  The  distress  of  far  the  greater  number  of  these 
may  be  justly  attributed  to  the  neglect  of  what  some  consider  to  be  mo- 
ralities of  lesser  obligation,  —  such  as  industry,  punctuality,  and  frugality. 
Though  idleness,  habitual  procrastination,  and  prodigality,  do  not  ordi- 
narily pass  under  the  denomination  of  crimes,  yet  they  are  morally 
wrong,  and  always  bring  after  them  heavy  punishments.  They  are, 
moreover,  the  most  prolific  sources  of  intemperance,  and  intem.perance 
is  the  parent  of  every  woe  and  crime.  A  correct  moral  education, 
therefore,  would  remove  most  of  the  causes  of  poverty,  as  well  as  of 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  95 

much  greater  evils,  by  making  men  industrious,  prompt,  punctual,  frugal, 
and  temperate. 

When  we  speak  of  the  beneficial  effect  of  such  an  education  on  the 
pecuniary  circumstances  of  the  next  generation,  we  are  far  from  inti- 
mating that  there  are  not  other  interests  involved  of  much  more  mo- 
mentous importance.  Heaven  forbid  that  morality  should  ever  be  dis- 
severed from  religious  motives,  and  debased  to  a  sordid  calculation  of 
profit  and  loss  ;  bereft  of  that  life-giving  spirit,  which  elevates  and  en- 
nobles it,  which  extends  its  sphere  beyond  the  narrow  confines  of  self, 
and  pushes  its  prospective  vision  further  than  time  can  limit  or  space 
can  bound. 

Wealth  is  not  only  fleeting  ;  it  is  neither  the  sole,  nor  the  best  founda- 
tion on  which  to  rest  our  hopes  of  happiness,  even  while  it  lasts.  Re- 
spectability of  character  is  of  far  higher  value,  and  much  less  likely  to  be 
lost  through  the  caprices  of  fortune.  It  would  be  a  waste  of  words  to 
show,  that  an  unspotted  moral  life  must  confer  respectability,  and  that 
respect  derived  from  whatever  qualities,  without  this,  must  be  short-lived 
and  of  little  worth.  Equally  self-evident  is  it,  that  those  who  live  in  the 
constant  practice  of  moral  duty,  though  wealth  and  respect  should  both 
desert  them,  have  internal  resources  for  consolation  of  which  they  cannot 
be  deprived.  He  who  possesses  a  conscience  void  of  otFence  is  passing 
rich,  whether  he  has  much  or  little  of  this  world's  goods.  He  who  is  not 
afraid  to  be  alone  with  his  Maker,  is  independent  of  the  smiles  or  frowns 
of  the  world.  The  sunshine  of  prosperity,  the  tempest  of  adversity, 
neither  seduce  nor  terrify  his  steadfast  soul.  The  basis  on  which  his 
happiness  is  fixed,  the  immovable,  imperturbable  basis  of  a  good  con- 
science, he  owes  to  a  good  moral  education. 

For  the  purposes  of  such  an  education  as  we  have  described,  our  cctoi- 
mon  schools  are,  as  yet,  it  must  be  confessed,  lamentably  deficient.  The 
virtuous  impulses  which  swell  the  heart  of  this  great  nation  were  hardly 
imparted  there.  The  schools  have  done  much  for  the  intellect,  furnish- 
ing the  rudiments  of  knowledge,  which  their  pupils  have  improved  after- 
wards. Indirectly,  they  have  done  much  for  sound  morals,  because  all 
good  learning  has  a  wholesome  influence  ;  but  their  direct  action  upon 
moral  character  has  never  been  all  that  it  should  be.  Parental  instruc- 
tion and  guidance  have  formed  the  hearts  of  this  generation  ;  and,  where 
these  have  been  wanting,  youth  have  been  left  to  be  the  sport  of  casual 
associations  and  accidental  circumstances.  Of  course,  in  the  forming 
period  of  life,  much  must  always  depend  on  right  beginnings ;  our  re- 
liance is  mainly,  in  the  first  instance,  upon  maternal  care,  and  afterwards 
on  both  the  parents.     But  the  school  must  not  stand  neutral ;  it  must 


96  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

be  brought  forward,  and  made  to  fulfil  its  part,  as  the  most  powerful 
auxiliary. 

Universal  education,  a  higher  education,  such  as  shall  put  to  shame 
not  past  ages  only,  but  the  present,  must  be  provided  for.  The  want  is 
felt,  and  will  not  longer  be  endured  without  a  strenuous  effort  to  meet  it. 
The  philanthropist,  the  patriot,  and  the  Christian  feel  the  urgent  need 
of  a  generous  development  of  the  noblest  powers  and  faculties,  and  the 
richest  affections  of  our  common  nature,  through  that  dull  mass  of  hu- 
manity in  whom  they  now  slumber  inert  and  almost  lifeless.  The  refine- 
ment of  taste,  which,  without  intellectual  and  moral  cultivation,  ends  only 
in  elegant  imbecility ;  financial  prosperity,  which,  if  not  pressed  into  the 
service  of  virtue,  may  be  prostituted  to  engender  corruption  ;  absorbing 
political  interests,  w^iich  convulse  the  Union  to  its  centre,  and  which  un- 
hallowed ambition  may  pervert  to  the  destruction  of  freedom,  all  these 
are  insignificant,  are  as  nothing  and  less  than  nothing,  compared  with 
this  paramount  necessity.  The  cry  of  the  age  is  for  true  education.  Its 
advent  is  longed  for,  and  prayed  for,  and  believed  in.  It  seems  just 
bursting  above  our  moral  horizon,  radiant  with  knowledge  and  virtue, 
shedding  light  into  the  understanding,  and  pouring  warmth  into  the 
heart,  a  genial  sun  whose  beams  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 
Glorious  visions  of  future  progress,  and  blessed  omens  of  their  coming 
consummation  throng  upon  the  soul,  and  fill  it  with  comfort  and  joy, 
when  the  evidences  of  the  earnest  awakening  of  mankind,  under  the 
vivifying  and  quickening  influences  of  this  bright-dawning  era,  present 
themselves  to  our  view. 

How  is  the  great  work  to  be  accomplished  ?  "What  are  our  means  of 
levelling  the  fortifications,  impregnable  since  the  creation  of  the  w^orld, 
in  which  ignorance  and  vice  have  entrenched  themselves  ?  Hope,  wdiich 
was  Cicsar's  only  portion  when  he  went  into  Gaul ;  faith  in  man's  high 
nature  and  destiny  ;  the  ardent  enthusiasm  which  the  grand  object  to  be 
attained  inspires  ;  the  unquenchable  zeal  already  active,  and  which  will 
never  rest,  nor  pause,  till  the  victory  is  achieved,  and  darkness  abdicates 
her  narrowed  empire. 

It  is  manifest  that  the  people  themselves  must  be  the  immediate  agents 
in  the  revolution.  Impressed  with  its  usefulness,  aware  that  the  time 
has  come  for  a  seasonable  effort,  prepared  to  submit  to  sacrifices,  and 
determined  to  overcome  difficulties,  it  is  in  their  power  to  begin  and 
complete  in  a  few  years  a  wonderful  change,  extending  to  the  entire  re- 
generation of  society.  The  humblest  laborer  in  the  undertaking  will 
reap,  in  his  own  personal  share  of  the  benefit,  an  adequate  remuneration 
for  all  his  toil ;  while  the  loftiest  ambition  may  well  be  allured  to  earn 


JR.  97 

and  win  the  enduring  honor  of  so  brilhant  and  dazzhng  an  enterprise. 
Ignorance  will  not  fall  an  easy  prey  ;  he  has  survived  many  attacks,  he 
has  grown  old  in  dominion,  he  will  die  with  harness  at  his  back ;  but 
perish  he  must,  if  history  teaches  any  sure  lesson,  if  there  be  any  thing 
certain  in  philosophy,  if  the  steady  march  of  improvement  be  not  a 
dream,  if  the  omnipotence  of  truth  be  not  a  fable,  if  our  kind  Father  did 
not  create  ug  to  be  from  age  to  age  the  bondmen  of  error.  None  doubt 
it,  save  the  stony-ground  hearers  of  nature's  teachings,  in  whose  minds 
the  experience  of  the  world  is  barren  of  consequences. 

When  the  enlightened  and  the  virtuous  fully  realize  their  responsibility 
in  this  matter,  as  the  signs  of  the  times  convince  us  they  do  in  some  good 
degree  already,  public  opinion  will  imperatively  demand  a  more  elevated 
standard  of  youthful  education.  A  legislative  expression  of  this  demand, 
even  if  government  went  no  further,  would  carry  with  it  great  weight. 
Such  an  expression  emanated  from  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  in 
the  act  of  April  20,  1837. 

By  that  act  a  Board  of  Education  was  established,  having  the  general 
superintendence  of  the  common-school  system  of  the  State,  and  required 
to  report  to  the  legislature  all  their  doings,  with  such  observations  as 
their  experience  and  reflection  may  suggest,  uj^on  the  condition  and  effi- 
ciency of  our  system  of  popular  education,  and  the  most  practicable 
means  of  improving  and  extending  it.  Their  first  annual  report  was 
submitted  on  the  1st  of  February  last,  and  is  now  before  the  public,  in- 
cluding the  first  report  of  their  secretary,  in  a  pamphlet  of  seventy-five 
pages. 

Individuals  may  contribute  to  raise  the  popular  standard  of  education, 
by  their  direct  personal  influence  in  society,  by  written  discussions  of 
the  subject,  in  the  newspapers  and  other  periodicals,  as  well  as  occasional 
publications,  and  through  the  reports  of  school  committees,  which  are,, 
by  the  act  of  April  11,  1838,  required  to  be  made  annually,  "  designat- 
ing particular  improvements  and  defects  in  the  methods  or  means  of 
education,  and  stating  such  facts  and  suggestions  in  relation  thereto,  as 
in  their  opinion  will  best  promote  the  interests  and  increase  the  useful- 
ness of  said  schools,"  and  to  be  read  in  open  town-meeting,  or  printed 
and  distributed  for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants.  By  delivering  or  promot- 
ing public  lectures,  and  by  assisting  in  the  formation  and  management 
of  associations  for  collecting  and  diffusing  information  on  the  subject,  or 
by  cooperating  with  the  Board  of  Education  in  its  efforts  for  this  purpose, 
or,  though  last,  not  least,  by  furnishing  pecuniary  means,  the  good  work 
may  be  hastened  on. 

The  act  of  12th  April,  1837,  authorizes  an  expenditure  of  thirty  dol- 
lars for  the  first  year,  and  ten  dollars  for  every  subsequent  year,  by  each 

9 


98  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

school  district  in  the  Commonwealth,  for  the  purchase  of  a  district  school 
library.  These  sums,  small  as  they  are,  will  be  found,  in  the  present 
economy  of  printing,  amj^ly  sufficient  for  the  object.  In  a  very  few 
years,  they  will  command  a  library  of  more  than  two  hundred  volumes, 
which,  if  judiciously  selected,  may  be  made  to  contain  more  profitable 
and  instructive  reading  than  is  now  to  be  found  within  the  limits  of  the 
district,  in  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  whole  number  now  in-  the  State. 
We  speak  advisedly  upon  this  point.  We  have  at  this  moment  beside 
us  a  pile  of  from  sixty  to  seventy  volumes,  selected  with  a  view  to  this 
object,  mostly  duodecimos,  of  two  or  three  hundred  pages  ;  and  we 
know  many  gentlemen  in  the  learned  professions,  of  good  estate,  and 
residing  in  our  large  towns,  w^hose  libraries  do  not  include  half  the 
amount  of  really  valuable  matter.  It  is  understood,  that  a  neat  edition 
of  fifty  volumes,  approved  by  the  Board  of  Education  as  suitable  for 
common-school  libraries,  is  about  to  be  published  and  sold  at  a  very 
moderate  rate,  plainly  and  substantially  bound,  and  placed  in  cases  well 
adapted  for  convenient  transportation,  and  afterwards  to  serve  as  the 
permanent  place  of  deposit. 

It  is  highly  desirable  that  every  school  district  should  avail  itself  of 
this  provision  of  the  law.  These  books,  being  fitted  for  common  use, 
would  pass  from  the  scholar  into  the  family,  and  increase  the  interest  of 
parents  in  the  better  education  of  their  children,  by  giving  them  new 
views  of  its  value. 

Much  good  might  unquestionably  be  effected  by  the  publication  of  a 
periodical  journal,  of  which  the  exclusive  object  should  be  to  promote 
the  cause  of  common-school  education.  Such  a  journal,  devoted  to  col- 
lecting and  diffusing  information  on  this  subject,  to  the  discussion  of  the 
numerous  important  questions  which  belong  to  it,  to  the  formation  of  a 
sound  and  intelligent  public  opinion,  and  the  excitement  of  a  warm  and 
energetic  public  sentiment,  might  render  incalculable  service.  The 
Board  of  Education  are  decidedly  of  opinion,  that  a  journal  of  this  de- 
scription would  be  the  most  valuable  auxiliary  which  could  be  devised 
to  carry  into  execution  the  enlightened  policy  of  the  government  in 
legislating  for  the  improvement  of  the  schools,  and  they  indulge  a  most 
sanguine  hope  that  it  will  shortly  be  established  under  such  auspices  as 
will  go  far  to  insure  its  success. 

After  all,  the  great  work  of  reformation  is  to  be  effected  in  the  schools 
themselves,  and  in  the  qualifications  of  the  teachers  more  especially. 
One  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  this  improvement  is,  the  little  interest 
taken  by  the  most  enlightened  part  of  the  community,  we  speak  it  with 
regret,  in  the  condition  of  the  common  schools,  from  the  circumstance 
that  their  own  children  are  receiving  education  in  private  schools  at 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  99 

their  own  expense.  This  naturally  leads  to  a  remissness  and  neglect, 
which  can  by  no  means  be  justified,  on  the  part  of  those  who  arc  most 
strongly  bound  by  every  consideration  to  concern  themselves  in  the  im- 
provement of  education.  The  number  of  scholars  in  private  scliools 
appears  by  the  returns  to  be  twenty-seven  thousand  two  hundred  and 
sixty-six,  vrhile  the  whole  number  of  children  in  the  State,  between  the 
ages  of  four  and  sixteen  years,  stands  in  the  returns,  one  hundred  and 
seventy-seven  thousand  and  fifty-three.  From  the  nature  of  our  politi- 
cal institutions,  these  thirty  thousand  will  not  control  the  political  des- 
tiny of  the  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  thirty  years  hence,  but  just  the 
reverse.  The  five-sixths  will  fix  the  standard  of  taste,  of  morality,  and 
of  general  conduct,  to  which  the  one  sixth  will  conform,  and  above 
which  very  few  only,  with  infinite  labor,  can  raise  them.selves.  Tlie 
five-sixths  will  possess  the  legislative  authority,  elect  the  executive,  and 
thereby  fill  the  judiciary,  according  to  their  own  notions  of  expediency 
and  right.  They  are  to  have,  then,  the  disposal  of  property,  life,  and 
liberty  for  their  generation,  and  are  so  to  mould  and  modify  the  institu- 
tions of  their  country  as  powerfully  to  influence,  for  good  or  evil,  the 
generation  that  shall  come  after  them.  Could  they  be  left,  as  happily 
they  cannot  be,  to  grow  up  in  political  and  moral  profligacy,  in  the  un- 
restrained indulgence  of  their  bad  passions,  an  individual,  or  a  class  of 
men,  of  superior  wealth  and  education,  would  be  merely  at  their  mercy, 
a  feather  upon  a  stormy  sea.  No  man  is  independent  of  the  public  im- 
mediately about  him.  He  is  elevated  by  its  good  influences,  even 
though  his  early  education  was  defective.  He  is  debased  by  the  daily 
spectacle  and  contact  of  debasement,  and,  though  fitted  for  better  things, 
generally  sinks  into  the  surrounding  mass  of  corruption.  If  there  be 
any  who  are  deaf  to  the  voice  of  patriotism,  philanthropy,  and  duty,  let 
them  at  least  regard  the  welfare  of  their  own  offspring.  The  public 
opinion  of  our  times  is  the  moral  atmosphere  wliich  we  all  breathe  in 
common.  If  it  be  wholesome,  it  invigorates  and  sustains  us  ;  if  poison- 
ous, we  all  languish,  and  the  feeble  perish.  How  imperative  the  obliga- 
tion, and  grateful  the  task  to  preserve  its  purity  ;  how  fatal  its  contami- 
nation, and  how  censurable  is  their  supineness  through  whose  fault  we 
are  put  in  peril. 

We  are  all  embarked  in  one  bottom,  and  must  sink  or  swim  together. 
Will  not  the  sharp-sighted  look  to  it,  that  the  ship  be  sea-v/ortliy  and 
preclude  betimes  avoidable  dangers  ? 

The  amount  paid  for  tuition  in  private  schools,  for  one-sixth  of  the 
children  of  the  State,  is  three  hundred  and  twenty-eight  thousand  dol- 
lars ;  Vv'hile  the  amount  raised  by  taxes  for  the  education  of  the  other 
five-sixths  in  pubhc  schools  is  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  thousand,  and 


100  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

the  amonnt  voluntarily  contributed  to  the  public  schools  is  forty-eight 
thousand  dollars."  If  these  sums  were  added  together,  and  the  whole 
•eight  or  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  were  judiciously  applied  to  com- 
mon-school education,  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that  all  the  children  might 
receive  a  higher  order  of  instruction  than  now  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  fa- 
vored sixth  part. 

The  value  of  the  annual  products  of  the  industry  of  Massachusetts  is 
■about  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  of  which  less  than  one  per  cent, 
is  appropriated  to  the  education  of  children,  and  less  than  ten  per  cent, 
is  saved  at  the  end  of  the  year  to  be  added  to  previous  accumulations 
which  form  the  permanent  capital  of  the  State.  If  two  per  cent,  of  this 
annual  product  were  devoted  to  education,  is  it  not  probable,  that  the 
product  itself  would  be  greatly  enlarged,  and  a  better  economy  intro- 
duced into  the  expenditure  of  it,  so  that  this  addition  to  the  permanent 
capital  might  be  much  more  rapid  ?  AYe  do  not  doubt,  that  the  best 
education  within  the  ^^ower  of  every  town  in  this  Commonwealth  would 
in  thirty  years'  time  double  the  rate  at  which  wealth  increases. 

If  private  schools  were  discountenanced,  and  those  who  now  support 
theni  would  turn  their  attention  to  the  improvement  of  our  common 
schools,  the  additional  funds  turned  into  this  channel  would  be  but  a 
small  part  of  the  benefit  derived  from  the  alteration.  Those  who  set 
the  highest  value  on  education,  and  are  determined  at  all  costs  to  secure 
its  blessings  to  their  own  children,  instead  of  standing  aloof  from  the 
general  concerns,  as  too  many  of  them  now  do,  would  be  foremost  in 
their  zeal  for  the  district  schools,  acting  on  committees,  visiting  the 
schools,  selecting  the  teachers,  advising  and  assisting  them,  contributing 
to  their  support,  and  to  the  erection  of  better  houses,  and  the  purchase 
of  better  furniture,  apparatus,  and  libraries.  There  would  also  be 
thrown  into  the  district  and  town  schools  a  class  of  scholars  more 
thoroughly  educated  already  at  the  private  schools,  whose  example 
would  give  a  quickening  impulse  to  emulation;  and,^as  those  parents 
who  have  been  willing  to  pay  for  private  tuition  are  generally  those  who 
take  most  pains  with  their  children  at  home,  these  children  would  con- 
<tinue  to  impart  a  good  influence  to  the  rest  of  the  school,  even  after  the 
immediate  effect  of  the  first  infusion.  A  combined  effort  will  produce  a 
wonderful  improvement.  The  district  school  in  the  central  village  of  the 
town  will  no  longer  be,  as  it  often  is,  the  poorest  in  its  whole  territory, 
but  it  will  be  elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  model  for  the  rest,  and  they  w^ill 
;all  gladly  profit  by  the  opportunity  for  imitation. 

As  soon  as  those  who  have  withdrawn  their  children,  because  they 
were  dissatisfied  with  the  character  of  our  common  schools,  come  again 
to  take  a  personal  interest  in  their  prosperity,  there  will  be  an  active 


OF  EGBERT    RANTOUL,  JR.  101 

demand  for  better  teachers.  As  soon  as  the  fund  now  diverted  to  pri- 
vate schools  is  restored  to  this  legitimate  purpose,  the  means  will  be  at 
hand  for  commanding  the  services  of  a  higher  order  of  teachers.  It  is 
notorious,  that  the  small  compensation  paid  in  onr  public  scliools  vrill 
not,  as  a  general  fact,  induce  men  of  talents  and  learning  to  take  charge 
of  them.  The  best  instructors  seek  higher  salaries  in  the  private 
schools.  But  additional  compensation  will  draw  them  back  into  the 
public  service.  The  private  schools,  which  would  be  surrendered  for 
an  energetic  reform  in  the  whole  system,  would  in  part  supply  the  de- 
mand for  better  teachers.  But  there  are  in  Massachusetts  only  eight 
hundred  and  fifty-four  private  schools  and  academies,  while  the  aggre- 
gate number  of  teachers,  male  and  female,  employed  in  the  public 
schools,  either  in  summer  or  winter,  is  five  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
sixty-one.  Besides,  academies  for  the  instruction  of  such  youth  as 
wished  to  pursue  the  higher  branches  of  learning,  after  completing  the 
first  stages  of  their  education  in  the  common  schools,  would  not  be  di- 
minished in  number,  though  they  would  certainly  be  Increased  in  excel- 
lence and  efficiency,  by  the  proposed  reformiatlon.  Nor  is  it  to  be  dis- 
guised, that  many  private  teachers  are  no  better  qualified  than  those 
now  employed  by  the  public,  so  that  there  still  remain  considerably  over 
five  thousand  instructors  to  be  properly  qualified  for  their  task.  It  is 
obvious,  that  an  extensive  demand  for  well-educated  teachers  cannot  at 
present  be  satisfied  ;  there  is  no  supply  ;  but  there  must  be  a  supply 
provided,  and  that  forthwith. 

We  most  cordially  concur  In  the  remarks  of  the  Reverend  Dr.  Chan- 
ning,  in  his  address  at  the  Odeon,  on  the  28th  of  February,  1837. 

"  We  need  an  institution  for  the  formation  of  better  teachers  ;  and, 
until  this  step  is  taken,  we  can  make  no  important  progress.  The  most 
crying  want  in  this  Commonwealth  is  the  want  of  accomplished  teachers. 
We  boast  of  our  schools,  but  our  schools  do  comparatively  little,  for 
v»'ant  of  educated  instructors.  Without  good  teaching,  a  school  is  but  a 
name.  An  institution  for  training  men  to  train  the  young  would  be  a 
fountain  of  living  waters,  sending  forth  streams  to  refresh  present  and 
future  ages.  As  yet,  our  legislators  have  denied  to  the  poor  and  labor- 
ing classes  this  principal  means  of  their  elevation.  We  trust  they  will 
not  always  prove  blind  to  the  highest  interest  of  the  State. 

"  We  want  better  teac'iers,  and  more  teachers,  for  all  classes  of  soci- 
ety, for  rich  and  poor,  for  children  and  adults.  We  want  that  the 
resources  of  the  community  should  be  directed  to  the  procuring  of  better 
instructors  as  its  highest  concern.  One  of  the  surest  signs  of  the  regen- 
eration of  society  will  be,  the  elevation  of  the  art  of  teaching  to  the 
highest  rank  In  the  community.     When  a  people  shall  learn,  that  its 

9* 


102  MEMOIRS,    SPEECHES    AXD   WRITINGS 

greatest  benefactors  and  most  important  members  are  men  devoted  to 
the  liberal  instruction  of  all  its  classes,  to  the  work  of  raising  to  life  its 
buried  intellect,  it.  will  have  opened  to  itself  the  path  of  true  glory. 
This  truth  is  making  its  way.  Socrates  is  now  regarded  as  the  greatest 
man  in  an  age  of  great  men.  The  name  of  Icing  has  grown  dim  before 
that  of  apostle.  To  teach,  whether  by  word  or  action,  is  the  highest 
function  on  earth. 

"  Nothing  is  more  needed,  than  that  men  of  superior  gifts  and  of  be- 
nevolent spirit  should  devote  themselves  to  the  instruction  of  the  less 
enlightened  classes  in  the  great  end  of  life,  in  the  dignity  of  their  na- 
ture, in  their  rights  and  duties,  in  the  history,  laws,  and  institutions  of 
their  country,  in  the  philosophy  of  their  employments,  in  the  laws,  har- 
monies, and  productions  of  outward  nature,  and,  especially,  in  the  art  of 
bringing  up  children  in  health  of  body,  and  in  vigor  and  purity  of  mind. 
We  need  a  new  profession  or  vocation,  the  object  of  which  shall  be  to 
wake  up  the  intellect  in  those  spheres  where  it  is  now  buried  in  habitual 
slumber. 

"  We  want  a  class  of  liberal-minded  instructors,  whose  vocation  it 
shall  be,  to  place  the  views  of  the  most  enlightened  minds  within  the 
reach  of  a  more  and  more  extensive  portion  of  their  fellow  creatures. 
The  wealth  of  a  community  should  flow  out  like  water  for  the  prepara- 
tion and  employment  of  such  teachers,  for  enlisting  powerful  and  gener- 
ous minds  in  the  work  of  giving  impulse  to  their  race. 

"  Nor  let  it  be  said  that  men,  able  and  disposed  to  carry  on  this  work, 
must  not  be  looked  for  in  such  a  world  as  ours.  Christianity,  which  has 
wrought  so  many  miracles  of  beneficence,  which  has  sent  forth  so  many 
apostles  and  martyrs,  so  many  Howards  and  Clarksons,  can  raise  up 
laborers  for  this  harvest  also.  Nothing  is  needed  but  a  new  pouring 
out  of  the  spirit  of  Christian  love,  nothing  but  a  new  comprehension  of 
the  brotherhood  of  the  human  race,  to  call  forth  efforts  which  seem  im- 
possibilities in  a  self-seeking  and  self-indulging  age." 

The  legislature  of  'the  present  year  are  fully  impressed  with  the 
necessity  of  a  provision  for  the  education  of  school  teachers,  as  appears 
from  the  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Education,  read  in  the  House  on 
the  twenty-second  of  March  last,  and  accepted,  carrying  with  it  an 
appropriation  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  with  the  most  gratifying  unanimity. 
They  thus  express  themselves,  in  language  becoming  our  ancient  Com- 
monwealth t-^ 

■  ^?That  the  highest  interest  in  Massachusetts  is,  and  will  always  con- 
tinue to  be,  the  just  and  equal  instrtiction  of  all  her  citizens,  so  far  as  the 
cireumstances  of  each  individual  will  permit  it  to  be  imparted;  that  her 
chief  glory,  for  two  hundred  years,  has  been  the  extent  iri  which  thi^ 


OF   KOBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  103 

instruction  was  diffused,  the  result  of  provident  legislation,  to  promote 
the  common  cause,  and  secure  the  perpetuity  of  the  common  interest; 
that,  for  many  years,  a  well  grounded  apprehension  has  been  entertained, 
of  the  neglect  of  our  common  schools  by  large  portions  of  our  commu- 
nity, and  of  the  comparative  degradation  to  which  these  institutions 
might  fall  from -such  neglect;  that  the  friends  of  universal  education 
have  long  looked  to  the  legislature  for  the  establishment  of  one  or  more 
seminaries  devoted  to  the  purpose  of  supplying  qualified  teachers  for 
the  town  and  district  schools,  by  whose  action  alone  other  judicious  pro- 
visions of  law  could  be  carried  into  full  effect ;  *  *  *  that,  although  much 
has  been  done  within  two  or  three  years,  for  encouragement  of  our 
town  schools  by  positive  enactment,  and  more  by  the  liberal  spirit,  newly 
awakened  in  our  several  communities,  yet  the  number  of  competent 
teachers  is  found,  by  universal  experience,  so  far  inadequate  to  supply 
the  demand  for  them,  as  to  be  the  principal  obstacle  to  improvement,  and 
the  greatest  deficiency  of  our  republic." 

The  views  of  the  Board  of  Education  on  this  point  are  substantially 
those  of  the  legislature.  They  remark  in  their  Report  of  February 
last,  that  it  is  matter  of  too  familiar  observation  to  need  repetition,  that 
there  are  all  degrees  of  skill  and  success  on  the  part  of  the  teachers  ; 
nor  can  it  be  deemed  unsafe  to  insist,  that,  while  occupations  requiring 
a  very  humble  degree  of  intellectual  effort  and  attainment  demand  a 
long-continued  training,  it  cannot  be,  that  the  arduous  and  manifold 
duties  of  the  instructor  of  youth  should  be  as  well  performed  without, 
as  with,  a  specific  preparation  for  them.  In  fact,  it  must  be  admitted, 
as  the  voice  of  reason  and  experience,  that  institutions  for  the  for- 
mation of  teachers  must  be  established  among  us,  before  the  all- 
important  work  of  forming  the  minds  of  our  children  can  be  per- 
formed in  the  best  possible  manner,  and  with  the  greatest  attainable 
success. 

In  those  foreign  countries  where  the  greatest  attention  has  been  paid 
to  the  work  of  education,  schools  for  teachers  have  formed  an  important 
feature  in  their  systems,  and  with  the  happiest  result.  The  art  of  im- 
parting instruction  has  been  found,  like  every  other  art,  to  improve  by 
cultivation  in  institutions  established  for  that  specific  object.  New  im- 
portance has  been  attached  to  the  calling  of  the  instructor  by  public 
opinion,  from  the  circumstance,  that  his  vocation  has  been  deemed  one 
requiring  systematic  preparation  and  culture.  Whatever  tends  to 
degrade  the  profession  in  his  own  mind,  or  that  of  the  public,  of 
course,  impairs  his  usefulness  ;  and  this  result  must  follow  from 
regai'ding  inBtrijctiQa  as  a  business  which  in  itself  requires  no  previous 
trainins:.-  ;;  ':-,   -n-r  n;  :.:■.,.  :...,., 


104  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

A  well-timed  act  of  noble,  public-spirited  munificence  on  the  part  of 
an  individual,  In  the  donation  of  ten  thousand  dollars  towards  the  estab- 
lishment of  Normal  Schools,  led  to  the  appropriation,  on  the  part  of  the 
State,  of  the  same  sum,  for  the  same  purpose,  bj  the  Resolves  of  the 
19th  of  April,  1838,  resolves  fit  for  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of 
Lexington.  It  is  understood  that  the  Board  of  Educartlon,  at  their  an- 
nual meeting  in  the  last  week  of  May  last,  determined  to  take  Immedi- 
ate measures  for  the  establishment  of  one  or  more  Normal  Schools  ;  and 
we  are  happy  to  learn,  that  measures  are  now  in  train  with  every  pros- 
pect of  success,  and  that  the  most  liberal  spirit  of  cooperation  Is  mani- 
fested in  more  than  one  section  of  the  State  ;  so  that  a  beginning  will  no 
doubt  soon  be  made  in  the  great  enterprise  of  preparing  adequate  teach- 
ers for  our  common  schools. 

"  Wherever  the  discharge  of  my  duties  has  led  me  through  the  State, 
w^ith  whatever  intelligent  men  I  have  conversed,  the  conviction  has  been 
expressed  w^Ith  entire  unanimity,"  says  the  Secretary  of  the  Board, 
"  that  there  Is  an  extensive  want  of  competent  teachers  for  the  common 
schools."  School  committees  allege,  in  justification  of  their  approval  of 
incompetent  persons,  the  utter  Impossibility  of  obtaining  better  for  the 
compensation  offered.  Yet  It  Is  often  urged,  that  it  would  be  useless  to 
attempt  to  educate  teachers,  because  the  compensation  Is  too  small  to  In- 
duce young  men  of  talents  Into  the  profession,  or  to  justify  an  expense 
of  time  and  means  in  preparing  for  It.  This  objection  is,  to  some  ex- 
tent, plausible ;  yet  there  are  some  obvious  considerations  which  serve 
for  an  answer. 

1 .  Educate  teachers,  and  the  compensation  w^ill  be  increased.  If  you 
furnish  better  teachers  for  the  public  schools,  private  schools  will  be  dis- 
continued, and  leave  at  liberty  a  fund  for  public  teachers.  The  average 
wages  per  month  of  tiie  public  teachers,  including  board,  are  for  males, 
twenty-five  dollars  and  forty-four  cents,  and  for  females,  eleven  dollars 
and  thirty-eight  cents.  Substract  board  at  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a 
week  for  males,  and  one  dollar  and  fifty  cents  a  week  for  females,  and 
we  have  fifteen  dollars  and  forty-four  cents  for  the  male  teachers,  and 
five  dollars  and  thirty-eight  cents  for  female  teachers,  exclusive  of  board. 
If  one  half  of  the  private  schools  were  discontinued,  and  the  expendi- 
ture of  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  thousand  dollars  transferred  to  the 
public  schools,  this  addition  would  raise  the  wages  of  teachers,  exclusive 
of  board,  to  twenty-five  dollars  for  the  males,  and  nine  dollars  for 
the  females  per  month,  unless  the  time  of  keeping  school  were 
lengthened. 

2.  If  female  teachers  can  be  educated  In  the  most  perfect  manner, 
they  would  be  employed  with  great  advantage  in  many  of  the  schools 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR  105 

now  kept  by  men.  There  are  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  seventy 
male  teachers  employed  in  the  public  schools.  Suppose  females,  at  nine 
dollars  a  month,  exclusive  of  board,  to  take  the  places  of  one  half  this 
number,  a  fund  will  remain  sufficient  to  raise  the  wages  of  the  remain- 
ing twelve  hundred  teachers,  from  twenty-five  to  forty-one  dollars  per 
month,  exclusive  of  board,  or  at  the  rate  of  four  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  dollars  a  year,  which  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  as  an  average  price 
for  the  whole  State,  is  quite  high  enough  to  secure  the  services  of  gen- 
tlemen every  way  competent,  in  the  business  of  teaching  as  a  permanent 
profession.  It  is  not  necessary,  then,  that  the  public  should  raise  a  dol- 
lar more  than  they  now  do,  unless  they  wish  the  schools  to  be  kept  a 
longer  time.  What  the  public  now  pay  will  enable  them,  by  returning 
patronage  from  private  to  public  schools,  and  by  employing  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  female  teachers,  to  offer  such  a  compensation  as  will  not  only 
procure  an  adequate  supply  of  well-educated  young  men  and  women  for 
the  profession,  but  even  cause  a  competition  among  them  for  employ- 
ment, instead  of  the  ditHculty  now  experienced  by  committees  to  find 
one  competent  candidate  by  long  and  diligent  inquiry. 

3.  The  calculation  does  not  stop  here.  It  is  true  economy  to  buy  an 
article  that  is  worth  your  money,  and  many  have  been  ruined  by  buying 
cheap  pennyworths  in  education  no  less  than  in  trade.  A  good  master 
will  teach  and  benefit  a  school  more  in  two  months,  than  a  master  poorly 
qualified  in  a  year.  It  will  be  found  much  cheaper  to  employ  the  best 
teachers.  A  boy  kept  till  he  is  eighteen  in  an  ordinary  district  school, 
and  then  sent  for  three  years  to  a  common  country  academy,  is  not  so 
well  fitted  for  active  hfe  at  twenty-one,  as  every  boy  might  be  at  sixteen 
in  such  a  school  as  ought  to  be  kept  in  every  district  in  the  Common- 
wealth, and  well  might  be,  if  we  had  our  essential  Normal  schools  in  full 
operation.  Whoever,  therefore,  will  be  still  content  to  give  his  son  no 
better  education  than  we  have  mentioned,  may  have  it  at  less  than  the 
present  cost,  by  employing  the  best  teachers,  and  his  son  produce  an  in- 
come, instead  of  requiring  an  expense,  for  the  last  five  years  of  minor- 
ity. But  he  who  gives  his  children  a  comparatively  superior  education 
in  the  present  state  of  things,  would  not  rest  satisfied  till  he  had  educa- 
ted them  in  the  same  degree  above  the  improved  standard.  And,  in  so 
doing,  he  would  not  depart  from  the  strictest  economy ;  for  an  enlight- 
ened community  produces  and  accumulates  wealth  faster,  in  a  vastly 
greater  ratio,  than  the  proportionate  additional  cost  of  their  education. 
A  million  of  dollars  a  year,  judiciously  applied  to  the  improvement  of 
young  heads  and  hearts,  for  the  next  thirty  years,  would  not  merely  be 
refunded,  but  the  State  would  be  much  more  than  thirty  millions  richer 
in  visible  property  at  the  end  of  the  period. 


106  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

But  we  are  tired  of  reducing  the  riches  of  the  soul  to  a  metallic  stan- 
dard. Though  in  this  trading,  and  banking,  and  speculating  generation, 
in  whicli  even  a  steam-engine  ciphers,  and  keeps  its  reckoning  of  loss 
and  gain,  such  a  course  of  ratiocination  may  be  necessary  to  gain  the 
good  cause  a  hearing  with  a  class  of  matter-of-ftxct  philosophers,  yet  to 
us  it  has  always  seemed  to  be  almost  in  the  spirit  of  the  question  of  the 
Adversary,  a  question  full  of  devilish  wisdom,  "  Doth  Job  fear  God  for 
nought  ?  "  At  least,  it  savors  too  much  of  the  temper  of  that  member 
of  the  British  parliament  who  said  to  John  Howard,  "  I  don't  doubt  you 
get  well  paid  for  all  your  trouble."  Is  there  then  nothing  worth  having, 
except  what  is  equivalent  to  money  ?  Yes,  there  is  much ;  but  those 
who  realize  how  much,  are  strong  upon  our  side  already,  and  have  no 
need  to  be  converted.  We  join  issue,  therefore,  with  those,  a  part  of 
whose  creed  it  is,  that  the  promises  held  out  by  education  ought  to  be 
redeemable  in  specie  ;  and  we  say  to  them,  if  they  will  pause  and  lend 
an  ear  a  moment,  that  it  is  not  enough  that  their  children  should  be  in- 
telligent and  virtuous,  even  if  that  were  possible  in  the  neglect  of  all 
others,  but  their  neighbors'  children  must  possess  intelligence  and  virtue 
also,  or  their  own  children  must  pay  for  the  deficiency,  aye,  pay  for  it 
specifically  in  money.  The  question  is,  whether  it  is  not  both  cheaper 
and  pleasanter  to  pay  through  the  school  committee  than  through  the 
overseers  of  the  poor,  to  support  schools  than  jails,  teachers  than  execu- 
tioners, and  to  build  writing-desks  than  gallows. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  B.  Forde,  for  many  years  the  Ordinary  of  Newgate, 
remarks,  in  his  hints  for  the  improvement  of  the  police,  "  The  ignorance 
of  the  inferior  classes  of  society  is  the  first  and  great  cause  of  the  multi- 
tudinous depredations  which  are  daily  and  nightly  committed.  Idleness 
is  the  second.  First,  public  schools,  under  the  care,  control,  and  inspec- 
tion of  a  zealous  parochial  committee,  ouglit  to  be  established  throughout 
the  v>hole  kingdom,  if  possible ;  in  which  religion,  morality,  and  a  mod- 
erate degree  of  learning,  should  be  taught  to  the  poor,  free  of  every  ex- 
pense.    Second,  work  ought  to  be  provided  for  the  industrious." 

Sir  Richard  Phillips,  Sheriff  of  London,  says,  that  on  the  memorial 
addressed  to  the  sheriff  by  152  criminals  in  Newgate,  25  only  signed 
their  names  in  a  fair  liand,  26  in  an  illegible  scrawl,  101  were  'iiiarlcsmen, 
signing  with  a  cross.  Few  of  the  prisoners  could  read  with  facility, 
more  than  half  could  not  read  at  all,  most  of  them  thought  books  useless, 
and  were  totally  ignorant  of  the  nature,  object,  and  end  of  religion. 

The  same  phenomenon  presents  itself  in  all  American  prisons.  The 
eleventh  of  the  admirable  reports  of  the  Prison  Discipline  Society  gives 
these  facts,  which  might  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely.  In  Connecti- 
cut, no  convict  ever  sent  to  the  State  prison  had  a  liberal  education,  or 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  107 

belonged  to  either  of  the  learned  professions.  One  half  \^'ere  unable  to 
write,  and  one  sixth  to  read.  Of  the  QQ  convicts  of  1835,  the  crimes  of 
only  four  required  for  their  commission  ability  either  to  read  or  write. 
In  Auburn  prison,  of  228  convicts  in  1835,  3  had  an  academical  educa- 
tion ;  59  could  read,  write,  and  cipher;  oG  could  read  and  write  only; 
50  could  read  only  ;  and  60  could  not  read.  In  the  New  Penitentiary 
in  Philadelphia,  of  217  prisoners  received  in  1835,  63  can  neither  read 
nor  write,  69  can  read  only,  and  85  can  read  and  write,  but  most  of  them 
very  indifterently.  The  Chaplain  of  the  Ohio  Penitentiary  remarks  : 
"  Not  only  in  our  prison,  but  in  others,  depraved  appetites  and  corrupt 
habits,  which  have  led  to  the  commission  of  crime,  are  usually  found 
with  the  ignorant,  uninformed,  and  duller  part  of  mankind.  Of  the  276, 
nearly  all  below  mediocrity,  175  are  grossly  ignorant,  and,  in  point  of 
education,  scarcely  capable  of  transacting  the  ordinary  business  of  life." 

Such  is  the  universal  testimony  of  all  competent  witnesses.  "  Poor 
ignorant  creatures,  Sir,'"  said  a  jailer  to  Leigh  Hunt,  in  that  phrase 
giving  a  general  description  of  all  his  prisoners. 

Dr.  Forde  was  right  in  supposing  that  good  public  schools  would  be 
the  best  remedy  for  the  prevalent  disposition  to  crime.  A  comparison 
of  Scotland  with  England  and  Ireland  shows  this  very  forcibly.  Mr.  II. 
Fielding  stated,  that  "  during  the  number  of  years  he  presided  in  Bow 
Street,  only  six  Scotchmen  were  ever  brought  before  him  ;  but  the 
greater  part  of  the  persons  committed  were  of  the  sister  island,  ivhere  the 
natural  dispositions  of  the  people  are  quite  as  good,  but  the  system  of 
education  is  neither  so  strict  nor  so  generally  adopted  as  in  Scotland." 
Mr.  Hume  stated,  "  that  one  quarter  session  for  the  single  town  of  Man- 
chester sent  more  felons  to  the  plantations,  than  all  the  Scotch  judges  do 
for  ordinary  in  a  twelvemonth."  Lord  Justice  Clerk,  in  an  address  to 
the  lord  provost  and  magistrates  of  Glasgow,  in  1808,  took  occasion  to 
observe,  that  the  commitments  for  criminal  offences  in  England  and 
Wales  exceeded  four  thousand  a  year,  a  number  nearly  equal  to  all  the 
commitments  in  Scotland  since  the  union.  If  his  lordship  was  astonished 
at  four  thousand  commitments  in  a  year,  for  England  and  Wales,  we 
know  not  what  opinion  he  would  form  of  the  present  state  of  crime  there. 
We  have  before  us  the  official  return  of  criminals  for  1837,  made  up  at 
the  home  department  on  the  last  day  of  January;  and  as  this  document 
is  not  within  the  reach  of  most  of  our  readers,  we  give  the  facts  bearing 
on  this  point,  prefixing  a  few  years  for  comparison,  to  show  the  progress 
of  crime. 

The  number  of  persons  committed  or  bailed  in  England  and  Wales, 
wasj 


108  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

In  1828,  16,564  1832,  20,829  1835,  20,731 

1829,  18,675  1833,  20,072  1836,  20,984 

1830,  18,107  •  1834,  22,451  1837,  23,612 

1831,  19,647 

Giving  an  average  for  the  last  four  years  of  21,944  commitments  in  one 
year,  —  a  most  melancholy  fact. 

For  a  comparison  between  the  three  kingdoms,  we  give  one  year.  In 
1834,  there  were  committed  or  bailed, 

Sentenced  to  Death.  Executed, 

In  England  and  Wales,      22,451  480  34 

Ireland,  21,381  197  43 

Scotland,  2,711  6  4 

In  Ireland  education  is  most  neglected ;  the  gibbet  takes  account  of  it. 
Beccaria,  in  1767,  predicted,  that  the  punishment  of  death  would  not 
survive  that  happy  period,  "  when  knowledge  instead  of  ignorance  shall 
become  the  portion  of  the  greater  number." 

To  show  the  effect  of  ignorance  in  the  j^roduction  of  these  crimes,  we 
give  the  degrees  of  instruction  of  offenders  for  1837  ;  and,  to  prove  the 
gratifying  fact  that  the  proportion  of  educated  offenders  diminishes,  we 
give  the  per  centage  of  each  class  for  1836  and  for  1837. 


Wliole  number  of  commitments, 
Unable  either  to  read  or  write, 
Able  to  read  and  write  imperfectly. 
Able  to  read  and  write  well, 
Instruction  superior  to  mere  read- ) 
ing  and  writing  well,  j 

Instruction  could  not  be  ascertained, 


Male. 

Female. 

1836. 

1837. 

19,407 
0,684 

10,147 
2,057 

4,205 

1,780 

2,151 

177 

33.52 
52.33 
10.56 

35.85 

52.08 

9.46 

98 

3 

0.91 

0.43 

421 

94 

2.68 

2.18 

Of  all  the  criminal  offenders,  therefore,  be  it  remembered,  less  than 
one  half  of  one  per  cent,  have  received  any  education  beyond  reading 
and  writing.  There  were  358  offenders  of  twelve  years  or  under,  and 
more  than  half  of  these  young  sinners  were  totally  uninstructed. 

Lord  Justice  Clerk,  having  noticed  the  inferior  number  of  criminals 
in  Scotland,  proceeds  to  say,  that,  supposing  his  calculation  to  be  accu- 
rate, it  calls  upon  us  for  very  serious  reflection  to  discover  the  causes 
of  this  proud  inferiority. 

"  I  think  we  have  not  far  to  look,"  says  his  Lordship,  "  for  the  causes 
of  the  good  order  and  morality  of  our  people." 

"  The  institution  of  parochial  schools,  in  the  manner  and  to  the  extent 
in  which  they  are  established  in  Scotland,  is,  I  believe,  peculiar  to  our- 
selves ;  and  it  is  an  institution  to  which,  however  simple  in  its  nature 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  109 

and  unobtrusive  in  its  operation,  I  am  persuaded  we  are  clilefly  to  ascribe 
the  regularity  of  conduct  by  which  we  are  distinguished.  The  child  of 
the  meanest  peasant,  of  the  lowest  mechanic  in  this  country,  may,  and 
most  of  them  do,  receive  a  virtuous  education  from  their  earliest  youth. 
At  our  parochial  schools,  they  are  not  only  early  initiated  in  the  princi- 
ples of  our  holy  religion,  and  in  the  soundest  doctrines  of  morality,  but 
most  of  them  receive  different  degrees  of  education  in  other  respects, 
which  qualify  them  to  earn  their  bread  in  life  in  various  ways  ;  and 
which,  independent  even  of  religious  instruction,  by  enlarging  the 
understanding,  necessarily  raises  a  man  in  his  own  estimation,  and  sets 
him  above  the  mean  and  dirty  crimes  to  which  the  temptations  and 
hardships  of  life  might  otherwise  expose  him." 

"  The  early  establishment  of  parochial  schools,  etc.  *  *  *  have 
unquestionably  raised  the  character  and  improved  the  condition  of  the 
lower  orders  in  Scotland,  have  arrested  the  progress  of  vice  and  idleness, 
and  have  rendered  the  maintenance  and  management  of  the  poor  a  com- 
paratively easy  task,  and  a  work  of  real  benevolence." 

In  twenty-two  years  from  1750,  there  were  116  executions  in  the 
Midland  counties,  117  in  the  Norfolk  circuit;  and  in  twenty-two  years 
from  1749,  there  were  G78  in  London, or  about  tin'rti/ per  annum;  while 
in  Scotland,  as  near  the  same  period  as  we  can  ascertain,  they  averaged 
less  than  four  per  annum. 

A  great  law  authority.  Chief  Justice  Fortescue,  assigned  a  very  differ- 
ent reason  for  the  disgraceful  superiority  in  number  of  the  English  exe- 
cutions in  his  time.  "  More  men  are  hanged  in  Englonde  in  one  year," 
says  he,  "  than  in  Fraunce  in  seven,  because  the  English  have  better 
hartes ;  the  Scotchmenne  likewise  never  dare  rob,  but  only  commit 
larcenies."  Upon  this,ihe  Rev.  Francis  Wrangham  very  fairly  remarks, 
"True;  they  are  taught  the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  and  eschew  evil." 
We  attach  more  weight  to  the  remark  of  Dr.  Currie,  than  to  that  of  the 
old  English  judge.  "  A  majority  of  those  who  suffer  the  punishment  of 
death  for  their  crimes,  in  every  part  of  England,  are,  it  is  believed,  un- 
able to  read  or  write,"  says  Dr.  Currie  ;  he  might  have  said,  nearly  all 
of  them,  instead  of  a  majority.  "  A  slight  acquaintance  with  the  peas- 
antry of  Scotland,"  says  the  doctor,  "  will  serve  to  convince  an  unpre- 
judiced observer,  that  they  possess  a  degree  of  intelligence  not  generally 
found  among  the  same  class  of  men  in  the  other  countries  of  Europe. 
In  the  very  humblest  condition  of  the  Scottish  peasants,  every  one  can 
read,  and  most  persons  are  more  or  less  skilled  in  writing  or  arithmetic, 
and  have  obtained  a  degree  of  information  corresponding  to  these  ac- 
quirements." 

The  Scotch  school  system  was  originated  by  an  act  of  King  James  the 

10 


110  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Sixth,  of  the  10th  of  December,  161G,  four  years  before  the  landing  of 
the  Pilgrims,  and  ratified  by  an  act  of  Charles  the  First,  1633  ;  but 
the  first  eifectual  provision  was  by  an  act  of  1646,  for  the  first  time  com- 
pelling the  assessment  of  a  tax  and  payment  of  a  master's  salary,  in 
every  parish  in  the  kingdom,  for  the  express  purpose  of  educating  the 
poor  ;  "  a  law,"  says  the  enthusiastic  Scotch  writer  last  quoted,  "  which 
may  challenge  comparison  with  any  act  of  legislation  to  be  found  in  the 
records  of  history,  whether  we  consider  the  wisdom  of  the  ends  in  view, 
the  simplicity  of  the  means  employed,  or  the  provisions  made  to  render 
these  means  effectual  to  their  purpose."  This  excellent  statute  was,  of 
course,  repealed  on  the  restoration  of  Charles  the  Second,  in  1660  ;  but 
it  was  reenacted  in  1696,  in  precisely  the  same  terms,  and  is  the  basis  of 
the  present  system,  the  noble  legacy  of  the  Scottish  Parliament.  Its 
effect  on  national  character  may  be  considered  to  have  commenced  about 
the  period  of  the  union,  1707,  and,  with  the  peace  and  security  arising 
from  that  event,  to  have  produced  the  extraordinary  change  in  favor  of 
industry  and  good  morals,  which  the  character  of  the  common  people  of 
Scotland  has  since  undergone. 

The  school  system  has  not  operated  differently  in  Scotland  from  its 
uniform  effect  wherever  it  has  been  tried.  Holland,  Prussia,  and  the 
Pays  de  Yaud,  the  best  educated  countries  in  Europe,  are  also  the  most 
moral.  Prussia,  which  has  carried  her  common-school  system  to  higher 
perfection  than  any  other  nation,  is  remarkably  free  from  crime.  For 
seventeen  years,  ending  in  1834,  according  to  the  statement  of  Herr  Yon 
Kampz,  the  executions  in  Prussia  were  123  ;  in  1832,  1833,  and  1834, 
there  were  only  two  in  each  year,  and  the  average  number  of  murders 
in  a  year  was  seven  and  one  tJiird.  Prussia  has  a  population  of  13,566,- 
897,  according  to  the  Weimar  Almanac  for  1837.  These  numbers, 
therefore,  are  much  smaller  in  proportion  to  the  population  than  in 
Massachusetts ;  lesser  crimes,  it  is  believed,  are  proportionally  rare  in 
Prussia. 

To  show  how  great  has  been  the  influence  of  the  school  establishment 
of  Scotland  on  the  peasantry  of  that  country,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
revert  to  the  description  given  by  that  true-hearted  patriot,  Fletcher  of 
Saltoun.  In  the  year  1698,  he  declared,  that  "  There  are  at  this  day  in 
Scotland  two  hundred  thousand  people  begging  from  door  to  door.  And 
though  the  number  of  them  be  perhaps  double  to  what  it  was  formerly, 
by  reason  of  this  present  great  distress,  (a  famine  then  prevailed,)  yet 
in  all  times  there  have  been  about  one  hundred  thousand  of  these  vaga- 
bonds, who  have  lived  without  any  regard  or  subjection  either  to  the  laws 
of  the  land,,  or  even  those  of  God  and  nature."  He  then  ascribes  to  them 
abominations  too  vile  to  be  quoted ;  and  goes  on  to  tell  us,  that  no  magis- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  m 

trate  ever  could  discover  that  they  had  been  baptized,  or  in  what  way 
one  in  a  hundred  went  out  of  the  world.  They  lived  in  promiscuous 
incest,  and  were  guilty  of  robbery,  and  sometimes  murder.  "  In  years 
of  plenty,"  says  he,  "  many  thousands  of  them  meet  together  in  the 
mountains,  where  they  feast  and  riot  for  many  days  ;  and  at  country 
weddings,  markets,  burials,  and  other  public  occasions,  they  are  to  be 
seen,  both  men  and  women,  perpetually  drunk,  cursing,  blaspheming, 
and  fighting  together." 

This  is  no  true  picture  of  Scotch  life  now.  In  less  than  half  a  century 
from  Fletcher's  time,  common  schools  had  softened  this  savage  race,  and 
in  less  than  a  century  transformed  them  into  the  most  moral  and  orderly 
people  in  Europe.  There  are  few  beggars  in  Scotland  ;  there  are  no 
poor  rates  in  Scotland ;  while  in  England  every  eighth  or  ninth  man  is 
a  pauper,  and  the  poor  rate  for  forty  years  has  consumed  some  five  or 
six  millions  of  pounds  sterling  a  year.  In  Scotland  the  wages  of  labor 
maintain  the  laboring  classes ;  in  England  they  are  inadequate  by  an 
alarming  deficiency.  In  Scotland  they  have  fewer  crimes,  and  those 
which  occur  are  less  malignant.  In  1834,  the  proportions  were  as 
follows :  — 

Sentenced  to  Transportation  for 


Sentenced  to  Death. 

Executed. 

Life. 

14  Years. 

7  Years. 

In  England,          480 
Scotland,               6 

34 
4 

864 
30 

688 

47 

2,501 

195 

These  are  the  points  of  difference.  England  saves  the  expense  of 
public  schools,  and  the  saving  costs  her  fifty  millions  of  dollars  a  year  In 
courts,  prisons,  penal  colonies,  and  poor  rates,  not  to  reckon  ruined 
hopes,  broken  hearts,  blasted  characters,  and  the  wretchedness  of  tens 
of  thousands  living  in  shame  and  agony,  a  living  death,  whom  free 
schools  would  have  brought  up  to  honor  and  happiness  and  a  useful  life. 
England  has  left  the  public  morality  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  the  com- 
ment is  heard  in  groans  and  written  in  blood. 

We  will  go  into  no  further  argument  to  prove  that  education  is  cheaper 
than  ignorance  ;  and  that  the  most  rigid  economy,  so  that  it  be  not 
stone-blind  to  consequences,  would  dictate  a  liberal  expenditure  for  the 
preservation  and  elevation  of  the  public  morals,  and  for  the  exercise, 
development,  and  wholesome  sustenance  of  the  public  intellect.  Nor 
will  we  waste  a  word  upon  the  self-evident  proposition,  that  our  educa- 
tion will  operate  beneficially  In  proportion  as  it  is  perfected.  It  must  be 
perfected,  and  that  by  providing  better  teachers. 

The  Normal  school  must  begin  with  females,  because  there  is  more 
unappropriated  female  talent  than  can  be  brought  into  action  ;  because 
females  can  be  educated  cheaper,  and,  in  the  first  instance,  quicker  and 


112  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   AVRITINGS 

better,  and  will  teach  cheaper  after  they  are  qualified ;  because  the 
primary  schools,  which  properly  belong  to  females,  are  in  the  worst  con- 
dition, and  need  most  to  be  reformed,  and  because,  by  reforming  these, 
we  thereby  improve  all  the  higher  schools.  By  raising  up  the  founda- 
tion, we  necessarily  raise  the  superstructure.  An  improvement  in  the 
rudiments  of  education,  among  children  of  from  four  to  ten  years  of  age, 
would  be  felt  through  all  the  schools,  as  these  young  scholars  passed  into 
higher  classes.  The  public  would  perceive  the  benefit,  and  enter  with 
alacrity  into  the  measures  necessary  to  carry  out  a  thorough  reforma- 
tion. 

Let  the  high  work,  so  auspiciously  commenced,  go  on  steadily  to  its 
glorious  consummation.  Let  Massachusetts,'  which  for  two  hundred 
years  has  led  the  way  in  the  cause  of  good  learning,  sufiJer  none  to  go 
before  her  now.  Let  her  still  bear  aloft  the  torch  which  others  will  be 
proud  to  follow.  While  others  emulate  her  bright  example,  she  will 
have  contributed  largely  to  that  mighty  movement,  which  is  to  enfran- 
chise and  to  bless  the  world. 


THE    EDUCATIONS'   OF  A  FREE   PEOPLE.* 

"  The  end  of  the  institution,  maintenance,  and  administration  of  govern- 
ment, is  to  secure  the  existence  of  the  body  politic ;  to  protect  it ;  and 
to  furnish  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  with  the  power  of  enjoying, 
in  safety  and  tranquillity,  their  natural  rights,  and  the  blessings  of  life  ; 
and  whenever  these  great  objects  are  not  obtained,  the  people  have  a 
right  to  alter  the  government,  and  to  take  measures  necessary  for  their 
safety,  prosperity,  and  happiness." 

The  Constitution  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  begins  with 
these  words.  They  are  sufficiently  explicit  to  express  the  American 
idea  of  the  purpose  of  government ;  but  a  shorter  definition  occurs  in 
the  seventh  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  "  Government  is  instituted 
for  the  common  good ;  for  the  protection,  safety,  prosperity,  and  happi- 
ness of  the  people."  Of  the  entire  correctness  of  this  sentiment,  for- 
tunately, there  is,  among  us,  no  difference  of  opinion. 

The  letter  issued  by  the  unanimous  order  of  the  Convention  which 

*  The  introductory  Discourse,  delivered  before  the  American  Institute  of 
Instruction,  at  their  annual  meeting,  in  1839. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  113 

framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  dated  September  17th, 
1787,  and  bearing  the  signature  of  George  Washington,  President  of 
the  Convention,  announces  another  fundamental  principle,  equally  well 
established  with  the  former.     It  is  this  :  — 

"  Individuals  entering  into  society,  must  give  up  a  share  of  liberty  to 
preserve  the  rest.  The  magnitude  of  the  sacrifice  must  depend  as  well 
on  situation  and  circumstance,  as  on  the  object  to  be  obtained.  It  is  at 
all  times  difficult  to  draw  with  precision,  the  line  between  those  rights 
which  must  be  surrendered,  and  those  which  may  be  reserved." 

It  is  agreed  then,  on  all  hands,  that  the  object  of  government  is  the 
common  good,  and  that  this  object  can  never  be  accomplished  without 
the  mutual  surrender  of  a  share  of  liberty. 

"VVe  hence  deduce  two  perfect  and  unexceptionable  tests,  by  which  we 
may  determine  the  comparative  degrees  of  excellence  of  all  former  or 
existing  governments, 

1.  That  government  is  best,  which  most  effectually  secures  the  com- 
mon good  ;  and  provides  for  the  protection,  safety,  prosperity,  and  hap- 
piness of  the  people. 

2.  That  government  is  best,  which  works  out  these  results  with  the 
least  possible  sacrifice  of  individual  liberty. 

No  government  ever  did,  or  ever  can,  answer  either  of  these  con- 
ditions except  where  the  great  mass  of  the  people  are  well  and  highly 
educated. 

Look,  for  a  moment,  at  that  rude  form  of  government  which  exists 
among  savages.  Its  objects  are  but  very  imperfectly  secured,  and  yet 
this  result,  unsatisfactory  as  it  is,  must  be  purchased  by  an  almost  total 
sacrifice  of  individual  liberty.  •  There  is  no  more  arbitrary,  irregular. 
and  capricious  despotism  in  the  world,  than  that  of  the  chief  of  a  horde 
of  the  most  ignorant  and  brutalized  savages.  And  yet  what  equivalent 
do  these  miserable  creatures  receive  for  this  surrender  of  their  rights  ? 
They  suffer  in  unmitigated  slavery ;  the  complex  arrangements  by  which 
civilized  men  provide  for  the  security  of  the  person,  liberty,  character, 
and  property,  are  not  only  out  of  their  reach,  but  beyond  their  concep- 
tion. Their  very  life  they  hold  at  the  mercy  of  a  tyrant.  They  have 
absolutely  no  guarantees,  and  with  all  the  evils  of  despotism,  they  en- 
dure also  most  of  the  plagues  of  anarchy. 

Among  barbarians,  there  is  to  be  found  a  class,  small  in  numbers,  but 
strong  in  the  exclusive  possession  of  knowledge,  better  informed,  and 
more  refined  than  the  rest.  These  influence  and  humanize  the  action  of 
the  government,  even  where  its  form  continues  to  be  a  pure  des23otism. 
There  are  fewer  gratuitous  outrages.  Its  action  becomes  more  regular, 
and  steady,  and  subject  to  fixed  laws.     However  it  may  invade  the 

10* 


114  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

rights  or  trample  upon  the  happiness  of  the  people  for  its  own  aggran- 
dizement, it  sternly  suppresses  the  violence  of  others,  protects  the 
weak  against  all  the  strong  except  itself,  the  strongest,  and  does 
justice  between  man  and  man,  reserving  to  itself  the  monopoly  of 
injustice. 

But  among  civilized  nations,  intelligence  being  more  widely  diffused, 
a  larger  portion  of  mankind  press  forward,  to  have  a  share  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  themselves,  and  to  try  whether  they  may  not  better  provide 
for  their  own  prosperity  and  happiness,  and  at  the  expense  of  a  less 
sacrifice  of  individual  liberty.  Their  number  daily  multiplies,  and  they 
press  forward  with  efforts  continually  renewed. 

The  object  of  all  effort  is  change.  We  labor  to  produce  some  mod- 
ification of  matter  conducive  to  our  own  gratification,  some  im- 
provement in  the  character,  or  conduct,  or  relations  of  other  men, 
or  some  melioration  of  our  own  individual  character  or  circumstances. 

The  consciousness  of  the  ability  to  affect  the  course  of  events,  to  in- 
fluence opinion,  feeling,  and  action,  and  to  exercise  a  larger  share  of 
control  over  the  fortunes  of  ourselves  and  our  fellows,  is  a  pleasing  con- 
sciousness. The  desire  to  possess  and  employ  this  ability  springs  up  in 
every  breast,  and  can  never  be  eradicated,  though  under  right  guidance 
it  can  be  subjected  to  the  wisest  and  the  holiest  purposes.  Often  it  has 
spread  desolation  over  provinces  and  kingdoms  ;  often  it  has  gone  forth 
upon  its  errand  of  mercy,  unappalled  by  danger,  unsubdued  by  suffering. 
For  good,  or  for  evil,  as  philanthropy,  or  ambition,  it  exists  every- 
where, and  is  forever  active.  The  love  of  power  is  an  instinct  of  our 
common  nature.  Developed  in  widely  different  forms,  according  to  the 
various  influences  to  which  we  are  exposed,  it  is  none  the  less  a  univer- 
sal passion.  The  love  of  honor,  and  of  official  station,  the  love  of  fame, 
the  thirst  for  knowledge,  the  craving  after  wealth,  are  some  of  the  phases 
which  this  passion  assumes.  Obedient  to  its  impulses,  intellect  and  en- 
ergy have  ruled  the  world,  and  the  world's  history  hereafter  is  to  be 
determined  by  the  disposition  of  this  passion  in  the  rising  generation  and 
their  posterity. 

Never  was  the  love  of  power  before  so  active  as  in  the  present  age. 
It  is  the  leaven  with  which  the  world  ferments.  Never  before  was 
there  such  a  heaving  of  the  whole  mass.  The  signs  are  ominous  of 
ehange..  Millions  are  possessed  with  the  determination,  before  confined 
to  a  few  thousands,  to  make  their  will  felt  in  the  management  of  their 
common  interests.  The  many  choose  to  take  their  joint  concerns  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  few,  who  have  hitherto  monopolized  both  the  power, 
and  the  profit,  as  well  as  the  glory  of  government,  and  it  is  to  be  settled 
whether  a  majority  cannot  administer  its  affairs  more  according  to  its 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  115 

own  liking,  and  with  greater  ultimate  benefit,  by  understanding  tliem 
and  directing  them,  tlian  by  intrusting  them  to  a  small  minority,  in 
whom,  by  the  very  trust,  is  created  an  interest  adverse  to  the  general 
good,  an  interest  to  fatten  on  the  plunder  so  improvidently  placed  within 
its  grasp.  The  blind  and  unconditional  surrender  by  the  multitude,  of 
their  fortunes,  rights,  and  lives,  to  be  sported  with  at  the  pleasure  of 
their  masters,  seems  to  be  drawing  to  an  end  in  every  civilized 
country. 

In  all  rational  calculations  of  advantage  from  this  mighty  change,  the 
most  momentous  of  the  revolutions  in  their  political  condition  that  man- 
kind have  undergone,  our  own  example  is,  and  long  must  be,  an 
essential  element.  A  fact  is  worth  more  than  a  whole  volume  of 
speculations.  One  successful  issue  is  better  than  a  thousand  untried 
theories. 

A  high,  peculiar  trust,  devolves  upon  the  people  of  the  United  States 
of  America.  The  grand  experiment  of  self-government  is  on  trial  here, 
for  the  whole  world  and  for  all  time.  While  all  mankind  are  their  spec- 
tators, it  behoves  the  actors  to  conduct  with  dignity.  While  the  des- 
tiny of  countless  future  generations  may  be  vitally  affected  by  the  result, 
we  have  no  right  to  neglect  any  disposable  means  of  success.  We  are 
answerable,  for  the  fate  of  free  institutions  in  the  present  age,  not  mere- 
ly for  sixteen  millions  of  men,  but  for  the  race.  We  are  responsible, 
and  posterity  will  hold  us  accountable,  for  the  prospect  of  the  cause  of 
liberty  after  we  have  left  the  stage.  If  that  bright  futurity  into  which 
young  hope  looks  forward  be  overclouded  by  our  fault,  how  deep  and 
just  the  condemnation  that  must  fall  upon  us.  But  if  the  path  of  free- . 
dom  be  illuminated  with  the  lustre  which  a  faithful  performance  of  our 
duty  will  shed  over  it,  all  that  walk  therein  will  call  us  blessed.  Let  us 
be  but  true  to  ourselves,  and  to  onr  world-voiced  vocation,  and  v/e  shall 
win  and  wear  the  undying  glory  of  the  victory  over  ignorance,  over  vice, 
over  misery,  and  over  slavery.  If  this  victory,  by  God's  grace  be  once 
achieved,  the  great  warfare  is  forever  accomplished.  The  power  of  evil 
flies  to  the  abyss,  and  plunges  into  genial  and  eternal  darkness.  Joy 
courses  round  the  M'orld  with  the  tidings  of  his  downfall,  and  the  grati- 
tude of  redeemed  millions  hails  his  vanquishers,  the  guarantors  of  hu- 
man happiness,  the  fathers  of  a  new  order  of  ages. 

Upon  us,  as  a  people,  rests  the  fulfilment  of  these  splendid  destinies. 
Upon  our  capacity  for  the  improvement  of  advantages  never  before 
vouchsafed  to  any  portion  of  the  children  of  men,  depends  the  issue  of 
man's  history.  Universal  education  will  determine  this  capacity.  The 
refined  product  of  that  education,  our  literature,  will  everywhere  com- 


116  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

municate  the  results,  and  teach  the  practical  lessons  involved  in  our  ex- 
perience. 

Governments  represent  the  elements  of  power  v^'liich  exist  in  society 
previously  to  their  formation.  Physical  force,  intellectual  supremacy, 
moral  influence  under  different  names,  and  the  power  of  wealth,  each 
has  heretofore  claimed  its  share  in  the  control  of  the  body  politic.  As 
one  or  the  other  of  these  ingredients  predominates,  the  government  as- 
sumes that  mode  of  being  and  action  which  most  naturally  expresses, 
receives,  and  conveys,  the  impulses  of  the  several  pre-existing  active 
interests  which  created  and  sustain  it ;  it  may  be  military  despotism, 
hierarchy,  feudalism,  plutocracy,  or  any  mixed  influence  of  two  or  more 
of  these,  as  has  most  frequently  happened. 

These  different  simple  forms  of  government,  and  various  combinations 
compounded  of  them,  have  succeeded  each  other  according  to  the  laws 
that  govern  the  distribution  of  knowledge  and  wealth,  and  so  must  for- 
ever continue  to  alternate,  wherever  the  people  have  not  advanced  to 
that  degree  of  social  elevation  requisite  to  the  condition  of  fitness  for 
the  enjoyment  of  self-government.  The  crown,  the  sword,  the  mitre, 
and  the  money-bag,  have  had  their  turns ;  and  looking  back  through  the 
obscure  history  of  long  extinguished  freedom,  w^e  can  but  dimly  discern, 
and  that  for  a  few  short  intervals,  the  appearance  on  the  stage  of  any 
other  power,  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  and  French  Revo- 
lutions. 

Of  late,  the  prominent  element  of  power  in  society  has  been  the  in- 
fluence of  popular  information  acting  through  the  medium  of  public 
opinion.  This  influence  can  be  developed  in  a  wholesome  form  only  by 
the  general,  well-advised,  and  thorough  education  of  the  whole  people. 
Intelligence  and  virtue  are  the  only  safe  foundation  of  Republics.  This 
is  a  truism  which  has  been  so  often  repeated  that  we  have  almost  ceased 
to  feel  its  force.  It  is  not  the  less  important  to  remember,  and  to  act  as 
if  we  had  not  forgotten,  that  they  constitute  the  only  basis  upon  w^hich 
free  institutions  can  be  established,  administered,  and  perpetuated. 

When  I  consider  these  truths,  I  am  solemnly  impressed  with  the  un- 
doubting  conviction,  that  universal  education  may  be  justly  deemed 
the  palladium  of  our  civil  liberty  and  social  well-being.  Our  govern- 
ment is  eminently  a  popular  government.  The  people  are  sovereign 
not  only  in  theory  but  in  practice.  To  their  suffrages  is  the  final  appeal 
on  every  question,  and  this  appeal  is  more  frequent  and  more  direct  with 
each  succeeding  year, 

Every  man,  therefore,  among  us,  is  called  upon  to  pass  his  judgment 
upon  the  most  complicated  problems  of  political  science.     Ought  he  not 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  117 

to  understand  that  which  he  must  decide  ?  And  how  can  he  understand 
these  often  abstruse  and  really  difficult  questions  without  a  knowledge 
of  tlie  particular  facts  in  the  case  before  him,  and  correct  general  infor- 
mation upon  political  economy,  statistics,  moral  philosophy,  history,  the 
naturf\  attributes,  and  mode  of  operation  of  civil  government,  and 
above  all  the  nature  of  man  ?  These  are  essential  to  intelligent  legisla- 
tion, and  with  us  every  voter  is  a  legislator,  for  he  chooses  his  repi-esen- 
tatives  with  express  reference  to  their  opinions  upon  a  thousand  matters 
which  he  has  already  settled  in  his  own  mind. 

What  then  ?  Should  any  conscientious  citizen  shun  the  duties  of  his 
station?  Should  he  abdicate  his  high  prerogative?  In  vain  would  he 
seek  to  transfer  to  otiiers  the  responsibility  which  devolves  upon  him- 
self. He  is  an  integral  portion  of  the  government  of  his  country,  and 
its  offices  he  must  discharge  well  or  ill,  for  the  common  weal,  or  for  the 
common  woe,  until  death  releases  his  obligations.  Let  him  not  then 
fold  his  arms,  cry,  who  is  sufficient  for  these  things,  and  with  reckless 
indiffei'ence  float  just  where  the  current  may  drift  him.  The  public  in- 
terests committed  to  his  care  are  not  of  that  trivial  value,  that  he  may 
listle-^sly  let  them  pass,  and  not  be  greatly  wanting  to  fulfil  the  allotted 
part  which  in  the  grand  harmony  of  the  universe  was  fitted  for  his  per- 
formance :  nor  can  he  separate  happiness  from  duty,  nor  satisfy  his  con- 
science till  he  has  accomplished  his  mission  of  citizenship  :  neither  is  his 
own  fate  independent  of  the  community,  nor  is  he  unaffected  by  its  for- 
tunes and  character.  Innumerable  ties  connect  him  with  society. 
Countless  sympathies,  growing  out  of  every  relation  of  life,  sway  him 
to  and  fro,  so  that  the  commonwealth  suffers  no  detriment  in  which  he 
is  not  harmed,  nor  can  rejoice  in  a  blessing  in  which  he  does  not  partici- 
pate. No  private  good  can  be  secured  without  those  same  qualities  of 
coui'age,  independence,  energy,  and  perseverance,  which  are  requisite 
and  sufficient  for  his  task  of  public  good. 

Let  him  then  rouse  all  his  manhood  for  the  conflict  with  indolence 
and  ignorance.  Let  him  qualify  himself  by  assiduous  application  to  the 
sources  of  knowledge,  by  ceaseless  efforts  to  acquire  and  perfect  habits 
of  usefulness,  by  exhibiting  a  praiseworthy  and  profitable  example,  to 
act  well  the  part  of  a  good  citizen,  instead  of  deserting  that  honorable 
post  in  which  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  place  him. 

But  he  is  not  posted  in  a  stationary  location.  He  is  ranked  among 
an  onward  host.  Every  man,  as  a  man,  because  of  the  nature  of  his 
being,  has  a  right  to  expect  and  is  bound  to  attempt  the  advancement 
j\nd  improvement  of  his  being.  Every  American  citizen  enjoys  this 
hope,  and  incurs  this  obligation,  with  comparatively  few  impediments 
in  the  way  of  fulfilling  them. 


118  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

There  is  a  peculiarity  implanted  by  its  Maker  in  the  human  mind, 
never  to  rest  satisfied  with  its  present  condition.  IIow  high  soever  its 
present  attainments,  it  presses  on  with  an  undiminished  ardor  for  some- 
thing higher  and  better:  it  forgets  the  things  which  are  behind  and 
looks  forward  with  immortal  aspirations  to  those  which  are  before.  For 
the  wisest  ends,  God  has  given  this  desire  to  every  human  soul,  and  has 
made  it  unremitting  and  inextinguishable.  Prosperity  does  not  satiate 
it;  disappointment  does  not  damp  it;  through  successes,  through  re- 
verses it  still  burns  on,  warming  with  its  healthy  glow  the  heart  that  is 
chilled  by  adversity ;  urging  to  more  vigorous  action  the  enginery  of  the 
intellect  that  has  already  surpassed  competition.  The  cant  of  all  ages, 
the  cant  of  philosophy,  as  well  as  the  cant  of  superstition,  has  often 
been  levelled  against  this  noblest  of  our  instincts,  but  the  united  hostil- 
ity of  sophistry  and  fanaticism  has  always  been  unavailing.  You  might 
as  well  by  your  reasoning  persuade  man  that  he  was  made  to  grovel  on 
four  limbs,  prone,  like  the  beasts,  instead  of  lifting  his  head  proudly  like 
the  lord  of  the  lower  world,  as  to  reduce  him  to  the  sordid  contentment 
of  the  brutes  who  know  nothing  of  the  future,  from  that  sublime  and 
celestial  impulse  to  ameliorate  and  to  exalt  his  condition,  to  purify  and 
to  perfect  his  nature,  which  he  was  created  a  little  lower  than  the  an- 
gels to  entertain  and  to  enjoy.  You  might  as  well  think  to  blot  out  the 
sun  from  the  heavens,  as  to  quench  the  fire  which  the  All-wise  has  kin- 
dled in  the  human  breast.  Through  the  whole  species  it  is  pervading 
as  the  breath  of  life,  all-grasping  as  the  intellect,  undying  as  hope. 
The  desire  of  bettering  our  condition  has  been  arraigned  as  a  criminal 
opjjosition  to  the  ordinations  of  Providence.  The  infallible  monitor 
within  us  answers,  no :  it  is  prompted  by  Providence.  In  vain  has  con- 
tentment, ine7^t^  absolute  contentment,  which  should  desire  no  change, 
been  inculcated  as  the  highest  earthly  duty,  from  the  pulpit  and  the 
press,  by  the  orator,  the  poet,  and  the  moralist.  We  cannot  be  thus 
contented,  and  it  is  well  for  us  that  we  cannot. 

It  has  been  written,  said,  and  sung,  in  a  thousand  plausible  ways,  that 
ignorance  is  better  than  knowledge,  poverty  better  than  wealth,  listless 
apatiiy  better  than  intense  interest,  inert  idleness  than  industrious  activ- 
ity,—  and  that  therefore  it  is  foolish  to  endeavor  to  improve  our  condi- 
tion, since  all  these  negative  blessings  can  be  enjoyed  without  effort. 
The  love  of  paradox  has  given  some  currency  to  this  mischievous  the- 
ory ;  much  more,  however,  at  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  than  of 
late  years;  but  in  practice,  men's  instincts  have  generally  proved  too 
strong  to  be  stifled  by  errors  of  speculation.  To  a  philosopher  who 
should  labor  to  propagate  any  such  doctrine,  the  reply  of  a  plain  work- 
ingman  would  be,  Sir,  your   conduct  gives  the  lie  to  your  professions. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  119 

If  you  really  feel  that  indifference  and  supine  inaction  constitute  the 
only  true  felicity,  why  trouble  yourself  about  arguments  and  systems, 
and  take  so  much  pains  to  convince  others  of  their  soundness  ?  You 
have  got  together  a  great  deal  of  learning  to  prove  that  ignorance  is 
bliss,  and  work  very  hard  to  demonstrate  that  you  prefer  idleness  to  ac- 
tivity. The  only  position  you  establish  thereby  is  that  your  own  mind 
loves  to  be  in  motion,  —  that  your  nature  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  at 
rest,  in  spite  of  your  theory  to  the  contrary,  — but  that,  like  all  the  rest 
of  the  world,  you  seek  enjoyment  by  the  exercise  of  your  faculties. 

If  the  desire  of  improving  our  condition  —  the  instinct  of  perfectibil- 
ity —  cannot  be  suppressed,  it  is  desirable  that  it  should  be  confined  to 
the  narrowest  possible  limits,  or  should  it  be  encouraged  to  enlarge  it- 
self, and  take  the  widest  scope  opportunity  offers  it  ?  Most  decidedly 
the  latter.  It  is  this  instinct  which  rouses  us  to  action,  which  urging  us 
on  to  benefit  ourselves,  impels  us  into  courses  which  benefit  others,  and 
to  which  is  to  be  attributed  the  progressively  accelerated  career  of  so- 
cial, moral,  and  intellectual  improvement. 

Is  the  instinct  of  perfectibility  to  be  less  cultivated  among  any  class 
of  men,  for  instance,  workingmen,  than  among  others  ?  Decidedly  the 
contrary.  It  is  this  that  makes  men  useful,  makes  them  workingmen. 
A  man  never  acts,  except  from  long  established  habit,  or  instinctive  im- 
pulse, without  a  motive  ;  and  this  motive  is  always,  in  some  form  or 
other,  the  desire  of  increasing  his  hapj^iness.  Now  let  a  man  set  about 
the  pursuit  of  true  happiness  systematically,  and  follow  it  up  persever- 
ingly,  and  he  becomes  at  once  a  genuine  philanthropic  workingman. 
And  shall  those  whose  plan  of  life  is  to  subserve  their  own  best  interests 
by  promoting  the  best  interests  of  society,  be  postponed  to  those  who 
drift  down  the  current  of  time,  without  chart,  compass,  or  attempt  at  a 
reckoning  ?  It  not  only  must  not  be,  but  cannot  be.  It  is  not  only  un- 
just, but  impossible.  "We  are  all  travelling  onward  towards  perfection, 
and  nothing  can  retard  our  progress  but  our  own  wickedness  or  our  own 
folly.  In  whatever  respects  circumstances  ought  to  be  different  from 
what  they  are,  let  us  recollect  that  it  is  the  sovereign  people,  for  the 
most  part,  who  make  the  circumstances.  Whatever  change  is  requisite 
in  the  institutions  of  society,  or  in  the  laws  of  the  State,  —  we  mould 
the  institutions,  we  enact  the  laws.  The  power  is  in  our  hands  to  use  it 
for  our  common  good.  The  high  places  of  the  Republic  are  ours,  to  dis- 
pose of  them  as  we  will.  Wealth  and  honor,  respect  and  influence,  the 
delight  of  advancing  steadily  from  good  to  better,  the  glory  of  having 
done  well,  the  proud  consciousness  of  having  deserved  well,  the  solid 
satisfaction  of  success  earned  by  merit,  these  are  some  of  the  rewards 
in  prospect  before  us.     In  no  time  since  the  creation,  in  no  nation  under 


120  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

the  sun,  have  the  whole  people  beheld  that  open  path  before  them,  in 
which  we  are  invited  to  walk.  There  are  no  obstacles  in  the  way  to 
deter  us  from  entering  it,  but  only  such  as  operate  as  incentives  to  the 
resolute.  Advancement  in  life  courts  every  American  citizen  to  accept 
it,  and  nothing  can  snatch  it  from  his  grasp  but  some  unpardonable  vice 
inherent  in  his  own  character. 

The  great  object  of  our  working  class,  and  indeed  of  our  whole  peo- 
ple should  be,  and  I  doubt  not  will  be,  to  place  themselves  upon  a  level 
with  their  opportunities,  to  fulfil  their  mission  to  furnish  for  the  world  a 
model  nation,  a  living  exhibition  of  the  capacity  of  the  human  race  for 
greatness,  for  goodness,  and  for  happiness.  To  this  end,  the  steady  pur- 
pose of  all  our  endeavors  should  be  the  promotion  of  national  morality ; 
and  it  should  be  our  constant  inquiry,  what  means  may  we  employ,  best 
suited  to  accomplish  it. 

The  mightiest  engine  in  the  hands  of  the  people  is  their  faculty  of  self- 
cultivation.  Their  determined  plan  of  action  should  be  to  enlighten  the 
intellect,  and  thereby  to  enable  themselves  to  know  how  to  discern  be- 
tween good  and  evil.  In  this  plan,  with  the  advancement  of  cycvj  man, 
by  his  own  effort,  in  knowledge  and  virtue,  should  be  included  also  the 
broadest  platform  for  the  general  and  thorough  education  of  all  the 
children  of  the  community.  To  cultivate  a  correct  moral  taste, 
to  elevate  the  standard  of  feeling,  and  to  foster  virtuous  disposi- 
tions, are  necessary  concomitant  parts  of  such  instruction  skilfully 
pursued. 

Morality  is  the  natural  effect  of  a  comprehensive  intelligence.  This 
general  proposition  may  be  easily  substantiated. 

That  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  will  promote  such  an  educa- 
tion as  will  develop  and  strengthen  the  religious  principle,  and  confirm 
all  the  sanctions  of  virtue,  is  to  my  mind  undeniable ;  but  this  proposi- 
tion it  forms  no  part  of  my  present  design  to  discuss.  True,  it  may  be 
that  some  intellectual  faculties  are  often  highly  cultivated  with  no  better 
result  than  to  render  the  possessor  mightier  to  transgress  the  moral  law ; 
but  this  is  not  the  inherent  evil  of  intellectual  strength :  it  is  only  the 
vice  of  its  imperfection.  Destroy  the  just  balance  of  the  faculties,  and 
their  action  is  of  course  perverted;  but  this  fact  no  more  argues  that  we 
ought  not  to  use  the  intellect  and  strengthen  it  by  use,  than  the  fact  that 
overworking  a  limb  will  produce  bodily  deformity  proves  that  energetic 
muscular  exercise,  judiciously  varied,  is  not  profitable  for  the  healthy 
development  of  the  physical  system.  Nor  will  any  teacher,  skilful  in 
the  momentous  duties  which  devolve  upon  him,  neglect  to  establish 
habits  in  his  pupils,  by  a  course  of  training  suited  to  that  end,  which 
will  go  far  to  carry  them  safely  through  the  manifold  temptations   of 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  121 

after  life ;  for  indeed  we  are,  for  the  most  part,  creatures  of  habit,  from 
which  there  spring,  unconsciously,  a  thousand  acts,  for  every  one  that 
can  be  considered  as  the  determination  of  careful,  impartial,  philosophi- 
cal deliberation.  But  this  subject  also  is  too  important  to  be  despatched 
in  a  parenthesis.  It  demands  to  be  thoroughly  treated  by  itself ;  and  I 
therefore  pass  it  over  in  the  present  discourse. 

Besides  the  direct  tendency,  then,  of  intellectual  education  to  promote 
that  pure  and  undefiled  religion  which  is  the  safest  foundation  for  the 
most  exalted  morality,  and  omitting  that  all  pervading  influence  of  fixed 
habits  of  well  doing,  which  every  youth  that  leaves  a  New  England 
school  should  feel  through  life,  is  there  not  in  mere  intelligence  itself  an 
originating  cause,  a  creative  impulse  of  a  sound  social  morality;  an 
impulse  by  no  means  all-sufhcient  alone,  yet  in  its  cooperative 
power  with  religion  and  habit,  never  to  be  overlooked  or  under- 
valued ? 

A  man's  character  depends  upon  his  practical  opinions.  For  this  we 
have  the  authority  of  an  apostle,  "  As  a  mem  thiiiheth  so  is  he.'^  But  a 
man's  practical  opinions,  so  far  as  he  is  a  reasonable  and  consistent 
being,  must  depend  upon,  and  grow  out  of,  his  theoretical  opinions.  So 
much  so  that  we  are  expressly  directed  to  judge  of  every  man's  faith  by 
his  works,  since  a  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a 
corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit.  And  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  since, 
except  from  long  established  habit  where  the  motive  influences  us,  if  at 
all,  so  unconsciously  to  ourselves  that  we  can  hardly  be  certain  of  its 
existence,  or  from  those  instinctive  impulses  where  the  dictate  of  nature 
supplies  the  place  of  a  motive,  a  man  never  acts  without  a  motive,  and 
according  to  the  views  he  entertains  of  his  own  highest  happiness,  and 
of  his  relations  with  the  world  about  him,  will  be  the  motives  which  op- 
erate on  him,  and  which  operating  frequently  and  through  long  periods 
of  time,  will  often  essentially  modify  not  only  his  habits,  but  even  the 
very  instincts  and  propensities  of  his  nature.  The  importance  of  this 
fundamental  doctrine  will  justify  for  it  a  more  attentive  consideration. 
Let  us  examine,  then,  what  it  is,  as  often  as  the  intellect  intervenes,  that 
governs  the  conduct  of  men :  w^hat  are  the  rules  of  morality :  and,  inde- 
pendently of  religious  considerations,  what  other  inducements,  superad- 
ded to  the  teachings  of  his  nature  and  the  promptings  of  his  conscience, 
what  inducements  addressed  to  him  through  the  medium  of  the  intellect, 
has  every  man  to  be  moral. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  not  about  to  assert,  or  to  intimate, 
that  we  should  depend  upon  intellectual  education  to  form  the  moral 
sense,  and  to  perfect  the  moral  character.  T  hold  directly  the  reverse. 
My  object  in  this  investigation  is  to  refute  that  calumny  against  human 

11 


122 

nature  and  blasphemy  against  God's  Providence,  that  ignorance  is  the 
mother  of  devotion  and  virtue,  by  showing  that  intellectual  education, 
so  far  as  it  affects  the  moral  character,  cannot  but  foster  and  confirm  all 
holy  influences. 

Honesty,  veracity,  honor,  benevolence,  love,  patriotism,  are  not  induc- 
tions from  facts,  or  corollaries  of  any  theory,  or  conclusions  originally 
wrought  out  by  any  process  of  reasoning ;  but  where  these,  and  the 
other  virtues  that  cluster  round  them  spring  up  from  pure  and  abiding 
principles  planted  in  the  heart,  all  facts,  all  theory  that  is  not  falsehood, 
all  reasoning  that  is  not  sophistry,  sustain  their  vigorous  growth.  The 
dark,  dank  vapors  of  ignorance  would  chill  and  blight  them,  but  the 
cheerful  sun  of  knowledge  can  only  impart  warmth,  and  health,  and  life 
to  that  goodness  which,  because  it  is  by  the  constitution  of  nature  in  ex- 
act harmony  with  all  truth,  therefore  loves  the  truth,  and  comes  gladly 
to  its  light. 

What  is  it  —  whenever  an  appeal  is  made  to  the  intellect  to  decide 
the  question  of  interest — what  is  it  that  governs  the  conduct  of  men? 
Mankind  are  by  the  constitution  of  their  nature,  capable  of  deriving 
happiness  from  many  different  sources.  They  have  instincts  which  de- 
sire to  be  gratified,  and  in  the  gratification  of  which  they  experience  a 
vast  variety  of  enjoyments.  These  instincts  were  designed  by  their 
Maker  to  be  gratified,  and  it  is  only  in  the  properly  adjusted  gratifica- 
tion of  these  capacities  that  happiness  consists  ;  yet  the  whole  history  of 
the  world  presents  us  with  the  melancholy  spectacle  of  mankind  making 
themselves,  and  making  each  other  miserable  by  the  unwise,  indiscrimi- 
nate and  unrestrained  gratification  of  their  instincts.  The  limits  of 
healthy  and  rational  indulgence  are  everywhere  determined  in  the  or- 
der of  nature  ;  and  he  who  may  pass  beyond  them  in  search  of  some 
good  which  nature  intended  not  for  him,  although  he  may  grasp  some 
fleeting  pleasure,  will  find,  when  perhaps  he  least  expected  it,  a  latent 
pain  provided  by  the  beneficent  Author  of  the  universe,  to  teach  the 
erring  mortal  a  bitter,  though  wholesome  lesson  of  forbearance  and  mod- 
eration. These  limits  exist  in  the  dispositions  and  wants  of  other  men, 
in  the  constitution  of  things  about  us,  and  in  our  own  constitution. 
By  confining  all  our  desires  within  these  limits  we  shall  never  waste  our 
strength  in  ineffectual  struggles  after  unattainable  good  ;  by  cultivating 
and  gratifying  all  our  instincts  up  to  these  limits,  we  shall  obtain  the 
highest  amount  of  happiness  of  which  our  nature  is  capable.  We  can- 
not satisfy  any  of  our  capacities  for  happiness  without  employing  the 
means  which  nature  affords  us.  We  can  create  nothing,  and  we  can 
modify  her  creations  only  by  directing  operations  which  she  herself  per- 
forms.    We  must  take  advantage  of  her  aid,  for  without  her  we  can  do 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  123 

nothing.  She  however  furnishes  with  a  bountiful  hand.  We  have  only 
to  ask  with  an  intelligent  faith,  and  we  shall  receive.  All  the  works  of 
God  seem  suited  for  the  sustenance,  the  dehght,  and  the  perfection  of 
man.  His  creation  is  one  vast  magazine  of  blessings,  into  which  whoso- 
ever will  abandon  all  preconceived  prejudice,  all  false  philosophy,  and 
all  vain  conceits,  and  come  to  nature  humbly  and  inquiringly  as  a  little 
child,  desiring  to  be  taught  of  her,  may  enter  in  and  enjoy.  The  min- 
eral, the  vegetable,  and  the  animal  kingdoms  are  filled  with  innumerable 
correspondences,  fitted  to  meet  the  requirements  of  our  own  constitution. 
We  need  only  comply  with  the  conditions  to  be  recipients  of  the  bene- 
fits they  are  intended  to  confer.  Our  fellow  beings  are  related  to  us  by 
common  wants  to  be  relieved,  common  desires  to  be  satisfied,  common 
dangers  to  be  averted,  common  sorrows  to  be  comforted,  common  weak- 
nesses to  be  assisted,  and  common  hopes,  rewards,  and  consolations  to  be 
enjoyed  together.  In  all  these,  and  in  all  their  other  relations,  no  less 
numerous  than  their  powers  of  receiving  or  imparting  advantage  or  in- 
jury, mankind  are  full  of  sympathies,  and  in  these  sympathies  there  is  a 
rich  and  inexhaustible  mine  of  the  noblest  and  most  exalted  pleasures. 
But  more  than  all,  in  the  structure  of  our  own  souls  provision  is  made 
for  their  highest  well-being,  and  for  the  full  fruition  of  a  more  exquisite 
beatitude  than  any  external  good  can  bestow  upon  us.  Our  Maker  has 
not  left  us  to  be  the  sport  of  time,  and  place,  and  chance,  and  circum- 
stance ;  within  ourselves  are  the  fountains,  pure  and  perennial,  of  living- 
water,  springing  up  to  everlasting  joy,  whereof  whosoever  drinks  need 
thirst  for  no  other.  Thus  it  is  that  in  the  properties  of  external  things, 
in  the  constitution  of  our  fellow-creatures,  and  last  and  chiefest  in  our 
own  breasts,  we  are  to  search  for  the  sources  of  all  the  happiness  our 
nature  is  capable  of  experiencing. 

Here  then  we  arrive  at  a  great  truth  — 

Knowledge  is  power.  For  unless  we  know  and  understand  the 
properties  of  matter,  the  dispositions  of  men,  and  our  own  faculties ;  in 
short,  unless  we  are  acquainted  with  the  laws,  moral  and  physical,  by 
which  we,  and  the  world  we  live  in,  are  governed,  how  can  we  take  ad- 
vantage of  those  laws  —  how  can  we  employ  our  faculties,  or  derive 
any  profit  from  the  excellent  qualities  of  the  good  things  afforded  for 
our  use  ?  We  shall  be  like  a  blind  man  in  a  gallery  of  choice  pictures, 
or  like  one  destitute  of  hearing  at  an  oratorio  of  some  great  master  : 
the  eyes  of  our  understandings  are  not  enlightened  to  distinguish  be- 
tween good  and  evil,  our  ears  are  not  attuned  to  the  harmony  of  nature. 
But  he  who  knows  the  properties  of  things,  their  mutual  dependencies 
and  their  fixed  laws,  knows  the  springs  by  which  all  the  machinery  of 
the  world  may  be  set  in  motion.     He  is  indeed  the  Lord  of  the  creation. 


124 

Whatever  he  wills  he  does,  for  he  knows  where  to  find,  and  how  to  com- 
mand the  means  of  doing  it.  Out  of  seeming  evil  he  produces  real 
good,  and  in  this  he  imitates  him  in  whose  image  he  was  created.  Those 
agents  of  destruction,  most  terrible  to  uneducated  man,  become  willing 
ministers  of  his  purposes.  The  unconquerable  elements  obey  him. 
The  ocean  bears  his  treasures  on  its  bosom  :  the  winds  waft  them :  the 
waterfall  turns  the  wheels  of  his  engines.  Fire  subdues  for  him  the 
hardness  of  the  most  obdurate  substances,  and  steam,  like  some  mighty 
genius  of  oriental  romance,  confined  by  his  potent  spell,  toils  on  for 
him  without  sleep,  without  rest,  without  food,  and  enables  a  single  mind 
to  exert  productive  energies,  which,  without  its  aid,  would  require  the 
labors  of  ten  thousand  hands.  He  learns  the  habits  and  the  instincts  of 
the  lower  animals,  and  subjects  them  all  to  his  empire.  He  modifies 
their  original  characters,  and  makes  useful  servants  of  those  which,  un- 
tamed, were  unserviceable  or  even  noxious.  He  studies  and  compre- 
hends his  fellow  men,  makes  their  passions  subservient  to  his  own, 
makes  his  interests  coincide  with  theirs,  enlists  their  sympathies  in  a 
common  cause  Avitli  his,  and  makes  himself  happy  by  promoting  the 
general  welfare  and  happiness.  He  looks  within  himself,  and  discovers 
that  he  possesses,  independently  of  all  external  helps,  the  means  of  a 
calm  contentment,  which  the  world  can  neither  give  nor  take  away. 
Upon  this  basis  he  rests,  here  he  founds  his  confidence,  which  no  tem- 
pests of  misfortune  can  shake,  no  torrent  of  adversity  can  tear  from  him. 
By  honesty,  by  honor,  by  avoiding  every  act  and  word  that  will 
bring  after  it  remorse  or  shame,  by  meditating  upon  and  following  after 
whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good  report,  he  preserves  and  culti- 
vates his  own  self-respect.  By  communion  with  God  and  with  his  own 
thoughts,  he  purifies,  exalts,  and  enlarges  his  faculties,  and  becomes  truly 
wise,  saving  himself  from  every  vice  and  from  every  misery  which  is 
the  result  and  consequence  of  vice.  Those  lesser  afflictions  which  still 
trouble  him,  because  they  are  part  of  the  lot  of  humanity,  compared  to 
those  from  which  he  escapes,  are  but  the  small  dust  in  the  balance. 
Whatever  the  world  may  think  of  him,  however  the  fortune  of  the 
world  goes  with  him,  he  is  master  of  himself  and  of  his  fate,  he  has  in 
his  own  breast  all  the  elements  of  a  tranquil  felicity.  How  different  is 
the  condition  of  that  man  who  is  still  in  his  pristine  state  of  ignorance. 
Nature  has  no  charms  for  him,  no  blessings  in  store  for  him ;  he  sees  no 
beauty,  he  perceives  no  harmony ;  all  sweet  influences  are  lost  upon 
him,  all  the  propitious  intentions  of  nature  are  frustrated  by  him.  He 
pursues  phantoms  that  only  mock  him,  and  where  his  expectations  are 
highest,  his  disappointments  are  most  grievous.  He  lives  in  a  continual 
struggle  with  the  eternal  order  which  he  does  not  understand,  and  is  al- 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  125 

vvays  defeated,  because  he  always  attempts  what  it  is  impossible  for  him 
to  perform.  Mostclearly,  then,  in  the  most  extended  sense,  knowledo-e 
is  power,  and  without  it  we  have  no  other  power,  we  are  like  children 
exposed  in  a  desert,  there  is  nothing  on  which  we  can  place  reliance,  or 
to  which  we  can  look  for  assistance,  we  are  isolated  and  helpless. 

We  can  now  answer  the  question,  in  all  calculations  of  interest,  what 
is  it  that  governs  the  conduct  of  men.  It  is  the  desire  which  every  one 
has  of  increasing  his  portion  of  happiness  :  and  according  as  his  views 
of  the  course  to  be  pursued  are  more  or  less  correct,  his  exertions  will 
be  well  or  ill  directed.  If  he  sets  his  own  interest  in  opposition  to  the 
true  interests  of  the  world  at  large,  he  will  fail  of  accomplishing  his 
object,  and,  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  his  influence,  he  will  occasion 
injury  to  others.  If  he  makes  his  happiness  consist  in  that  which  can 
be  pursued  without  diminishing  the  enjoyments  of  others,  if  he  violates 
no  laAv  of  physical  or  moral  nature,  if  while  he  prospers  in  his  own 
enterprises  he  thereby  contributes  to  the  well-being  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures, he  will  encounter  no  antagonist  principle,  he  will  make  auxiliary 
to  his  purpose  all  those  principles  in  conformity  to  which  he  acts,  and 
he  must  succeed  in  his  design  so  sure  as  the  laws  of  nature  are  constant 
in  their  operation. 

Let  us  now  consider,  very  hriejly,  since  the  remarks  already  made 
have  occupied  so  much  of  your  time,  —  let  us  consider  what  are  the  rules 
of  morality.  As  every  man's  motive  of  action  is  to  increase  his  own 
happiness,  it  is  evident  that  he  will  approve  of  that  conduct  in  others 
which  most  strongly  tends  to  this  result.  It  is  equally  evident  that  if 
we  will  have  general  rules  they  must  have  regard  only  to  the  general 
effect  of  actions.  It  is  evident  also,  that  mankind  must  either  govern 
themselves  by  general  rules,  or  not  at  all.  A  rule  which  is  made  for  a 
single  case,  is  no  rule.  To  be  able,  without  rules,  to  make  special 
decisions  for  particular  cases,  all  mankind  must  be  philosophers  ;  and  of 
all  men,  philosophers,  I  believe,  are  the  least  inclined  to  make  special 
decisions,  and  will  most  cordially  recognize  the  absolute  necessity  of 
general  rules  of  action.  Mankind  have  long  been  sensible  of  this 
necessity,  and  have  tacitly,  and  perhaps  I  might  almost  say  instinctively, 
acquiesced  in  this  conclusion.  The  wisdom  of  many  ages  has  been 
embodied  in  a  system  of  rules,  which  experience  from  time  to  time  has 
taught  us  to  improve,  which  rules  the  whole  community  holds  that  each 
individual  ought  to  observe.  They  are  such  as  allow  every  one  to 
pursue  his  own  advantage,  but  not  at  the  expense  of  his  neighbors. 
They  allow  every  one  to  push  forward  himself,  but  no  one  to  interfere 
with  another.  They  are  such  that  any  infraction  of  them  is  at  once 
seen   and   felt  to   be   detrimental   to   society,  without  any  uncommon 

11* 


126  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

sagacity  or  great  depth  of  penetration.  The  whole  pith  and  marrow  of 
them  is  briefly  comprehended  in  that  maxim  sanctioned  by  the  founder 
of  Christianity,  "  to  do  unto  others  as  we  would  that  others,  in  exchange 
of  circumstances,  should  do  unto  us." 

Morality  provides  for  the  doing  what  most  conduces  to  the  good  of 
mankind.  It  is  all  included  in  that  new  commandment  of  the  Saviour, 
which  seems  to  be  the  fundamental  principle  of  his  system  of  social 
duty,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself" 

It  may  be  expressed  in  one  word  —  philanthropy. 

How  simple  then  is  the  part  Ave  have  to  perform  in  the  world.  Two 
commandments  enjoin  upon  us  all  our  duties :  to  love  God  with  all  the 
heart  —  religion:  to  love  our  neighbor  as  ourself — morality.  These 
two  are  inseparable :  we  have  the  word  of  an  apostle  for  it,  who  assures 
us,  that  a  man  cannot  truly  say  he  loves  God,  so  long  as  he  hates  his 
brother.  Let  us  then  show  the  sincerity  of  our  love  to  the  Father  of 
the  human  race,  by  doing  all  the  service  in  our  power  to  his  intelligent 
offspring. 

Independently  of  all  religious  considerations,  what  inducements,  dis- 
coverable by  intellectual  education,  has  every  man  to  be  moral  ?  The 
remarks  already  made  enable  us  to  answer  this  question. 

As  it  is  the  common  interest  of  mankind,  ascertained  by  experience, 
which  has  so  established  the  conventional  rules  of  that  morality  whose 
essence  is  incorporated  in  our  nature,  as  to  cause  them  to  be  admitted 
in  theory  even  by  those  in  whose  hearts  the  love  of  goodness  finds  no 
place,  he  who  deviates  from  these  rules  is  recognized  at  once  as  a  com- 
mon enemy.  If  the  deviation  is  great,  alarm  is  excited,  or  passion 
roused,  and  society  declares  war  against  him :  I  speak  not  so  much  of 
what  ought  to  be,  as  of  what  is.  If  it  implies  meanness  and  depravity, 
he  is  shunned  and  detested.  If  it  has  been  described,  and  forbidden 
by  the  authority  of  society,  the  majesty  of  the  law  steps  in  and  inflicts 
the  penalty.  Lesser  offences  which  neither  are  restrained  by  law,  nor 
visited  by  public  indignation,  have,  notwithstanding,  their  appropriate 
punishment.  No  man  can  with  impunity  set  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  general  will. 

In  the  unequal  contest,  however  extraordinary  may  be  his  powers,  he 
must  be  overcome.  Humanity  never  fails  to  avenge  herself  whenever 
her  rights  are  outraged,  and  the  perceptibility  of  injury,  when  any  moral 
law  is  infringed,  is  wonderfully  nice.  It  seems  almost  to  be  an  instinct 
given  for  self-preservation,  and  infallible  in  its  operation.  Often  also  it 
occurs,  so  admirably  are  the  different  parts  of  this  universal  whole 
adjusted  to  each  other,  that  he  who  transgresses  the  regulations  which 
nature  prescribed,  directly  and  in  the  first  instance,  injures  himself,  as 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  127 

well  as  his  neighbor.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  the  intemperate 
indulgence  of  the  appetites  and  passions,  a  large  class  of  vices  of  different 
degrees  of  guilt,  and  bringing  after  them  a  great  variety  of  sufferings. 
He  that  proposes  to  live  according  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  a  strict 
morality  may  rest  assured,  that  he  not  only  may,  but  must  perfect  his 
health,  both  of  body  and  mind,  by  a  rigid  observance  of  the  rules  of 
physical  and  moral  education,  and  that  he  cannot  innocently  contravene 
any  precept  of  physical  or  moral  hygiene.  Temperance  in  abstaining 
from  too  prodigal  a  use  of  the  good  things  of  this  life,  temperance  in 
controlling  the  violence  of  our  passions  and  desires,  temperance  in 
forbearing  to  cultivate  any  favorite  faculty  to  the  neglect  of  others, 
and  so  as  to  destroy  the  balance  of  our  powers  —  all  these  are  necessary 
and  have  their  recompense  ;  -but  if  w^e  will  not  submit  to  their  wholesome 
restraints  we  must  expect  and  abide  by  the  consequences  of  our  folly. 

These  consequences  are  inevitable.  We  cannot  avert  them  by  skill 
or  by  industry,  and  we  must  expect  no  exceptions  in  our  favor.  If  it  is 
hard  to  oppose  the  general  interest  and  will  of  mankind,  it  is  still  harder 
to  fight  against  the  constitution  of  nature,  and  the  ordination  of  God. 
Resistance  is  unavailing  ;  we  have  only  to  yield  a  hearty  acquiescence  : 
to  obey  is  to  enjoy  ;  to  resist  is  to  be  miserable.  The  meanest  understand- 
ings can  receive  these  truths  ;  wise  men  in  all  ages  have  proclaimed  them  : 
it  is  the  voice  of  universal  experience,  that  "  the  way  of  transgressors  is 
hard."  Every  day's  observation  confirms  the  fact,  and  supplies  us  with 
new  proofs  and  illustrations.  Wisdom  cries  without,  she  utters  her 
voice  in  the  streets,  how  long  will  fools  hate  knowledge  ?  All  the  warn- 
ings of  Providence  are  so  many  admonitions  of  the  danger  of  vice  ;  the 
whole  course  of  events  is  full  of  lessons  of  virtue.  Honesty  is  the  best 
policy,  says  the  worldly  man,  calculating  the  chances  of  gain,  and  judg- 
ing like  a  shrewd  observer  of  the  habits  and  interest  of  mankind.  Virtue 
is  the  only  true  good,  echoes  back  the  stoic  sage,  taking  a  nobler  and  a 
broader  view  of  what  constitutes  happiness.  Wisdom's  ways  are  pleas- 
antness and  all  her  paths  are  peace,  says  the  wise  man  of  old,  and  the 
teacher  of  a  later  dispensation  adds  his  testimony,  the  path  of  the  just  is 
as  the  shining  light,  that  shineth  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. 

Thus  much  for  those  who  look  only  at  the  outside  of  things.  These 
are  the  obvious  and  external  motives  which  urge  us  on  every  side  to 
live  as  a  well-directed  conscience  would  lead  us.  But  this  is  not  all, 
higher  and  more  worthy  hopes  inspire  us ;  rewards  more  glorious,  as 
well  as  more  certain,  are  held  out  to  us.  Those  who  with  patient  and 
long-suffering  endurance,  striving  to  have  the  complete  mastery  over 
themselves,  seek  for  glory,  honor,  and  an  incorruptible  crown,  enjoy  in 
this  world  and  before  their  combat  is  over,  much  of  that  peace  which  the 


128  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND    WRITINGS 

world  cannot  take  a\vaj.  There  is  no  need  to  hold  out  to  such  men  any 
hope  of  worldly  gain,  the  voice  of  approbation  in  one's  own  breast  is 
better  than  lucre.  There  is  no  need  to  threaten  them  with  the  loss  of 
other  men's  esteem,  they  have  that  within  that  is  dearer  to  them  than 
the  applause  of  a  multitude.  Do  they  need  any  protection  against 
temptation  to  crime  ?  They  know  that  crime  is  followed  by  the  loss  of 
that  feeling  of  self-respect,  that  consciousness  of  integrity,  that  lofty 
sense  of  honor,  which  they  have  earned  by  a  life  of  rectitude,  and  which 
they  will  not  throw  away  for  any  unsatisfying  weakness.  I  call  it  weak- 
ness, for  he  who  yields  to  temptation  is  ashamed  that  he  has  not  strength 
to  resist,  and  his  sense  of  degradation  makes  him  wretched  while  he 
yields.  Remorse  follows  crime  with  a  terrible  retribution.  Remorse 
^Yhich  its  victim  cannot  escape,  till  his  soul  is  steeled  against  feeling,  and 
till  he  has  ceased  to  be  sensible  to  all  the  pleasure  arising  from  an  act  of 
virtue,  in  the  same  proportion  that  he  is  callous  to  the  pain  which  accom- 
panies and  follows  the  debasement  of  vice.  When  his  finer  sensibilities 
are  dead,  he  finds  relief  from  the  torment  they  inflicted  on  him ;  but  the 
remedy  is  infinitely  worse  than  the  disease.  He  has  eradicated  the  seeds 
of  goodness  from  his  breast,  he  has  destroyed  his  capability  for  the  most 
exquisite  happiness.  He  that  is  dead  to  shame  is  dead  to  virtue.  He 
that  is  dead  to  virtue  is  dead  to  intellectual  and  moral  enjoyment.  His 
animal  enjoyments  he  may  still  possess  in  common  with  the  beasts,  but 
he  retains  a  capacity  of  misery  vastly  above  theirs. 

We  now  perceive,  and  the  conviction  forces  itself  upon  us  v/ith  irre- 
sistible plainness,  that  the  inducement  every  man  has  to  be  moral  is  that 
otherwise  he  must  be  miserable.  The  rule  of  conduct  is  that  every  man 
best  consults  his  own  good  by  consulting  the  good  of  mankind.  We  can 
now  go  one  step  further,  we  may  not  only  assert  that  knowledge  is 
powder,  but  also  that  knoavledge  is  a^irtue. 

It  is  knowledge  which  constitutes  the  essential  difference  between 
different  men,  and  also  between  different  nations.  It  is  the  correct  un- 
derstanding of  his  own  true  interests  that  makes  one  man  happily  virtu- 
ous, and  it  is  because  he  is  not  thus  enlightened  that  another  becomes 
unfortunately  vicious.  In  one  nation,  brutalizing  superstition,  abject 
poverty,  and  veneration  for  ancient  abuses  forbid  improvement,  and  keep 
the  people  stationary  in  the  first  stages  of  their  natural  progress,  so  that 
generation  after  generation  drags  out  its  wretched  existence,  toiling 
barely  to  support  life  and  to  secure  a  few  of  the  baser  animal  gratifica- 
tions, because  no  ray  of  knowledge  has  pierced  the  thick  darkness  which 
envelops  them,  to  discover  to  them  any  more  substantial  good,  or  to 
enlarge  the  narrow  horizon  which  limits  their  experience,  their  desires, 
their  hopes,  and  their  pleasures  ;  while  in  another  nation,  each  succeed- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  129 

ing  generation,  inheriting  the  full  capacity  for  happiness  which  its  pre- 
decessors possessed,  opens  for  itself  new  sources  of  enjoyment,  till  it 
reaches  the  most  refined  and  exalted,  diffuses  their  blessings  till  they 
become  accessible  to  countless  multitudes,  and  thus  purifies  their  pas- 
sions, advances  them  in  virtue,  and  raises  them  in  the  scale  of  moral 
and  intellectual  being,  because  the  divine  light  of  science  has  illuminated 
their  minds  and  has  shown  them  the  inducement,  the  means,  and  the 
practicability  of  being  happy.  Thus  one  nation  grovels  in  slavery, 
because  it  does  not  know  its  rights ;  another  preserves  but  a  small  por- 
tion of  liberty,  because  it  knows  not  how  to  defend  what  it  has  obtained, 
,or  to  regain  what  it  has  lost ;  while  another  exults  in  the  unrestrained 
exercise  of  its  energies,  because  it  knows  what  freedom  is,  and  knows 
how  to  value  and  to  guard  it.  It  would  be  no  difficult  task  to  show  you 
that  our  fathers  were  duly  sensible  of  this  great  truth,  and  that  therefore, 
anticipating  the  evils  which  ignorance  would  inevitably  bring  upon  their 
posterity,  they  established  an  institution  singularly  well  calculated  to 
perpetuate  general  information,  in  the  hope  that  we  should  not  suffer  the 
flame  of  knowledge  to  expire,  but  rather  keep  alive  the  sacred  torch, 
and  hand  it  down  from  age  to  age  with  undiminished  lustre. 

Our  system  of  common  schools,  however,  though  it  furnishes  to  our 
whole  youthful  population,  an  opportunity  for  acquiring  those  rudiments 
of  knowledge  which  are  to  be  regarded  rather  as  the  means  of  something 
better,  than  for  any  intrinsic  value  they  themselves  possess,  is  as  at 
present  administered,  defective,  if  considered  as  a  provision  for  national 
education;  and  altogether  incompetent  to  answer  its  purpose,  if  it  is 
resorted  to  in  the  expectation  that  it  can  prepare  its  pupils  to  become,  I 
will  not  say  scholars,  or  statesmen,  or  philosophers ;  but  practical  busi- 
ness men,  or  intelligent,  independent  citizens.  It  is  important  that  all 
our  children  should  be  taught  to  read,  since  the  knowledge  of  letters  is 
the  key  to  all  other  knowledge.  It  is  important  also  that  they  should  be 
taught  to  write,  since  ideas  can  be  extensively  communicated  or  perma- 
nently recorded  only  by  means  of  written  language.  But  he  who  knows 
this  only  is  no  wiser  for  his  knowledge.  The  ability  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  thoughts  of  others,  may  make  ignorance  more  unpardonable, 
but  unless  profitably  employed,  will  not  remove  it.  The  ability  to  com- 
municate our  thoughts  to  others,  or  to  preserve  them  for  ourselves  can 
be  of  little  value,  unless  we  originate  or  acquire  thoughts  which  deserve 
to  be  communicated  or  preserved ;  and  this  the  meagre  supply  of  the 
fragments  of  a  few  sciences  with  which  our  public  schools  furnish  us,  will 
hardly  enable  us  to  do.  The  implements  of  acquisition,  therefore,  which 
are  nearly  all  that  our  institutions  at  present  gratuitously  afford  us, 
become  valuable  only  to  those  who  make  diligent  use  of  them,  and 


130  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

exactly  in  proportion  in  whicli  tliey  make  use  of  them.  The  wisdom 
which  is  to  guide  us  through  life,  which  is  to  direct  us  in  the  choice  both 
of  ends  and  means,  and  to  give  us  judgment  to  perceive  and  embrace 
opportunities,  and  capacity  to  accomplish  objects  is  not  to  be  learned  at 
school.  It  is  something  of  a  higher  order,  and  for  which  we  must  go 
further  into  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  something  which  every  man  must, 
at  present,  acquire  for  himself,  w^ith  such  mutual  aids  as  men  by  associ- 
ation derive  from  each  other,  or  be  content  to  w^ander  through  life  the 
creature  of  circumstances,  and  the  sport  of  fortune.  It  is  self-educa- 
tion which  must  store  the  memory  with  materials  for  profitable  reflection, 
it  is  self-education  that  must  form  and  consolidate  the  judgment,  and  that, 
must  sharpen  and  quicken  and  invigorate  the  mental  faculties.  All  this 
we  must  do  for  ourselves,  for  no  one  else  can  do  it  for  us.  But  although 
we  must  be  active  in  doing  our  own  work,  and  not  expect  to  remain 
passive  and  have  it  done  for  us,  yet  in  this  as  in  every  other  undertaking, 
we  may  do  much  to  assist  others  in  their  progress,  and  may  derive  much 
aid  from  their  cooperation  with  us.  The  intellectual  powers,  it  is  true, 
are  strengthened  chiefly  by  their  own  exercise,  but  men  may  combine  to- 
gether to  concert  occasions  for  exercising  them.  And  in  this  way  they 
will  be  more  likely  to  proceed  pleasantly,  as  well  as  profitably,  and  by 
witnessing  each  other's  progress,  and  encouraging  one  another,  to  perse- 
vere to  some  good  eflfect.  Conversation  elicits  ideas  ;  the  collision  of  oppo- 
site opinions  strikes  out  new  veins ;  discussion  develops  the  various  argu- 
ments, so  that  the  judgment  may  decide  with  the  whole  field  open  before 
it.  That  the  mind  should  thus  refresh  itself  with  this  friendly  contest, 
where  victory  is  gain  to  both  parties,  and  defeat  loss  to  neither,  is  the 
most  eligible  mode  that  can  be  conceived  of  testing  its  growing  capacity, 
of  familiarizing  it  with  the  comparison  of  conflicting  principles,  which 
must  sooner  or  later  urge  their  diverse  and  irreconcilable  claims  to  its 
assent,  and  of  enlarging  and  emboldening  its  just  self-confidence.  The 
lyceum  begins  where  the  school  ends.  Its  office  is  to  perfect  what  the 
school  has  prepared.  Elaborated  by  its  wholesome  agitation,  the  unseemly 
ore  of  barren  facts  is  made  to  yield  abundantly  the  pure  gold  of  practical 
wisdom  and  sound  philosophy.  There  is  no  magic  in  the  process ;  it  is 
the  ordinary  operation  of  nature.  The  lyceum  is  a  mental  gymnasium. 
It  is  here  that  the  young  candidate  for  intellectual  superiority  must 
acquire  the  habits  of  investigation  by  which  the  truth  may  be  sought  and 
won,  and  the  arts  of  offence  and  defence  by  which  it  may  be  made  to 
exert  an  influence  on  others,  and  to  maintain  the  moral  dignity  and  self- 
respect  of  its  j)Ossessor.  Though  the  school  may  put  weapons  into  his 
hands,  and  may  teach  him  their  names,  it  is  here  that  he  must  learn  how 
to  use  them.     Kor  will  he  find  this  training  to  be  labour  thrown  away 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  131 

when  lie  begins  to  act  liis  part  upon  the  stage  of  busy  life.  lie  will  find 
occasion  then  for  habits  and  for  energies  which  it  needs  all  the  discipline 
o-f  this  institution,  through  all  the  forming  period  of  his  youth,  to  confirm 
within  him :  the  time  he  has  spent  in  preparing  to  play  his  part  manfully, 
he  will  never  regard  as  time  lost;  he  will  only  regret  that  he  had  not 
practised  more.  He  who  would  hold  and  defend  opinions  of  his  own,  in 
these  stormy  days  of  controversy,  must  descend  into  the  arena  a  gladiator 
armed  at  all  points.  He  that  would  act  according  to  his  honest  convic- 
tions of  right,  must  be  content  often  to  be  set  down  as  acting  wrong, 
unless  he  is  always  ready  to  give  an  answer  to  him  that  asks  of  him  a 
reason.  And  what  is  that  man  good  for  who  either  has  no  principles  of 
his  own,  or  having  them  fears  to  live  according  to  their  dictates  ?  Can 
he  respect  himself ?  Can  he  look  for  any  respect  from  others?  Most 
assuredly  not.  The  consciousness  of  his  inferiority  before  the  upright 
and  conscientious  man  of  independence,  oppresses  the  timeservcr;  it 
makes  him  wish  that  he  could  sink  into  the  earth.  Scarcely  less  con- 
temptible is  the  timorous  partizan  of  other  men's  notions  ;  who,  knowing 
nothing  of  himself,  adopts  blindly  the  views  of  those  with  whom  chance 
brings  him  in  contact ;  who  with  honest  intentions,  is  made  the  instru- 
ment of  the  designing,  and  the  victim  of  the  crafty ;  who,  having  no 
chart  to  steer  by,  suffers  himself  to  be  blown  about  by  every  wind  of 
doctrine ;  who  spends  one  part  of  his  life  in  endeavouring  to  correct  the 
mistakes  which  he  should  have  avoided  in  another,  and  dies  leaving  his 
■work  unfinished  ;  who  nullifies  his  own  influence  by  perpetually  undoing 
what  he  has  done,  and  who  cannot  be  respected  for  the  purity  of  his 
motives,  because  we  despise  him  for  the  inconsistency  of  his  conduct. 
He  who  cannot  think  is  an  idiot ;  he  wdio  w^ill  not  is  a  bigot ;  he  wdio 
dares  not  is  a  slave :  and  he  who  thinking  righi;,  acts  wa-ong,  is  without 
excuse  or  palliation  a  villain.  The  lyceum  furnishes  our  young  men 
with  almost  their  only  opportunity  to  cultivate  in  themselves  that  acute- 
ness  and  precision  of  thought  which  give  the  judgment  a  decided 
temj)erament,  while  it  fosters  also  that  firmness  of  purpose  which  is  the 
natural  result  of  an  habitual  reliance  on  one's  own  conclusions,  and  which 
conduces  so  much  to  confer  a  tone  of  independence  on  the  whole  moral 
character. 

If  ever  there  w^as  a  time  when  it  might  seem  peculiarly  incumbent  on 
every  man  about  to  enter  on  the  active  duties  of  manhood,  to  qualify 
himself  to  perform  those  duties  understandingly  and  efficiently,  and  with 
a  high  and  holy  aim  to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-creatures,  that  time 
is  surely  no  other  than  the  present.  If  ever  there  was  a  nation  upon 
whom  devolved  much  of  duty  to  be  discharged  for  the  benefit  of  other 
nations,  it  is  our  own.     If  ever  there  was  a  people  among  wdiom  it  be- 


132  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

hoved  every  individual  strenuously  to  exert  himself  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  general  improvement  and  for  the  safety  of  the  common 
cause,  it  is  ourselves.  For  those  whose  lot  was  cast  in  the  times  of  uni- 
versal ignorance,  for  those  who  now  groan  beneath  the  heavy  yoke  of 
castes,  oligarchies  and  hierarchies,  but  little  can  be  imagined  to  stimu- 
late them  to  acquisition,  or  to  action.  "Why  should  a  man  open  his  eyes, 
if  he  must  behold  about  him  nothing  but  degradation  and  misery? 
Why  should  he  study  the  history  of  his  race,  if  that  history  is  only  the 
record  of  its  sufferings  and  its  crimes  ?  Why  should  he  speculate  on 
its  coming  fortunes,  if  the  prospect  before  him  is  all  dark  and  lowering, 
if  the  future  threatens  but  to  repeat  the  past  ?  But  now  when  the 
world  is  awakening  to  its  true  interests,  when  a  new  morning  has  burst 
upon  the  astonished  nations,  hope  has  arisen  from  the  grave  where  liter- 
ature, and  science,  and  common  sense,  and  philosophy  were  buried  with 
her  for  so  many  ages.  All  is  not  lost.  Experience  is  no  longer  to  be 
but  a  prophet  of  plagues  forever  boding  ilk  Prudence  shall  no  longer 
confine  herself  to  her  single  lesson,  Forbear !  Attempt  not  good,  for  in 
so  doing  you  shall  assuredly  effect  evil !  She  has  abandoned  her  ungen- 
erous doctrine ;  she  walks  hand  in  hand  with  philanthropy :  she  is  not 
afraid  to  proclaim  in  the  highways  and  public  places  that  better  days 
are  in  store  for  us.  Mankind  begin  to  know  their  friends,  and  to  mark 
their  enemies ;  and  henceforth  he  v/ho  would  insure  their  favor  must 
take  his  stand  among  the  doers  of  good,  and  not  as  has  been  the  case  in 
the  infancy  and  childhood  of  the  w^orld,  among  the  doers  of  magnificent 
evils.  But  a  little  while  and  the  purple  garb  of  war  shall  cease  to  be  a 
robe  of  glory.  Wars  of  conquest  will  be  ranked  with  assassinations  for 
plunder ;  and  the  ambitious  for  fame  will  employ  their  talents  to  enroll 
their  names  among  the  benefactors,  and  not  among  the  destroyers  of 
their  species.  There  is  much  to  encourage  benevolent  enterprise ;  much 
to  stimulate  honorable  ambition.  Every  quarter  of  the  globe  exhibits 
evidence  of  improvement,  and  promise  of  more  rapid  advances.  The 
races  of  men  hitherto  inferior,  whether  from  constitution  or  from  cir- 
cumstances, are  disappearing  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  giving 
place  to  those  possessed  of  higher  capacities  both  of  virtue  and  enjoy- 
ment. The  Saxon  family,  carrying  with  them  the  love  of  freedom 
which  is  a  part  of  their  nature,  the  language  of  freedom  which  is  their 
inalienable  birthright,  and  those  free  institutions,  which,  through  centu- 
ries of  bloody  strife,  their  fathers  have  secured  and  perfected,  have 
planted  their  colonies  wherever  agriculture  could  find  a  soil  to  cultivate, 
or  commerce  products  to  barter.  Under  the  burning  line,  beneath  the 
frozen  pole,  among  the  crowded  millions  of  Hindostan,  or  over  the  deso- 
late wastes  of  New  Holland,  along  the  sultry  coasts  of  Guinea,  up  the 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  133 

late  explored  current  of  the  Niger,  in  the  salubrious  climate  of  South 
Africa,  over  the  vast  expanse  of  the  North  American  continent,  you 
find  them  everywhere,  and  wherever  you  find  them  industry  and  enter- 
prise, intelligence  and  virtue,  civilization  and  freedom  are  their  insepa- 
rable companions.  But  the  great  comparative  increase  of  the  white 
race,  and  the  unparalleled  rapidity  with  which  the  Saxon  branch  of  that 
race  spreads  and  multiplies,  are  not  the  only  symptoms  of  a  great  and 
lasting  amelioration  in  the  condition  of  the  human  family.  The  great 
European  revolution  now  going  on,  not  steadily,  but  with  throes  and 
spasms,  cannot  cease  till  society  has  assumed  a  form  more  propitious  to 
the  well-being  of  all  its  members.  When  governments  shall  be  admin- 
istered in  the  interest  of  the  governed,  then  we  may  hope  that  there  will 
be  no  more  convulsions,  since  then  there  will  be  no  cause  to  produce 
them ;  but  till  then  oppression  will  beget  resistance.  The  people  never 
complain  unless  they  sufi'er,  submission  to  hght  burdens  being  much 
easier  than  revolt  against  them ;  but,  so  long  as  they  suffer,  they  will, 
and  they  ought  to  risk  even  the  most  hazardous  and  costly  experiments 
to  alleviate  their  suffV^ring.  The  cause  of  the  people  will  ultimately 
prevail,  and  this  result  infallibly  must  come,  because  the  universal  diffu- 
sion of  intelligence  is  fast  carrying  the  moral  influence  into  that  portion 
of  society  where  the  physical  strength  has  always  been.  Let  us  reflect 
that  hitherto  the  interests  of  governments,  over  most  of  Christendom, 
even,  have  been  adverse  to  those  of  the  people  ;  let  us  count  upon  the 
certainty  of  an  opposite  order  of  things,  and  then  set  limits,  if  we  can 
imagine  any,  to  the  benefits  w^hich  must  grow  out  of  this  fundamental 
change.  Hitherto,  great  minds  have  arisen  in  rival  nations,  and  devoted 
the  highest  order  of  talent  to  counteract  and  to  thwart  each  other. 
Hereafter,  they  will  serve  the  people,  and  as  the  interests  of  the  people 
are  the  same  everywhere,  they  will  assist  each  other  in  devising  and 
effectuating  measures  for  the  common  good,  and  the  world  will  reap  the 
product  of  their  joint  labors,  instead  of  incurring  the  mischiefs  that  flow 
from  their  eternal  strife.  Hitherto,  neighboring  nations  have  looked 
upon  each  other  as  natural  enemies.  Hereafter,  as  the  true  principles 
of  political  economy  are  more  and  more  understood,  they  will  regard 
each  other  as  natural  friends,  and  wall  recognize,  as  fully  as  neighboring 
towns  now  do,  that  they  are  injured  by  each  other's  depression,  and  ben- 
efitted by  each  other's  prosperity.  Hitherto,  the  governors  have  looked 
upon  the  mass  of  the  people  w^ith  jealousy,  and  have  retarded  their  im- 
provement, lest  they  should  be  forced  to  relinquish  to  them  a  share  of 
their  power.  Now  they  must  take  their  places  in  the  front,  and  lead  the 
onward  movement,  or  be  trampled  under  foot  in  its  irresistible  progress. 
It  is  because  knowledge  is  power,  that  the  people  so  long  as  they  could 

12 


134  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

be  kept  in  ignorance,  were  easily  lield  in  bondage :  it  is  because  knowl- 
edge is  power,  that  everywhere  as  they  become  enhghtened  they  become 
free.  When  they  see  that  they  are  many  and  their  masters  few,  that 
they  are  strong  and  their  masters  weak,  that  they  have  common  interests 
and  may  act  in  concert  as  well  as  their  masters,  they  shake  off  their 
chains.  It  needs  but  a  single  effort  of  volition,  and  their  slavery  is  ter- 
minated at  once  and  forever. 

Knowledge  is  power  in  the  individual,  in  the  state,  in  the  nation. 
Knowledge,  taken  in  that  broad  and  comprehensive  sense  in  which  it 
constitutes  true  wisdom,  knowledge  is  virtue.  If,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  virtue,  the  different  elements  of  power  unite  harmoniously  in 
impressing  upon  the  government  one  common  impulse,  the  whole 
machinery  of  social  order  will  move  on  steadily  without  starts,  and  stops, 
or  jars. 

A  self-governing  people  without  education  is  an  impossibility ;  but  a 
self-governing  people  imperfectly  and  badly  educated,  may  continually 
thwart  itself,  may  often  fail  in  the  best  purposes,  and  often  carry  out  the 
worst.  More  especially  will  this  be  the  case,  if  the  power  of  wealth, 
and  the  power  of  knowledge,  failing  to  cooperate  because  one  or  the 
other  is  placed  in  a  false  position,  act  in  destructive  contradiction  to  each 
other. 

The  power  of  wealth  is  vast,  so  much  so,  that  a  great  majority  of  the 
political  writers  of  authority,  in  every  age,  have  imagined  that  it  must 
naturally  and  necessarily  have  the  controlling  influence  in  every  state. 
Some  very  sagacious  publicists,  judging  rather  from  the  history  of  bar- 
barous and  imperfectly  civilized  people,  and  of  the  Gothic  or  feudal 
monarchies  of  Europe,  than  from  the  general  principles  of  human  na- 
ture and  the  capacities  of  society  under  more  favorable  circumstances, 
have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  without  qualification,  that  the  holders 
of  landed  property  must  always  direct  and  dispose  of  all  other  classes 
in  the  community.  Where  poverty  is  universal,  except  only  among  the 
landholders,  and  where  ignorance  is  equally  universal,  except  only  with 
a  few  priests,  and  the  latter  dependent  on  the  former,  the  monopolizers 
of  the  soil  must  certainly  monopolize  the  power.  But  there  seems  to 
be  no  magical  peculiarity  in  landed  property  to  carry  all  power  with  it, 
after  numerous  classes  have  made  themselves  intelligent,  and  after  other 
kinds  of  wealth  have  come  forward  to  claim  and  exercise  their  share  of 
influence. 

The  diffusion  of  information  by  means  of  the  printing-press,  and  im- 
proved facilities  of  intercourse,  has  created  two  new  powers  in  the  so- 
cial system,  the  mercantile  and  manufacturing  interests,  whose  existence 
was  hardly  felt  politically  before  the  fifteenth  century;  and  the  further 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  135 

operation  of  the  same  cause,  at  a  still  later  period,  has  brought  into 
notice  an  interest  of  preponderating  importance  in  any  fair  estimate,  but 
almost  entirely  overlooked  for  ages,  because  education  had  not  given  it 
a  voice,  —  the  interest  of  labor. 

Since  these  organic  changes  in  the  very  constitution  of  society  itself, 
the  distribution  of  power  has  undergone  corresponding  changes.  The 
old  learning  upon  the  supposed  connexion  between  land  and  power  is 
altogether  obsolete  in  the  United  States,  and  to  a  great  degree  will  soon 
become  so  in  Great  Britain  and  France,  where  it  already  requires  to  be 
much  modified  to  retain  any  semblance  of  truth.  The  abolition  of  en- 
tails, and  a  statute  of  distributions,  will  indeed  do  much  to  prevent,  or 
help  to  break  up  a  landed  aristocracy ;  yet  these  and  all  other  govern- 
ment measures  devised  for  the  same  end  are  only  symptoms,  and  by  no 
means  the  causes  of  the  spirit  of  change,  a  spirit  which  is  not  evoked 
by  government,  but  which,  at  the  bidding  of  a  superior  energy,  roused 
by  a  more  potent  spell,  with  irresistible  force,  hurries  government  along 
with  it,  helpless  under  its  influence.  The  causes  of  the  series  of  revo- 
lutions going  on  since  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  now 
working  out  for  the  last  three  and  a  half  centuries,  with  a  rapidity  con- 
stantly accelerating,  operate  much  deeper  than  any  measures  of  gov- 
ernment. Their  roots  penetrate  down  among  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  human  nature,  and  there  originate  the  mighty  movements 
which  are  transforming  society,  it  might  almost  be  said,  mankind. 

Here,  where  the  sovereignty  is  in  the  whole  people,  they  must  fit 
themselves  to  be  wiser  and  better  sovereigns  than  any  race  of  kings 
upon  whom  history  has  yet  set  her  seal.  How  else  are  these  universal 
movements  to  be  directed  ?  Every  citizen  must  be  educated  first  by  his 
parents,  then  in  the  public  schools,  and  afterwards  by  his  own  efforts, 
conscientiously  to  discharge  his  private  and  his  public  duty  of  self-gov- 
ernment. By  how  much  the  more  strictly  he  governs  himself,  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  of  the  most  comprehensive  virtue,  in  his  individual  ca- 
pacity, and  as  a  private  duty,  by  so  much  the  less  will  he  need  to  be  re- 
strained by  the  government  without  him,  to  curb  his  disposition  to  en- 
croach upon  the  rights  of  others. 

If  the  mere  form  of  the  government  confers  power  on  the  classes  with 
whom  the  Constitution  nominally  deposits  power,  the  ballot  of  every 
voter  is  equal  to  each  other  ballot,  and  among  us  the  most  numerous 
class  of  voters  consists  of  those  who  could  not  enjoy  the  right  of  suf- 
frage under  any  other  institutions  than  our  own.  If  knowledge,  in  a 
higlier  and  a  nobler  sense  is  power,  our  common  school  education  is  im- 
parting to  the  whole  people,  in  their  childhood,  choice  and  wholesome 
knowledge,  partial  knowledge  carrying  the  vice  of  imperfection  with  it. 


136  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

or  false  knowledge,  cursing  its  victims  with  artilficial  propensities  to  mis- 
chief and  misery,  according  as  the  system  is  well  or  ill  administered ; 
our  newspapers,  countless  as  the  leaves  of  Yallambrosa,  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent,  are  the  people's  books  with  which  they  continue  the  process 
of  mental  and  moral  self-cultivation  ;  and  our  institutions,  with  their  fre- 
quent elections  and  never  ending  discussions,  are  the  great  Lancasterian 
school  of  the  nation  for  mutual  instruction  in  political  science.  If 
wealth  is  one  of  the  forms  of  power,  never  was  wealth  before  distribu- 
ted among  so  many  millions.  Land  is  divided  and  subdivided  perpetu- 
ally ;  moneyed  estates  rarely  remain  for  three  generations  together  in 
the  same  family.  Of  the  accumulations  of  wealth  of  every  sort,  but  a 
very  small  proportion  are  hereditary ;  in  most  cases  they  are  the 
product  of  the  industry,  skill,  activity,  and  economy  of  the  present 
proprietors. 

This  point  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  is  so  important  in  its  various 
bearings  on  our  condition  and  prospects,  that  it  deserves  a  brief  exam- 
ination. 

We  have  no  landlords  gathering  the  rents  of  territories  extending  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  and  reckoning  their  tenants  by  thousands,  and 
their  income  by  hundreds  of  thousands.  Our  farms  are  sufficient  to 
render  the  owner  independent  and  comfortable,  but  not  to  surround  him 
with  a  crowd  of  dependents.  Our  farmers,  therefore,  have  all  a  common 
stake  in  the  permanence  of  free  institutions,  and  the  government  of  just 
and  equal  laws  ;  and  instead  of  the  ownership  of  land  furnishing  the  ele- 
ments of  an  aristocracy,  as  it  does  in  most  other  countries,  it  is  here  one 
of  the  firmest  bulwarks  of  liberty. 

No  more  can  our  merchants,  if  they  truly  understand  their  own  interest 
and  that  of  their  posterity,  wisely  desire  to  obtain  an  undue  proportion 
of  influence,  as  a  class,  in  the  community,  because  they  are  not  a  per- 
manent body,  and  any  unfair  advantages  or  exclusive  privileges  vested 
in  the  class,  which  might  at  the  present  moment  operate  to  the  profit  of 
certain  individuals,  would  in  a  few  years,  by  the  turn  of  fortune's  wheel, 
be  perfectly  certain  to  operate  to  oppress  themselves,  or  at  the  farthest 
their  children.  Of  the  young  men  who  from  the  country  remove  into 
the  great  cities  to  embark  in  mercantile  pursuits,  a  majority  fail  before 
they  have  gone  through  ten  years  of  their  business  life.  Those  who  are 
born  and  brought  up  in  the  cities,  have,  as  a  whole,  even  poorer  success, 
for  they  are  not  so  generally  educated  in  habits  of  industry,  energy,  and 
economy.  Is  this  the  material  out  of  which  to  constitute  an  aristocracy? 
Would  not  the  members  of  such  a  fluctuating  body  be  fools  and  blind,  if 
they  did  not  resist  every  tendency  towards  partial  laws,  or  any  other 
species  of  favoritism  towards  their  class,  when  they  might  well  antici- 


OF  ROBERT   RiViNTOUL,  JR.  I37 

pate,  eacli  one,  that  lie  should  be  among  the  first  to  suffer  under  such 
injustice  ? 

Nor  does  the  manufacturing  interest  threaten  any  more  to  become  the 
nucleus  of  a  weighty  and  a  permanent  aristocracy.  It  lacks  the  element 
of  firm,  substantial  power,  residing  for  a  length  of  years  in  the  same  in- 
dividuals, and  hereditarily  in  the  same  families.  Within  about  ten  years 
there  has  been  a  general  bankruptcy  of  our  manufacturing  establish- 
ments ;  and  if  we  look  back  twenty  years,  we  may  see  most  of  them 
some  two  or  three  times  ruined,  or  on  the  brink  of  ruin.  Such  an  inte- 
rest may  at  times  be  unduly  favored  by  the  partiality  of  other  classes, 
but  such  advantages  must  be  temporary,  for  it  can  never  command  them 
by  its  own  unassisted  strength. 

Our  capitalists  are  very  few  in  number ;  a  few  hundred  in  New  Eng- 
land, and  in  the  whole  Union,  they  can  scarcely  be  counted  by  thousands. 
Most  of  these  are  the  children  of  poor  parents,  and  many  of  them  Avill 
be  the  parents  of  poor  children.  Haifa  century  changes  the  names 
through  almost  the  whole  list ;  every  year  strikes  off  some  and  intro- 
duces others.  Their  aggregate  wealth  is,  at  the  highest,  but  a  small 
fraction  of  the  Avealth  of  the  community.  In  a  state  of  general  ignorance, 
the  holders  of  masses  of  capital  have  an  influence,  not  only  dispropor- 
tioned  to  their  numbers,  but  also  far  beyond  the  proportion  of  their 
wealth,  by  the  control  they  possess  over  mercenary  talent :  but,  in  a 
state  of  general  education,  the  amount  of  talent  developed  is  far  too  great 
to  be  bought  up  by  any  class ;  a  wholesome  public  opinion  makes  talent 
scorn  to  be  mercenary,  and  its  natural  love  of  independence  and  con- 
sciousness of  power,  ally  it  rather  with  popular  interests,  where  it  is  re- 
ceived with  deference,  than  with  aristocratic  interests,  which  it  is  allowed 
to  serve,  as  long  as  it  will  do  taskwork  for  hateful  wages.  With  free 
schools,  and  a  free  press,  improved  as  both  of  them  ought  to  be,  and 
must  be,  if  we  duly  prize  our  peculiar  privileges,  we  need  have  no  fear 
of  the  aristocratical  tendencies  of  accumulated  masses  of  capital. 

There  are  two  other  interests,  hardly  known  in  other  countries,  among 
those  which  influence  the  government,  or  which  deserve  to  be  regarded 
in  legislation,  but  which  popular  institutions  and  universal  education 
bring  forward  to  their  proper  station  ;  the  interests  of  talent  and  skill, 
and  of  labor,  or  personal  strength.  The  former  of  these  has  the  largest 
share  of  the  power  of  knowledge,  and  the  latter  of  the  power  of 
wealth. 

The  interest  of  skill  includes  all  who  live  by  skilled  labor,  of  the  hands 
or  of  the  head,  mechanics,  overseers  of  various  business  operations,  ad- 
ministrators of  public  affairs,  authors,  editors,  and  all  professional  men. 
This  great  interest  is  concerned  that  ingenuity  and  skill  should  be  ade- 

12* 


138  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

quatelj  rewarded,  and  well  employed  talent  held  in  honor.  For  its 
numbers,  its  learning,  its  shrewdness,  its  activity,  and  its  wealth,  this 
class  will  make  its  influence  more  and  more  felt.  It  is  more  than  any 
other  the  growing  interest.     Its  power  augments  every  day. 

The  interest  of  labor,  always  deserving  respect  for  its  numbers,  has 
been  trodden  under  foot  from  generation  to  generation,  for  the  want  of 
knowledge  to  make  itself  respected.  With  the  physical  force  in  its  own 
hands,  it  has  obeyed  the  weak,  and  sacrificed  itself  to  their  profit  and 
glory.  With  arms  in  its  hands,  and  indomitable  courage  in  its  breast,  it 
has  fought  the  battles  of  the  tyrants  who  were  grinding  it  into  the  dust. 
The  sons  of  toil  have  been  marshalled  in  hostile  ranks  to  butcher  one 
another  for  the  pleasure  of  their  common  enemies.  With  the  sources  of 
wealth  in  their  hands,  they  have  reserved  poverty  for  their  portion,  and 
starved  in  the  midst  of  the  plenty  they  had  created.  The  education  of 
this  class  puts  an  end  to  these  strange  and  unnatural  phenomena.  It 
enables  the  workingman  to  eat  the  fruit  of  his  labor.  It  happily  pre- 
cludes also  the  hostility  between  labor  and  capital,  by  enabling  the 
laborer  to  command  a  fair  share  of  the  product  of  his  labor,  and  by  pre- 
venting him  from  demanding  more  than  his  share,  lest  he  should  thereby 
drive  capital  and  talent  from  the  pursuit  in  which  he  is  employed,  and 
thereby  terminate  his  employment. 

The  remaining  class,  consisting  of  paupers,  idlers,  and  criminals,  has 
little  or  no  influence  on  government.  It  is  fortunately  a  smaller  class 
with  us  than  in  any  other  country,  and  from  the  general  tendencies  of 
the  times,  it  seems  likely  to  become  still  smaller. 

It  would  not  be  a  mere  idle  speculation  to  inquire  into  the  proportion- 
ate importance,  measured  by  a  pecuniary  standard,  of  these  several 
interests.  Let  us  take  the  State  of  Massachusetts  for  the  subject  of  the 
inquiry,  and  in  doing  so,  we  make  that  selection  which  shows  to  most 
advantage,  the  property  classes ;  this  State  having,  from  its  dense  popu- 
lation, brought  into  cultivation  more  of  its  land,  and  gone  more  largely 
into  mercantile  and  manufacturing  pursuits,  and  the  mechanic  arts,  than 
any  other  State,  in  proportion  to  its  numbers. 

If  by  wealth  we  understand  the  power  of  commanding  articles  of  com- 
fort and  luxury,  and  the  various  accommodations  which  money  will  pur- 
chase, it  is  plain  that  for  the  purpose  of  our  comparison,  we  must  regard 
those  as  equally  wealthy  who  possess  an  equal  fund  of  this  power  ;  no 
matter  whether  they  hold  it  in  the  shape  of  muscular  strength,  practical 
talent,  productive  acres,  or  hoarded  gold. 

In  Massachusetts  there  are  seven  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants, among  whom  are  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  able  bodied 
men  capable  of  earning  by  their  labor,  upon  an  average,  three  hundred 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I39 

dollars  a  year.  This  is  not  too  liigli  an  estimate,  when  ^xe  throw  into 
the  account  all  the  labor  done  by  women  and  children,  which  we  shall 
not  reckon  separately,  and  all  that  degree  of  skill  involved  in  various 
kinds  of  labor,  so  that  it  cannot  be  distinguished,  and  where  the  labor, 
and  not  the  skill,  is  what  is  principally  paid  for.  Each  pair  of  working 
arms,  therefore,  if  we  reckon  but  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pairs 
in  the  State,  represents  an  active  capital  of  five  thousand  dollars,  and 
the  productive  fund  of  labor  in  the  aggregate  is  equal  to  nine  hundred 
MILLIONS  of  dollars.  This  class,  tharefore,  holds  in  its  possession  more 
wealth  than  any  other,  and  this  is  true  not  only  in  Massachusetts,  but  in 
every  State  in  the  Union. 

The  interest  of  skill  is  not  so  easily  measured.  'We  have,  however, 
facts  from  which  we  may  fairly  infer,  that  though  of  much  less  magnitude 
than  that  of  labor,  it  is  very  far  beyond  that  of  capital. 

A  return  of  the  products  of  industry  in  Massachusetts,  made  last  year 
to  the  Secretary  of  State,  exhibited  a  total  of  more  than  eighty-two 
millions  of  dollars.  It  is  true,  that  in  this  return  no  allowance  is  made 
for  the  cost  of  the  raw  material  of  the  manufactured  article  ;  but  neither 
did  it  include  the  products  of  agriculture  generally,  nor  the  earnings  of 
commerce.  Making  the  proper  allowance  for  these  particulars,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  the  value  created  by  the  productive  industry  of  the 
State,  in  one  year,  exceeds  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  Of  this 
sum,  fifty -four  millions  are  the  wages  of  labor  ;  about  eighteen  millions 
are  the  wages  of  capital ;  and  there  will  remain  therefore  about  twenty- 
eight  millions  to  be  the  reward  of  talent,  skill,  and  ingenuity.  So  that 
this  is,  if  measured  by  a  pecuniary  standard,  clearly  the  second  great 
interest  in  the  community. 

Of  the  accumulated  property  in  the  State,  amounting  to  three  hundred 
millions,  considerably  more  than  half  consists  of  real  estate,  a  smaller 
proportion  constitutes  the  wealth  embarked  in  commercial  and  manufac- 
turing pursuits,  and  the  least  share  of  all  exists  in  the  shape  of  moneyed 
capital.  If  this  is  the  case  in  Massachusetts,  richer  in  moneyed  capital, 
in  proportion  to  her  numbers,  than  any  other  State  in  the  Union,  it  is 
still  more  so  in  every  other  State. 

If  these  premises  are  correct,  and  they  are  as  nearly  so  as  they  can  at 
present  be  made,  the  productive  fund  which  yields  the  annual  income  of 
Massachusetts  may  be  thus  estimated  :  — 

Labor  worth         ....         - 900,000,000 

Skill  and  talent  worth 466,660,666 

Accumulated  property  worth       ....  .         .    300,000,000 

Making  in  all $1,666,666,666 


140  MEMOIRS   OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR. 

In  what  other  countiy  under  heaven  is  industry  and  talent  so  reward- 
ed ?  Assuredly,  nowhere  can  they  boast  of  such  rewards  as  in  New 
England;  for  these  advantages  are  common,  though  in  different  degrees 
to  all  the  New  England  States.  And  to  what  cause  does  New  England 
owe  this  enviable  superiority  ?  The  superiority  of  education,  diffused 
by  her  common  schools  through  her  whole  population,  has  enabled  her 
to  overcome  the  resistance  of  her  inclement  climate  and  her  barren 
soil,  and  thus  nobly  to  distance  all  her  rivals  in  the  career  of  im- 
provement. 

This  have  common  schools  done,  but  they  have  not  yet  exhausted 
their  power.  They  are  as  yet  only  the  rudiments  of  an  institution  des- 
tined to  mould  anew  the  character,  to  create  anew  the  fortunes  of  the 
nations.  He  who  measures  their  influence  starts  back  in  astonishment 
at  the  magnitude  of  the  results  already  realized.  He  who  considers 
Avhat  their  influence  might  be,  is  no  less  astonished  at  the  waste  of  our 
means,  and  the  neglect  of  our  resources.  I  hesitate  not  to  declare  my 
undoubting  conviction,  that  throughout  New  England,  we  do  not  reap 
one  tenth  part  of  the  harvest  of  benefits  which  our  schools  are  capable 
of  yielding  us.  I  know,  and  I  pledge  my  reputation  on  it,  that  a  boy, 
twelve  years  old,  and  of  average  capacity,  can  be  taught  more  of  useful 
knowledge,  better  business  habits,  and  better  intellectual  and  moral 
habits,  in  two  years,  than  our  children  ordinarily  acquire  between  the 
ages  of  four  and  sixteen.  What  a  fearful  treasure  of  talent  wasted, 
time  misspent,  a  people's  best  energies  dormant,  and  none  to  awaken 
them  !  Never  was  a  reformation  more  imperatively  demanded  by  every 
interest  and  every  duty  than  in  our  common  schools.  A  century  ago 
they  were  a  wonder  and  a  praise,  but  now  they  are  behind  the  age. 
They  have  made  us  what  we  are,  but  they  have  also  enabled  us  to  dis- 
cover what  v/e  may  be,  what  we  ought  to  be,  what  we  shall  be,  if  we 
remodel  our  schools  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  times.  It  is  not  enough 
that  the  school  master  is  abroad,  unless  the  school  master  is  furnished 
and  prepared  for  his  vocation.  No  man  pretends  to  play  the  violin,  or 
the  piano,  until  by  long  practice  he  has  mastered  its  chords,  or  keys,  but 
of  those  who  undertake  to  operate  upon  that  most  complicated  of  all 
instruments,  the  human  mind,  how  vast  a  majority  are  totally  unac- 
quainted with  its  nature  and  functions.  What  wonder  at  their  ill 
success ! 


CHAPTER   IV. 


MR.  EANTOUL'S   POLITICAL    PRINCIPLES    EARLY   MATURED    AND 
CONSISTENTLY    MAINTAINED    THROUGH    LIFE. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  he  was  deeply  inter- 
ested in  great  political  questions.  While  at  Phillips  Academy 
preparing  for  his  collegiate  course,  his  youthful  associates  ob- 
served with  surprise  the  attention  he  gave  to  subjects  of  this 
nature.  His  arguments  in  support  of  Free  Trade  at  that 
early  period,  are  still  distinctly  remembered ;  and  many  of  the 
associates  of  his  youth  have  had  occasion  to  admire,  in  com- 
mon with  most  of  his  countrymen,  the  power  and  genius  which 
have  successfully  maintained  opinions  so  early  formed. 

His  youth  was,  indeed,  distinguished  by  the  ripe  knowledge 
and  judgment  of  manhood,  on  whatever  subject  engaged  his 
attention.  Not  only  did  this  singular  maturity  of  thought  be- 
long to  him,  but  his  nature  itself,  the  bent  of  his  mind  was 
favorable  to  the  view  which  he  afterwards  took  of  political  sub- 
jects. He  was  naturally  just,  sincere,  and  kind.  He  sympa- 
thized with  the  weak,  rather  than  the  strong,  with  the  unfor- 
tunate and  the  oppressed,  rather  than  the  prosperous  and  the 
overbearing.  As  in  the  sports  of  his  youth,  so  in  the  serious 
contests  of  his  manhood,  he  naturally  took  sides  with  those 
who  most  needed  assistance.  His  regards  for  men  were 
founded  more  on  their  necessities  and  misfortunes,  than  their 
ability  to  recompense  his  services.  Such  was  his  habitual  dis- 
position. How  much  it  was  formed  by  wise  parental  influence 
and  the  sacred  associations  of  his  early  home,  from  which  his 
heart  never  wandered,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate.     Its  result, 


142  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

however,  was  a  practical  Christianity,  worthy  of  one  who  rev- 
erenced the  great  Teacher  of  religion,  as  the  immortal  advo- 
cate and  defender  of  true  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  among 
men.  Believing  morality  the  only  reliable  foundation  of  per- 
sonal, or  national  freedom,  and  that  the  sway  of  justice  is,  by 
the  ordination  of  Providence,  progressive,  Mr.  Rantoul  was 
cheered  by  an  unconquerable  trust  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
human  rights  over  the  perversions  of  will  and  the  accidents  of 
fortune.  Hence,  it  appears  from  his  writings,  speeches,  and 
his  whole  life,  that,  while  he  followed  no  man  with  blind  ser- 
vility, he  held  the  principles  of  the  democratic  party,  as  under- 
stood by  its  great  leaders  in  the  United  States.  He  himself 
says : — 

There  have  been  two  great  schools  of  politics  in  this  country  since 
the  foundation  of  the  government.  To  one  of  these  schools  I  have 
always  belonged.  I  think  the  maxims  of  that  school  essential  to  the 
durability  of  our  institutions.  It  is  not  the  expediency  of  party  policy 
"which  seems  to  me  to  be  involved.  Two  great  fundamental  principles 
as  to  hoAV  the  Constitution  is  to  be  interpreted  are  involved.  It  is  a 
question  on  which  parties  are  now  divided,  and  on  which  they  always 
will  divide  to  the  end  of  time.  Let  us  look  at  that  question.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  creates  a  government  of  limited 
powders.  Are  they  to  be  held  strictly  to  the  limitations  of  that  instru- 
ment? or  are  they  to  have  a  system  of  loose  construction  which  will 
transcend  those  powers  ?  That  is  the  great  question  at  the  bottom  of 
all  our  party  divisions  for  sixty  years  past.  Now  I  hold,  and  always 
have  held,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  an  instrument 
which  is  to  be  strictly  construed ;  that  the  Constitution  is  the  letter  of 
attorney  by  which  the  members  of  Congress  are  authorized  to  act,  and 
that  they  are  empowered  to  do  nothing  which  it  does  not  authorize  them 
to  do.     That  is  my  doctrine,  and  it  is  democratic  doctrine.* 

Eighteen  years  before  he  spoke  thus,  he  took  the  same  view 
of  the  value  of  the  Union  and  of  the  Constitution,  the  same 
view  of  the  slavery  question,  the  same  of  commerce,  banking, 
and  the  currency,  and  every  other  great  political  question  that 
he  has  since  held,  and  has  tried  the  nerves  of  the  statesmen  of 
our  country.     Mr.  Rantoul  did  not  speak  what  he  could  not 

*  Speech  at  Lynn,  1851. 


OF  EOBEET  RANTOUL,  JR.  143 

prove  to  be  trae.  His  political  opinions  in  1833,  were,  on  all 
these  great  subjects,  the  same  that  he  so  fearlessly  avowed  in 
1851.  It  may  be  affirmed  with  confidence,  that  no  American, 
of  equal  political  standing,  ever  expressed  his  opinions  upon 
all  subjects  of  public  interest,  when  called  upon  to  do  so,  with 
more  ingenuousness,  frankness,  and  honesty,  or  maintained 
them  with  more  consistency,  than  Mr.  Rantoul.  This  fact  will 
be  remembered  to  his  lasting  honor.  He  never  had  an  opinion, 
with  which  the  public  had  any  concern,  that  he  was  unwilling 
to  utter.  He  never  refused  to  give,  without  guile,  or  equivoca- 
tion, reasons  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him ;  reasons  which  de- 
cided, at  least,  his  own  judgment.  But  let  him  speak  for  him- 
self. The  following  is  an  extract  from  an  article  written  by 
him,  and  published  in  the  Gloucester  Democrat  and  Working- 
men's  Advocate,  1834 :  — 

From  the  adoption  of  tlie  Constitution  to  the  present  clay,  two  great 
parties  have  divided  the  people  of  the  United  States.  The  one  appre- 
hended serious  danger  from  the  inherent  weakness  of  our  government. 
With  the  spectacle  of  the  French  Revolution  then  exhibiting  before  tlieir 
eyes,  they  trembled  for  the  efficiency,  and  even  for  tlie  stability  of  the 
new  institutions.  They  prognosticated  that  the  federal  government 
would  be  imbecile  and  probably  short  lived.  Referring  then  to 
the  example  of  Great  Britain,  they  saw  a  government,  standing  firm  in 
the  midst  of  popular  commotion,  and  they  sought  to  strengthen  the  im- 
aginary weakness  and  supply  the  supposed  deficiencies  of  our  own  Con- 
stitution, by  transplanting  British  engines  of  influence  to  accumulate 
power  in  hands  that  could  wield  them. 

The  other  party  apprehended  dangers  equally  serious  from  the  dispo- 
sition of  the  government  to  increase  its  powers ;  and  they  feared,  if  this 
disposition  were  not  checked,*  it  would  ultimately  be  too  strong  for  our 
liberties.  They  cast  their  eyes  over  the  world,  and  looked  through  the 
history  of  past  ages,  and  they  saw  everywhere  that  the  tendency  of  all 
power  is  to  take  to  itself  more  power.  They  judged  because  the  French 
government  had  once  been  too  strong  to  feel  the  popular  influence,  that 
it  had  now  become  too  weak  to  withstand  the  popular  reaction.  They 
esteemed  the  firmness  of  the  British  government  to  be  purchased  at  too 
dear  a  rate  when  the  people  were  crushed  beneath  its  burdens;  and 
they  protested  against  the  introduction  of  British  practices,  or  indeed 
of  any  practices  not  warranted  by  the  letter  of  the  Constitution. 

The  experience  of  forty-five  years  has  shown  that  the  latter  party 


144  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

were  correct  in  their  views.  Never  has  the  government  proved,  in  any- 
one instance,  too  weak  to  accomplish  its  legitimate  purposes :  often,  and 
in  a  great  variety  of  instances,  has  assumed  powers  not  granted  by  the 
Constitution. 

The  fundamental  article  in  the  democratic  creed  is  this — -that  the 
general  government  ought  to  be  strictly  confined  within  its  proper  sphere. 
In  the  words  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  taken  from  an  official  opinion  drawn 
up  by  him  while  secretary  of  state,  they  "  consider  the  foundation  of  the 
Constitution  laid  on  this  ground,  that  all  powers  not  delegated  to  the 
United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are 
reserved  to  the  States  or  the  people.  To  take  a  single  step  beyond  the 
boundaries  thus  specially  drawn  around  the  powers  of  Congress,  is  to 
take  possession  of  a  boundless  field  of  power  no  longer  susceptible  of 
any  definition." 

Congress  very  soon  overstepped  these  boundaries,  and  in  spite  of  an 
obstinate  resistance  from  the  democratic  party,  from  time  to  time, 
enacted  such  legislative  constructions  of  the  Constitution  as  made  it  a 
very  different  thing  from  what  the  people  thought  they  had  submitted  to. 
The  question  whether  we  were  to  live  under  a  limited  or  an  unlimited 
government,  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  that  the  power  given 
by  the  Constitution  to  collect  taxes,  to  provide  for  the  general  luelfare  of 
the  United  States,  permitted  Congress  to  take  every  thing  under  their 
own  management  which  they  should  deem  for  the  public  loelfare,  and 
which  is  susceptible  of  the  application  of  money. 

So  alarming  were  these  assumptions  of  powers  not  delegated,  that  the 
people  were  roused  to  resist  them.  The  election  of  Thomas  Jefferson, 
and  his  untiring  efforts  through  the  eight  years  of  his  presidency,  did 
much  to  restore  the  administration  of  the  government  to  its  original  con- 
stitutional simplicity.  The  natural  tendencies,  however,  of  interest  and 
ambition  to  steal  power  from  the  many  and  deposit  it  with  the  few, 
were  too  strong  to  remain  dormant.  They  soon  began  to  operate  in  the 
old  way  with  new  vigor.  After  the  close'  of  the  late  war,  (with  Great 
Britain,)  a  splendid  system  of  consolidated  government  was  devised  by 
J.  C.  Calhoun,  then  secretary  of  war,  and  advocated  by  George  Mc- 
Duffie,  in  an  able  pamphlet,  and  by  Henry  Clay  in  the  house  of  rep- 
resentatives. This  system  held  up  glittering  prizes  for  ambition.  It 
was  calculated  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  its  leaders  all  the  wealth  and 
all  the  talent  in  the  nation,  that  was  not  restrained  by  principle.  It  was 
the  conspiracy  of  avarice  against  liberty.  To  beguile  if  possible  the 
unthinking,  it  was  called  the  American  system;  though  as  Daniel 
Webster  justly  observes,  in  one  of  his  tremendous  philippics  against  it, 
deserved  rather  to  be  called  the  British  system,  being  copied  in  all  its 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I45 

prominent  features  from  the  practice  of  the  British  government.  The 
true  American  system  is  a  system  of  equal  rights,  equal  burdens,  and 
free  trade.  The  system  introduced  by  Calhoun  and  Clay,  was  a  system 
of  partial  privileges,  partial  taxes,  and  universal  restrictions. 

Such  is  the  view  which  in  1834  Mr.  Rantoul  took  of  the 
principles  of  government,  and  of  the  two  great  parties  which 
divided  the  suffrages  of  the  people.  They  are  principles  which 
he  held  to  the  last,  and  which  he  did  more  to  effectually  vindicate 
than  any  other  man  of  his  age  in  the  United  States.  His  news- 
paper essays,  which  he  commenced  writing  in  his  twenty- 
second  year,  show  a  clearness  and  depth  of  thought,  and  a 
force  of  reasoning  which  would  have  been  honorable  to  the 
most  practised  logician  and  experienced  statesman.  His  brother- 
in-law,  Charles  W.  Woodbury,  commenced  in  1834  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Gloucester  Democrat  and  Workingmen's  Advo- 
cate, a  newspaper  in  which  the  democratic  cause,  the  cause  of 
humanity  and  of  progress,  was  advocated  by  Mr.  Rantoul,  with 
a  power  and  effectiveness  unsurpassed  in  editorial  annals.  The 
late  Governor  Hill,  of  New  Hampshire,  declared  it  to  be  the 
best  democratic  paper  in  New  England.  Although  Mr.  Ran- 
toul w^as  not  its  nominal  editor,  or  responsible  for  all  that 
appeared  in  it,  yet  it  owed  to  his  indefatigable  industry, 
accurate  knowledge,  and  sound  reasoning,  whatever  good  and 
effective  service  it  performed  in  behalf  of  democratic  principles. 
His  communications  are  brilliant  with  every  kind  of  informa- 
tion honorable  to  the  statesman  a*nd  the  philanthropist.  They 
were  devoted  to  a  great  variety  of  topics.  Every  good  cause 
received  his  support  —  an  able  and  earnest  support.  His  state- 
ments of  facts  and  principles  were  always  reliable.  If  they 
seemed  to  flow  without  effort  from  his  tongue  or  his  pen,  they 
were  not  made  without  a  thorough  and  complete  knowledge  of 
the  evidence  of  their  correctness  and  of  his  ability  to  show  it. 
In  1836  he  asserted  "  there  cannot  be  found  in  the  Gloucester 
Democrat  from-  its  commencement  an  instance  of  false  quota- 
tion." This  extreme  accuracy  of  reference  to  the  historical,  or 
statistical  authorities  upon  which  he  relied,  gives  both  argu- 
mentative force,  and  permanent  interest  and  value  to  all  his 
writings  and  speeches. 

13 


146  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

In  two  articles  in  the  Gloucester  Democrat  of  January,  1837, 
I\fi'.  Rantoul  gives  his  views  of  the  importance  of  districting 
the  State  without  regard  to  county  lines,  for  the  choice  of 
senators,  on  the  basis  of  population.  In  the  first,  of  January 
20,  he  says :  "  The  report  of  last  year,  for  amending  the  Consti- 
tution in  regard  to  the  apportionment  of  the  senators  to  the 
respective  senatorial  districts,  has  been  called  and  committed  in 
the  senate.  This  proposed  amendment  recognizes  the  princi- 
ple of  apportionment  according  to  population,  to  be  substituted 
for  the  present  one  of  taxes  paid.  This  is  well  as  far  as  it  goes, 
but  in  reforming  and  improving  our  Constitution  of  government, 
the  great  principle  of  equal  representation,  and  the  simplest, 
safest,  and  fairest  mode  of  representing  the  will  of  the  majority 
of  the  whole  people  in  each  branch  of  the  legislature,  should 
be  sought  after,  and  as  far  as  practicable  be  adopted.  The  man- 
ner in  which  the  senatorial  districts  are  formed  by  adhering  to 
county  lines,  produces  as  great  inequality  as  the  apportionment 
by  taxation,  as  it  has  been  practised  for  the  last  fifteen  years. 
The  inequality  of  this  mode  may  be  seen,  when  it  is  considered 
that  some  of  the  counties  are  so  large,  as  to  be  entitled  by 
population  to  six  senators,  and  to  leave  a  fraction  unrepresented, 
while  others  are  so  small  as  to  be  entitled  to  one  or  two  sena- 
tors, and  leave  a  fraction  unrepresented  equally  large  as  in  the 
largest  county. 

"  To  obviate  this  objection  as  far  as  may  be,  let  the  Com- 
monwealth be  divided  into  forty  districts,  and  nearly  equal  in 
proportion  as  they  can  be  by  classing  together  contiguous 
towns,  and  by  dividing  the  city  of  Boston  by  the  existing  wards, 
and  let  each  district  thus  formed  elect  one  senator.  The 
council  should  be  chosen  in  the  first  instance  from  the  people 
at  large,  either  by  the  legislature  or  by  the  people,  by  a  general 
ticket.  Those  who  are  engaged  in  obtaining  the  substitution 
of  the  principle  of  population  for  that  of  taxation,  will  find  a 
smoother  paih  and  encounter  fewer  obstacles  by  proposing  at 
once  the  formation  of  equal  districts,  and  thus  securing,  as  far 
as  may  be,  equal  representation  combined  with  the  greatest  sim- 
plicity." 

In  the  second  article  he  said  :  "  Why  adhere  to  county  lines  ? 
The  meetings  for  elections  are  not  held  by  counties :  the  returns 


147 

of  elections  are  not  made  to  county  officers.  Counties  are 
constituted  for  altogether  different  purposes.  If  a  representa- 
tive body  is  to  be  constituted  to  make  laws  to  bind  the  whole, 
ought  not  each  voter  to  have  equal  power  in  electing  this  body  ? 
By  the  present  arrangement  of  the  senatorial  districts,  it  ap- 
pears that  a  vote  in  Suffolk  or  in  Nantucket  and  Dukes  county 
has  very  nearly  three  times  the  political  power  that  a  vote  has 
in  Barnstable  and  Franklin,  and  more  than  twice  the  power  of 
one  in  Plymouth.  To  be  sure  this  great  inequality  may  in 
some  degree  be  lessened  by  an  apportionment  among  unequal 
districts,  according  to  population,  but  it  cannot  be  rendered  so 
nearly  equal  as  by  a  division  of  the  State  into  forty  districts, 
without,  however,  dividing  towns  or  the  existing  wards  of  cities. 
The  extreme  results  that  occur  in  regard  to  the  strength  of 
political  parties  in  the  senate,  by  a  choice  to  be  made  by  dis- 
tricts varying  in  their  population  from  ten  to  eighty  thousand, 
would  always  be  prevented  by  a  division  into  equal  districts, 
each  being  entitled  to  elect  only  one  senator. 

"  Within  a  very  few  years,  when  the  democratic  party  com- 
prised a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  people,  they  have  been 
represented  by  a  single  member  in  the  senate. 

"  The  simplicity  of  an  arrangement  which  will  give  to  each 
voter  the  nearest  possible  connection  with  his  representative  in 
the  first  branch  of  the  legislature,  is  a  great  commendation 
of  it. 

"  The  city  of  Boston,  that  is,  that  party  who  now  control  the 
people  of  that  city,  may  object  to  a  choice  of  senators  by 
wards,  but  when  did  not  they  object  to  any  measure  that  would 
divide  their  influence  and  lesson  their  aggregate  power  ?  Is  it 
not  sufficient  that  the  minority,  however  numerous,  should  be 
excluded  from  representation  upon  the  floor  of  the  house, 
without  also  depriving  them  of  all  chance  of  having  a  represen- 
tative in  the  other  branch  ?  But  what  is  good,  right,  and  proper 
for  the  rest  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  is  so  for  that  portion 
who  live  within  the  limits  of  the  city  of  Boston." 

His  articles  in  the  journals  of  the  day  are  so  thoroughly 
republican,  that  to  quote  them,  to  prove  the  genuineness  and 
strength  of  his  attachment  to  those  democratic  principles  of 
government  of  which  Jefferson  was  believed  to  have  given  the 


148  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

best  exposition,  would  be  to  gild  refined  gold.  Mr.  Jefferson 
himself  was  never  a  more  earnest  and  faithful  friend  of  repub- 
lican liberty  than  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  from  the  commencement 
to  the  close  of  his  political  life.  The  support  he  gave  to  the 
administration  of  Jackson,  who,  in  the  office  of  president,  as  in 
that  of  general,  discomfited  the  enemies  of  his  country,  and 
whose  opinions  and  Jefferson's  were  identical,  was  at  the  same 
time  ardent,  able,  and  effective.  It  was  the  result  of  opinions 
which  had  grown  with  his  growth  and  strengthened  with  his 
strength.  To  quote  the  many  sound  and  brilliant  articles  in 
which  he  advocated  the  claims  and  justified  the  course  of  this 
administration,  the  most  illustrious  since  Washington's  in 
patriotic  and  beneficent  results,  would  be  to  transfer  to  these 
pages  the  greater  part  of  the  original  articles  which,  for  three 
years,  made  the  Gloucester  Democrat  one  of  the  most  able  re- 
publican journals  in  the  United  States.  A  few  extracts,  there- 
fore, must  suffice  :  — 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  put  the  question,  what  is  our  resource  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Constitution  ?  Our  only  resource  was  to  place  in  the 
presidential  chair  a  statesman  of  democratic  principles,  and  of  energy 
sufficient  to  rescue  the  Constitution  at  its  last  gasp.  This  could  not  be 
accomplished  unless  the  whole  democratic  party  could  unite  in  the  sup- 
port of  one  man  possessing  the  unbounded  confidence  and  expectation  of 
the  nation.  Providence,  which  in  great  perils  raises  up  great  deliverers, 
gave  us  the  man.  Every  vote  south  of  the  Potomac,  every  vote  west  of 
the  Alleganies,  with  a  large  majority  of  the  suffrages  of  the  Middle 
States,  elected  Andrew  Jackson. 

He  undertook  the  execution  of  his  Herculean  task  with  undaunted 
resolution,  and  pursued  it  with  invincible  perseverance.  No  threats 
could  intimidate  him,  no  allurements  draw  him,  no  obstacles  turn  him 
aside  from  the  path  of  duty.     The  reform  commenced  at  once. 

The  requisite  changes  in  the  agents  employed  by  the  government 
were  directed,  and  immediately  the  democratic  doctrine  of  rotation  in 
office  was  bitterly  reviled.  The  system  of  heavy  taxes  on  the  poor  for 
the  benefit  of  the  rich  was  assailed,  and  a  general  outcry  of  indignation 
from  the  capitaUsts,  whose  interests  were  implicated,  showed  that  he  had 
awakened  the  wrath  of  a  class  who  can  seldom  be  touched  with  impunity. 
He  went  on  coolly  and  steadily,  however,  never  relaxing  in  his  exertions 
till  the  duties  were  reduced  to  the  revenue  standard.  The  log-rolling 
system  of  unauthorized  internal  improvements  was  prostrated  at  a  single 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  149 

blow  —  the  Mays villc  Road  Bill  veto  settled  that  question  —  and  the 
opposition  burst  out  in  clamorous  exultation.  He  had  undertaken  more 
than  he  could  accomplish,  they  said ;  instead  of  destroying  the  system, 
he  had  destroyed  himself !  "  The  cry  is  now  for  Clay,"  said  the  Register ; 
,"  The  whole  West  is  for  Clay,"  said  the  Sentinel ;  "  The  name  of  Clay 
resounds  from  the  mountains  to  the  Atlantic,"  said  the  National  Journal ; 
"  It  is  folly  to  attempt  to  conceal  the  fact  that  Jacksonism  is  down  in  the 
West,"  said  another ;  "  By  1832,  the  whole  country  will  be  for  Clay," 
said  another. 

The  old  hero  heeded  this  uproar  not  at  all,  but  kept  steadily  on  his 
course.  There  remained  one  more  infraction  of  the  Constitution  to  be 
redressed.  The  United  States  Bank  had  been  chartered  in  defiance  of 
that  instrument ;  it  had  become  the  most  dangerous  foe  of  our  liberties, 
and  it  i)ut  forward  pretensions  which  amounted  to  a  claim  to  perpetuity. 
The  president  had  manifested  his  determination  to  restore  the  integrity 
of  the  Constitution,  and  to  confine  the  action  of  the  government  within 
its  legitimate  limits.  The  bank  accordingly  took  the  field  against  him. 
It  used  the  money  of  the  stockholders  and  of  the  people,  to  electioneer 
for  a  recharter  and  against  the  president  of  the  people's  choice.  It 
pushed  forward  through  both  houses  a  bill  to  prolong  its  own  existence, 
and  the  jDresident  promptly  met  it  with  a  veto.  The  issue  was  then 
fairly  before  the  people.  Patriotism  and  self-devotion  unequalled,  innu- 
merable services  performed,  and  an  arduous  service  yet  to  be  perfected, 
on  the  one  side  ;  monopoly,  corruption,  and  intrigue  on  the  other.  The 
bank  did  all  that  money  could  do.  It  bought  the  venal,  cajoled  and  in- 
timidated the  weak,  and  deceived  the  simple  ;  yet  the  result  showed  that 
the  democracy  were  too  upright,  too  independent,  too  intelligent,  to  be 
made  slaves  to  a  corporation  which  they  had  always  detested.  The 
people's  candidate  received  tavo  iiuxdked  and  nineteen  votes  ;  the 
candidate  of  the  bank,  Henry  Clay,  received  forty-nine. 

The  wrongs  of  the  consolidation  system  had  excited  to  madness  a 
portion  of  the  South  ;  they  threatened  by  an  organized  rebellion  to  over- 
throw both  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  The  sagacity,  firmness,  and 
decision  of  Andrew  Jackson  averted  this  calamity.  Nullification  and 
consolidation  received  their  death  blow  from  his  hand,  and  have  gone 
down  to  dishonored  graves  together. 

The  enemies  of  the  Constitution,  who  would  build  on  its  ruins  a  gov- 
ernment of  unlimited  powers,  the  enemies  of  the  Constitution,  who  would 
wrest  from  the  government  its  legitimate  authority,  have  forsworn  their 
names,  shuffled  out  of  sight  their  principles,  patched  up  a  short,  hollow, 
and  heartless  truce,  and  for  the  last  six  months  have  been  walking  in 

13* 


150  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

masquerade.  They  have  folded  up  tlieir  tattered  banners,  and  tried  to 
rally  their  broken  ranks  under  the  bank'  flag. 

But  the  monster  itself  has  received  its  mortal  wound.  The  govern- 
ment has  exercised  that  power,  which  is  reserved  by  the  bank  charter, 
which  Jefferson  recommended  should  be  used,  and  which  a  committee  of 
the  friends  of  the  bank  pointed  out  as  the  "  salutary  corrective  to  punish 
any  attempt  of  the  bank  to  bring  its  pecuniary  influence  to  bear  on  the 
politics  of  the  country."  The  bank  party  staggers  under  the  blow.  In 
their  last  and  desperate  onset  upon  the  democracy,  certain  defeat  awaits 
them.  But  our  victory  is  not  to  be  won  without  effort,  and  it  becomes 
every  lover  of  liberty  to  be  up  and  doing. 

In  this  great  contest  we  take  our  stand,  and  shall  maintain  it  on  the 
people's  side.  "VYe  go  against  monopolies,  against  exclusive  privileges, 
against  unequal  taxes,  against  all  other  usurpations  and  oppressions  on 
the  one  side,  against  disorganization,  disunion,  and  civil  war  on  the  other. 
We  hold  with  our  patriotic  president,  that  "  the  Constitution  and 

LAWS    ARE    SUPREME,  AND    THE    UnION    INDISSOLUBLE."       We   gO    for 

equal  rights,  equal  laws,  equal  taxes,  equal  privileges,  —  for  liberty  for 
the  democracy,  for  the  whole  people. 

Some  of  the  opposition  presses  were  uninformed,  or  incon- 
siderate enough  to  accuse  General  Jackson  of  a  disposition  to 
squander  the  public  money.  To  this  charge  JVIr.  Rantoul  re- 
plies as  follows :  — 

It  does  not  become  that  party  who  have  increased  the  expenses  of  the 
government  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  while  it  Avas  entirely  in  their 
own  hands,  till  they  far  exceed  those  of  all  the  other  State  gov- 
ernments IN  New  England  put  together,  to  ask  this  question. 
Still  less  does  it  become  those  who,  by  their  own  factious  wickedness, 
have  squandered  the  public  treasures,  to  turn  round  upon  the  most 
economical  administration  the  country  has  ever  seen,  and  to  charge  Gen- 
eral Jackson  with  their  own  acts  done  in  defiance  of  his  repeated  recom- 
mendations. 

1.  By  his  veto  on  the  Maysville  Road  Bill,  General  Jackson  stopped 
appropriations  then  pending  or  proposed,  in  one  stage  or  another,  which 
amounted  to  more  than  taventy  millions  of  dollars,  and  saved  so 
much  money  directly  to  the  nation. 

By  that  act  he  put  a  stop  to  the  log-rolling  system  which  would  have 
made  the  whole  revenue  of  the  tariff  of  1828  necessary,  and  in  a  short 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  151 

time  would  have  cost  the  nation  twenty  millions  of  dollars  every  year, 
and  would  have  made  it  impossible  to  pay  off  the  national  debt,  besides 
endangering  the  stability  of  the  Union.  Jackson  prevented  these  ex- 
penses, and  thereby  brought  about  the  repeal  of  the  tariff,  paid  the  debt, 
and  saved  the  Union. 

By  this  act  he  gave  up  that  vast  executive  patronage,  so  tempting  to 
vulgar  ambition,  which  that  system  carried  with  it ;  he  decreased,  and 
to  an  immense  extent,  more  than  all  the  other  presidents  together,  his 
own  prerogative  and  influence ;  he  exhibited  to  the  world  the  extraordi- 
nary and  sublime  spectacle  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  free  republic 
refusing  to  acce^yt  a  tremendous  accession  of  poioer  which  the  opposition 
to  his  cidministration  attempted  to  force  into  his  hands,  but  which  he 
sternly  rejected,  because  the  public  good  did  not  require  that  he  should 
have  it,  and  the  Constitution,  as  he  understands  it,  forbade  its  exercise. 
Yet  with  the  act  of  more  than  Roman  firmness  before  their  eyes,  we 
every  day  hear  simple  innocents  prattling  about  a  "  high  prerogative  " 
as  if  they  imagined  that  charge  would  apply  to  him,  who  has  redressed 
the  wrongs  of  the  violated  Constitution,  reversed  the  usurpations  of  the 
general  government,  and  done  more  to  reduce  executive  prerogative, 
than  any  other  president,  indeed,  than  all  other  presidents  together.  If 
they  know  the  charge  is  false,  we  pity  them ;  if  they  do  not  know  the 
charge  is  false,  we  pity  them. 

This  fact  explains  how  it  is  that  the  expenses  have  not  increased 
twelve  or  fifteen  millions  more  than  they  have  done,  and  why  they  will 
not  ultimately  increase  twenty  millions.  To  Andrew  Jackson,  and  to 
him  cdone,  in  spite  of  opposition,  belongs  the  credit  of  this  great  re- 
trenchment. 

2.  Of  the  increased  expenditures  of  the  government  for  the  last  four 
years,  the  greater  part,  namely,  fifty-five  millions  six  hundred  thousand 
dollars  have  been  paid  on  account  of  the  national  debt,  most  of  this  sum 
having  been  rescued  from  the  slough  of  unconstitutional  internal  im- 
provements, solely  by  the  energy  of  the  hero,  and  the  national  debt 
thereby  discharged,  besides  relieving  the  people  from  many  millions  of 
annual  taxes. 

3.  The  annual  estimates  furnish  the  measure  of  the  extravagance  or 
economy  of  any  administration,  because  they  state  the  limits  within 
which  it  will  undertake  (if  Congress  concurs)  to  confine  the  public  ex- 
penses. If  Congress  orders  the  president  to  expend  thirty  per  cent. 
more  money  than  he  asks  for,  as  they  did  last  year,  is  that  his  fault  ? 
He  must  obey  the  laws,  however  much  he  may  disapprove  of  them.  In 
1833  the  estimate  for  the  year  included  four  millions  of  dollars  for  rev- 
olutionary pensions,  under  the   act  of  June,  1832.     Unless  the  coali- 


152  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AXD  WRITINGS 

tion  are  willing  to  give  General  Jackson  all  the  credit  of  that  act,  they 
must  deduct  the  payments  under  it,  before  instituting  a  comparison. 
Having  made  this  deduction,  the  estimates  for  the  last  five  years  will 
stand, 

]829 $23,245,963 

1830 22,263,626 

1831 21,852,911 

1832 22,864,099 

1833         .......  21,295,237 

It  must  be  recollected  that  the  estimates  for  1829,  were  made  by 
Adams's  administration  before  it  went  out  of  office ;  it  will  then  be 
noticed  that  the  estimates  have  been  less  every  subsequent  year  (omit- 
ting lost  pensions)  than  they  were  in  that  year  —  less  by  an  aggregate 
of  about  FIVE  MiLLioxs,  than  they  w^ould  have  been  at  the  Adams 
standard. 

4.  The  excess  of  the  appropriations  of  Congress  over  the  estimates, 
will  show  how  much  money  has  been  expended,  which,  in  the  president's 
opinion,  the  public  good  did  not  require,  and  which  the  president  did  not 
ask  for  and  did  not  want.  In  1833,  the  appropriations  in  contempt  of 
the  president's  recommendations,  exceeded  thirty-two  millions. 

Mr.  Rantoul  always  evinced  his  deep  sense  of  the  responsibility 
which  rests  on  every  citizen  of  a  republic.  In  the  Democrat, 
November  11,  1834,  he  said  :  — 

Our  ftithers,  when  they  gave  us  a  republican  government,  well  knew 
that  it  could  not  be  maintained  without  unwearied  watchfulness.  Their 
legacy  is  not  only  a  gift,  but  a  charge.  The  condition  on  wdiich  liberty 
is  granted  to  men  is  eternal  vigilance.  The  very  nature  of  our  govern- 
ment, depending  entirely  for  its  vigor,  utility,  and  existence  on  the  peo- 
ple, on  each  and  every  citizen,  demonstrates  to  us  that  on  every  citizen 
rests  a  responsibility.  Every  man  is  bound  to  act  in  view  of  this  respon- 
sibility ;  to  remember  that  he  is  part  of  the  government,  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  liberty.  He  has  no  right  to  fold  his  arms  in  indifference  and 
to  say,  that  he  cares  for  none  of  these  things,  that  he  cares  not  who 
rules,  or  what  principles  are  triumphant,  that  he  asks  only  for  ease  and 
quiet,  and  to  turn  round  and  expect  you  to  praise  him  for  his  moderation 
and  humility.  It  is  this  indifference,  this  selfishness,  this  fear  of  action, 
this  retreating  from  the  field,  which  has  given  demagogues  courage  and 
confidence,  which  has  enabled  them  to  ride  over  honest  men,  and  to  lead 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  153 

away  the  unsuspecting.  Some  men  of  honest  intentions  are  too  easily 
discouraged.  They  see  at  times  unprincipled  politicians  elevated  to 
seats  of  power ;  they  witness  the  temporary  triumphs  of  demagogues 
and  disorganizing  principles,  and  they  are  tempted  to  despair  of  the  re- 
public. They  retire  from  the  contest  in  disgust  and  contempt.  But 
such  men  are  not  fitted  for  a  republican  government.  Depend  upon  it, 
the  people  will  ultimately  do  right.  Let  every  honest  man  buckle  on 
his  armor,  let  him  use  his  influence,  his  talents,  his  information,  to 
advance  the  cause  of  correct  principles,  and  let  him  not  be  ashamed  to 
speak  and  act  as  an  independent  freeman,  and  the  reign  of  demagogues 
is  at  an  end  in  Massachusetts. 

What  a  noble  commentary  on  his  precepts  and  principles 
thus  avowed,  was  his  whole  life  !  What  freeman  was  ever 
more  independent  in  speech,  more  inflexible  in  action,  more 
devoted,  with  all  his  powers,  to  political  truth  and  liberty  ?  On 
whatever  subject  agitated  the  public,  or  involved  the  interests 
of  the  people,  he  was  prepared  with  well-studied  convictions, 
which  he  never  hesitated  to  express.  In  the  cause  of  truth  he 
was  fearless,  without  ostentation  of  courage,  and  unpretending, 
without  affectation  of  modesty.  He  respected  no  man's  person, 
but  felt  his  responsibility  to  a  higher  than  human  power.  The 
unjust  demands  of  mere  sect  and  party  he  trampled  under  his 
feet.  Let  an  object  appear  to  him  just,  important,  and  prac- 
ticable, and  he  was  at  once  its  ready  advocate.  He  did  not 
stop  to  inquire  how  his  personal  interests  were  to  be  affected,  or 
whether  the  object  was  favored  or  opposed  by  this  or  that  man, 
by  this  or  that  party.  Is  it  right  ?  Is  it  best  for  the  people  ? 
These  questions  determined  his  course,  and  that  course  from 
beginning  to  end  was  a  consistent  one. 

In  his  creed  and  principles  as  a  public  man  there  was  a  unity, 
a  consistency,  and  a  symmetry,  which  could  have  been  the  re- 
sult only  of  high  moral  and  intellectual  excellence.  As  from  a 
single  column,  entablature,  or  architrave  of  a  Grecian  temple 
in  ruins,  may  be  inferred  the  original  style  and  exact  proportions 
of  the  whole,  as  it  stood  in  its  glory  ;  so  from  a  single  and  ex- 
plicit declaration  of  opinion  by  Mr.  R,antoul  on  any  one  great 
political  question,  not  only  his  view  of  it  at  any  other  period  of 
his  public  life  might  be  known,  but  such  was  the  congeniality 
of  his  principles,  that  the  deliberate  announcement  of  them  upon 


154  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

one  great  topic  of  general  interest,  indicated  with  sufficient  cer- 
tainty his  manner  of  viewing  every  other.  No  man  could  have 
been  more  free  from  an  ignoble  subserviency  to  circumstances, 
times,  and  parties,  or  more  completely  removed  beyond  all 
merely  selfish  considerations.  The  question  of  his  consistency, 
he  was  ready  and  proud  to  meet  anywhere,  and  at  any  time. 
He  affirmed,  with  the  strictest  truth,  that  not  one  word  that  he 
had  ever  uttered  in  any  public  speech,  or  had  written  in  any 
printed  letter,  or  any  document  intended  to  be  an  expression  of 
his  opinions,  could  be  found  to  convict  him  of  inconsistency. 
In  his  speech  March  9,  1852,  in  the  United  States  House  of 
Representatives,  he  said :  "  What  I  have  done  for  the  last  ten 
years  has  not  been  done  in  a  corner.  I  have  spoken  all  over 
New  England,  and  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois, 
Michigan,  "Wisconsin,  and  Missouri,  and  I  challenge  any  man, 
who  has  heard  any  public  address  of  mine,  to  come  forward 
and  convict  me  of  inconsistency  upon  any  great  national  ques- 
tion. That  is  my  challenge  ;  and  I  think  it  is  quite  broad 
enough  to  cover  all  supposable  cases." 

When  it  is  considered  how  various  and  interesting  were  the 
important  questions  upon  which  the  opinions  of  the  people 
were  divided,  and  upon  which  Mr.  Rantoul  was  often  called 
to  speak,  his  independence  will  appear  not  less  striking  than 
his  consistency  was  unquestionable.  The  stand  he  took  on 
the  convent  indemnity  question,  on  establishing  the  Board  of 
Education,  on  granting  State  aid  to  the  Western  Railroad, 
on  religious  toleration,  on  codifying  the  common  law,  on  the 
best  means  of  promoting  temperance,  and  on  other  questions 
which  came  up  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  as  well  as  on 
the  fugitive  slave  law,  etc.,  in  Congress,  evinced  in  him  a 
fearless  devotion  to  the  cause  of  truth,  liberty,  and  justice. 
Equally  plain  is  the  systematic  homogeneousness  of  his  princi- 
ples. They  had  a  common  nature.  Observe  how  his  free 
trade  opinions  harmonized  with  his  efforts  to  increase  the 
facilities  of  intercourse  between  distant  communities  and 
States  ;  with  his  cherished  confidence  in  human  progress  and 
the  advance  of  civilization  ;  with  his  philanthropic  views  of 
legal  reform,  and  the  repeal  of  all  laws  which  require  cruel  and 
useless  modes  of  punishment ;  w4th  his  so  deeply  felt  and  fre- 


OF  EOBEKT  RANTOUL,  JK.  I55 

quentiy  expressed  detestation  of  every  form  of  human  slavery, 
whether  of  opinion,  or  of  that  form  of  servitude  which,  in  re- 
publican America,  holds  three  millions  of  human  beings  in 
hereditary  bondage,  (of  which  his  opinion  in  1838  was  the  same 
as  in  1852) ;  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  he  was  found  on  the 
side  of  freedom.  This  position  will  be  sustained  in  the  follow- 
ing chapter.  The  present  must  close  with  the  republication  of 
several  of  his  earlier  productions. 

I.  An  oration  before  the  inhabitants  of  South  Keading,  on 
July  4,  1832.  This  first  of  his  published  addresses  shows  his 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  our  own  country  and 
Europe,  and  a  just  estimate  of  its  facts,  and  their  application  to 
the  political  instruction  of  his  auditors,  gives  it  a  permanent 
value  which  justifies  its  republication. 

II.  An  oration  delivered  before  the  Gloucester  Mechanic 
Association,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1833.  It  is  here  republished  as 
Mr.  Kantoul  presented  it  to  the  Workingmen's  liibrary.  Vol.  I. 
No.  5,  entitled,  "  The  Value  of  the  Federal  Union  calculated." 
In  commendation  of  the  just  thoughts,  the  historical  knowledge, 
and  the  elegant  reasoning  of  this  address,  Mr.  Rantoul  received 
from  Mr.  Marshall,  late  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  a  letter,  in  which  that  eminent  man  expressed 
in  strong  terms  his  gratification  in  perusing  it,  and  pronounced 
it  the  ablest  view  of  the  subject  that  had  been  given  to  the 
American  public. 

The  following  very  just  remarks  on  this  address  are  from  the 
Boston  Atlas  of  July  27,  1833  :  "  Mr.  Rantoul  shows,  by  an 
able  analysis  of  European  politics  and  history,  that  all  the  social 
grievances  under  which  our  European  neighbors  labor,  owe  their 
origin  and  support  to  loar^  and  the  liahilitij  to  luar,  to  which  the 
European  nations  from  the  nature  of  their  situation  have  always 
been  exposed.  War  has  been  the  origin  of  privileged  classes, 
standing  armies,  strong'  governments,  heavy  taxes,  overwhelm- 
ing debts,  and,  worse  than  all,  of  the  poverty,  ignorance,  and 
degradation  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  population,  which  make 
reforms  so  dangerous,  though  not  the  less  necessary  and  inevit- 
able. War,  and  the  liability  to  war,  is  the  great  enemy  to  liberty, 
introducing  the  necessity  of  intrusting  great  power  in  few  hands, 
of  degrading  and  impoverishing  the  people  by  heavy  taxes,  and 


156  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

military  service,  and  of  conferring  splendid  rewards  on  warlike 
genius  and  success. 

"  Now  a  state  of  occasional  warfare,  and  of  constant  liahility 
to  war,  would  be  the  inevitable  and  undeniable  consequence  of 
a  dissolution  of  the  American  Union ;  and  this  new  ingredient 
in  our  social  relations  would  not  fail  to  produce  here  the  same 
consequences  it  has  produced  in  Europe. 

"  This  liability  to  war,  in  case  the  Union  should  be  shattered 
into  a  number  of  disconnected  States,  would  on  some  accounts 
exist  here,  in  a  higher  degree  than  it  ever  has  in  Europe :  and 
Mr.  Rantoul  refers  to  the  absence  of  all  natural  barriers  and 
lines  of  demarcation,  that  facility  of  intercourse,  so  remarkable 
throughout  our  extensive  territory,  the  existence  of  a  common 
language,  and  of  common  and  interwoven  interests,  —  all  justly 
regarded  as  great  blessings  so  long  as  the  Union  continues,  — 
as  certain,  in  case  of  a  separation,  to  multiply  a  thousand  fold, 
the  chances  and  the  causes  of  war.  That  constant  progressive 
march  of  settlements  and  increase  of  wealth  and  population, 
in  which  we  now  exult,  should  the  Union  be  dissolved,  would 
be  turned  into  a  curse,  and  by  continually  disturbing  the  balance 
ofpoiuer^  would  introduce  a  new  source  of  discord  and  war.  The 
two  opposite  principles  of  a  tendency  to  further  subdivision, 
and  the  disposition  of  large  States  to  swallow  up  or  tyrannize 
over  their  weaker  neighbors,  would  throw  new  ingredients  into 
the  caldron  of  discord  and  foreign  intervention^  with  all  its 
attending  dangers  and  humiliations,  would  add,  if  possible,  to 
the  misery  of  a  situation,  of  which  arbitrary  power,  standing 
armies,  oppressive  taxes,  public  debts,  a  military  nobility,  and  a 
crushed,  degraded,  wretched  populace^  would  be  the  natural  and 
unavoidable  results. 

"  Any  body  who  will  read  Mr.  Rantoul's  oration,  will  be  sat- 
isfied that  this  terrible  picture  is  not  the  creation  of  a  heated 
and  excited  fancy,  but  is  traced  by  the  hand  of  philosophy,  and 
shaded  by  the  pencil  of  the  historic  muse." 

III.  An  address  to  the  Workingmen  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  as  it  was  published  in  the  Workingmen's  Library, 
1833. 

If  the  incessant  industry  of  an  ever  active  mind,  devoted  to 
the  acquisition  and  the  beneficent  use  of  knowledge  can  entitle 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I57 

one  to  be  considered  a  workingman,  and  can  qualify  him  to 
speak  wisely  and  effectively  to  his  associates  of  all  pursuits, 
favorable  to  human  happiness,  Mr.  Rantoul  certainly  pos- 
sessed the  requisite  qualifications.  A  lasting  interest  will 
always  attach  to  the  wise  and  philanthropic  sentiments  of  this 
address. 

IV.  An  oration  at  Scituate,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1836. 
This  oration  is  full  of  matter  of  permanent  interest.  It  is 
marked  by  great  care  in  the  positions  assumed,  and  by  exten- 
sive research  in  sustaining  them. 

V.  Extracts  from  an  oration  delivered  at  Lenox,  before  the 
citizens  of  Berkshire  county,  July  4,  1838,  on  the  true  basis  of 
free  governments. 


0R.AT10^^^  AT   SOUTH  READING.* 

It  is  a  very  common  remark,  and  I  do  not  care  with  whom  it  origi- 
nated, —  it  is  none  the  less  true  because  it  is  common,  —  that  the  world 
is  governed  too  much.  Fifty-six  years  ago,  on  the  day  we  are  met  to  cele- 
brate, three  millions  of  people,  of  the  freest  and  best  governed  among 
the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  impressed  notwithstanding,  by  their  own 
experience,  with  the  truth  of  this  maxim,  met  together,  by  their  delegates, 
whom  they  had  authorized  and  empowered  so  to  do,  solemnly  proclaimed 
to  the  world,  that,  for  the  future,  they  and  their  descendants  would  not 
be  governed  too  much.  "Whether  under  all  the  circumstances  this  decision 
was  wise,  whether  it  can  and  will  be  carried  successfully  into  effect,  is 
for  the  present  generation  and  for  posterity  to  determine.  The  question 
is  of  universal  interest,  the  experiment  is  a  grand  one ;  the  eyes  of  all 
mankind  are  upon  the  actors,  and  anxiously  awaiting  the  issue.  If  self- 
government  in  this  full  and  fair  trial  of  its  capacities  be  found  to  fail, 
the  hope  of  liberty  is  gone  forever.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  should  be 
found  able  to  meet  that  absolute  necessity  out  of  which  governments 
grew,  if  it  should  be  found  competent  to  fulfil  all  those  high  purposes  for 
which  governments  are  maintained,  especially  if  it  should  be  found  to 
answer  the  ends  for  wdiich  men  in  society  have  mutually  surrendered 
some  portion  of  their  natural  freedom,  with  less  encroachment  on  their 
natural  rights,  at  a  cheaper  rate  and  in  a  more  satisfactory  manner,  by  a 

^  Delivered  before  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  its  vicinity,  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1832. 

14 


158  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

shorter,  simpler,  surer,  and  more  efficient  process,  it  is  not  presumptuous 
to  foretell,  that  sooner  or  later  the  example  will  be  every  where  imitated, 
and  that  in  the  progress  of  time,  as  surely  as  ages  roll  on,  the  day  will 
come  when  the  light  of  liberty  shall  shine  on  all  who  now  sit  in  darkness, 
when  over  all  her  M^ide  spread  continents  and  among  all  her  widely 
differing  races,  the  world  shall  no  longer  be  governed  too  much.  If  this 
be  so,  my  friends,  if  the  future  destinies  of  mankind  no  less  than  our 
own  welfare  do  in  a  great  measure  hinge  upon  this  question,  it  is  impor- 
ant  that  we  should  discuss  and  understand  it :  and  I  do  not  know  of  any 
opportunity  more  fitting  for  the  discussion  than  this  anniversary,  filled  as 
it  is  with  associations  which  awaken  all  our  noblest  sensibilities,  and 
kindle  into  a  lively  ardor  that  affection  for  our  common  country  which 
we  all  profess  to  feel. 

All  nations  in  all  ages  haA^e  set  apart  seasons  of  thanksgiving  for 
great  national  blessings,  and  more  especially  days  wdiereon  patriotism 
might  delight  itself  in  the  recollection  of  great  national  deliverances. 
The  ancient  people  of  God  had  their  feast  of  tabernacles,  their  passover 
and  their  jubilee,  and  on  those  solemn  occasions,  when  all  the  tribes  of 
the  land  went  up  to  pour  forth  their  common  gratitude  in  the  temple 
of  their  common  Father,  grand  and  imposing  indeed  must  have  been 
the  spectacle.  An  institution  so  beautiful  could  not  fail  to  spring  up 
spontaneously  and  under  a  great  variety  of  forms,  among  the  people 
of  classic  antiquity.  The  Greeks,  our  preceptors  in  matters  of  taste, 
the  Romans,  who,  whatever  we  may  lay  to  their  charge  in  other  respects, 
we  may  safely  pronounce  to  have  been  models  of  patriotism,  honored 
their  heroes  while  living,  and  their  memory  when  dead,  and  distin- 
guished also  the  days  and  the  places  marked  by  their  achievements,  with 
triumphs,  games,  festivals,  and  other  tokens  of  public  regard  and  interest, 
which  have  so  often  been  described  that  I  will  not  trouble  you  with 
the  repetition. 

The  custom  is  good :  it  is  founded  in  natural  feelings,  and  worthy  to 
be  perpetuated.  And  certainly,  among  the  blessings  which  deserve  thus 
to  be  commemorated,  national  independence  ought  to  hold  the  first  place, 
since  without  it  no  rational  liberty  can  be  enjoyed,  and  without  liberty 
all  other  blessings  are  worthless.  The  Sabbath,  which,  with  a  slight 
departure  from  its  original  institution,  all  Christendom  now  holds  as 
holy  time,  was  ordained  to  be  observed  by  the  Hebrews  through  all  their 
generations,  as  a  memorial  of  their  deliverance  from  slavery  —  "  for  in 
that  day  the  Lord  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  and  out  of  the 
house  of  bondage."  The  Catholic  church,  the  universal  church,  as  it  is 
proud  to  call  itself,  has  filled  its  calendar  with  days  of  observatioja.  The 
birth  of  its  saints,  the  sufferings  of  its  martyrs  —  nothing  that  ought  to 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I59 

be  remembered,  is  forgotten.  It  keeps  higli  festival  on  every  day 
marked  by  any  extraordinary  event  in  the  history  of  its  early  progress. 
We  moderns,  and  protestants,  and  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  have  but 
fev/  such  festivals,  whether  of  religion  or  of  patriotism,  remaining ;  we 
should  therefore  be  so  much  the  more  zealous  to  nourish  and  to  keep 
alive  the  genuine  spirit  of  the  few  that  are  yet  left  to  us. 

If  then  it  be  true,  that  the  days  when  signal  blessings  have  been  be- 
stowed, ought  to  be  consecrated  in  after  years ;  if  it  be  undeniable,  that 
of  all  national  blessings  independence  is  the  greatest ;  it  is  manifest  that 
beyond  any  event,  that  any  nation  was  ever  called  upon  to  celebrate, 
these  United  States  of  America  are  emphatically  called  on  to  celebrate 
the  birth  day  of  their  independence,  since  it  has  secured  to  them  a 
greater  amount  of  civil  and  political  liberty  than  is  enjoyed  by  any  other 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  The  yeomanry  of  New  England,  who 
fought  the  battles  of  the  first  campaign,  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
among  whom  the  contest  originated,  may  rightfully  claim  -a  large  share 
of  the  glory,  and  therefore  have  peculiar  reason  to  keep  alive  the  re- 
membrance of  the  struggle  by  which  independence  was  secured.  Least 
of  all  should  we  forget  it,  we,  the  men  of  Middlesex,  to  whom  belongs 
so  liberal  a  portion  of  the  rich  inheritance  of  our  fathers'  glory.  The 
county  of  Middlesex  is  the  classic  ground  of  American  history.  Lex- 
ington, where  was  shed  the  blood  of  the  first  martyrs  in  the  holy  cause  ; 
Concord,  where  the  first  effectual  resistance  was  offered;  Bunker  Hill, 
where  the  veterans  of  the  mother  country  were  first  taught  to  suspect 
that  skill  and  discipline  and  British  valor,  might  buy  their  victories  too 
dear ;  Charlestown,  offered  up  as  one  great  burnt  sacrifice  ;  Cambridge, 
the  head-quarters  of  Washington  while  Boston  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  ;  these,  to  enlarge  no  further,  these  with  their  thousand  cherished 
traditions,  are  all  our  own.  Well  may  we  exult  as  we  enumerate  them : 
these  were  the  scenes  of  the  first  act  in  the  bloody  drama,  and  it  is  an 
hereditary  honor  of  which  republicans  may  be  proud,  that  our  fathers 
were  the  actors,  that  here  they  got  them  a  name  and  a  praise  among  the 
nations.  Lexington,  Concord,  Cambridge,  and  Bunker  Hill!  These 
magic  names  bring  before  us  at  once  the  whole  array  of  patriots  and 
sages,  and  recall  all  their  eventful  story,  with  its  romantic  reality.  Im- 
agination pictures  the  leaders,  and  marshals  the  ranks ;  we  are  hurried 
back  to  the  times  that  tried  men's  souls,  and  our  bosoms  glow  with  cor- 
responding emotions.  The  American  Revolution  deserves  to  be  com- 
memorated by  you,  men  of  Middlesex !  on  this  republican  jubilee.  It 
presents  itself  in  imposing  aspects.  It  opens  a  field  in  which  there  is 
room  to  expatiate  widely,  and  yet  leave  the  subject  unexhausted.  Spirit- 
stirring  reminiscences,  told  and  written,  sketches  vividly  portrayed  and 


160  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

of  absorbing  interest,  rush  at  once  upon  my  recollection,  and  almost 
tempt  me  to  indulge  in  the  enthusiasm  which  the  moment  inspires.  But 
Avhile  my  heart  swells  with  the  grandeur  of  the  theme,  I  cannot  but  be 
forcibly  struck  with  the  futility  of  attempting  to  do  it  justice.  What 
part  of  the  habitable  world  has  not  rung  with  the  story  of  your  fathers' 
wrongs  and  of  their  manly  vindication  ?  In  what  part  of  the  world  is 
there  strife  now  raging  between  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed,  that  ii 
is  not  quoted  day  by  day,  making  the  ears  of  tyrants  to  tingle  ?  From 
hoary  age  to  helpless  infancy,  who  that  has  ears  to  hear  is  not  familiar 
with  it  ?  Whose  breast,  of  all  that  listen  to  me,  is  not  throbbing  with 
sensations  which  language  is  not  adequate  to  express;  to  describe  which 
were  to  degrade  and  to  abuse  what  cannot  be  described ;  to  analyze 
which  were  to  anatomize  beauty,  to  exhibit  that  lifeless,  whose  essence 
is  life  and  health.  No,  gentlemen,  no !  It  is  not  my  part  to  inform 
your  intelligence,  or  to  heighten  your  emotions.  All  of  you  have  heard, 
and  some  of  you  have  seen,  and  known,  and  felt  in  your  own  persons, 
(long  may  these  honored  representatives  of  a  race  of  heroes  be  spared 
to  the  circles  they  adorn,)  the  sternness  of  resolve,  the  dauntless  bravery, 
the  long  enduring  perseverance  through  unmitigated  suffering,  the  self- 
denying  patriotism,  the  unalloyed  devotedness,  which  characterized  the 
men  of  seventy-six,  which  bore  them  through  the  fiery  trial,  and  stamp- 
ed them  to  be  nature's  noblemen.  Why,  then,  let  these  things  speak  for 
themselves  —  they  need  no  eulogist. 

To  gild  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily, 
To  throw  a  perfume  on  the  violet, 
Were  wasteful  and  ridiculous  excess. 

Old  men,  your  meditations  are  eloquent  beyond  any  thing  that  can  be 
addressed  to  you.  Young  men,  read  the  record,  and  then  confess,  that 
it  is  not  any  oratorical  flourish,  any  petty  artifice  of  rhetoric,  that  can 
add  brilliancy  to  the  lustre  of  your  fathers'  glory.  Their  deeds  magnify 
them  ;  their  works  praise  them  in  the  gates,  and  words  must  forever  fall 
far  short  of  their  praise. 

Passing  by,  therefore,  the  more  obvious  topic  of  discourse  on  this  oc- 
casion, a  humbler  task  I  will  undertake  with  alacrity  —  the  discussion  of 
the  question,  whether  the  American  experiment  of  self-government  is 
likely  to  be  a  successful  one  —  a  question  on  whose  doubtful  issues  hang 
the  hopes  and  fears,  as  has  been  already  intimated,  of  the  friends  of  lib- 
erty in  all  quarters  of  the  globe  and  throughout  all  coming  ages.  A 
humble  task,  since  it  furnishes  little  scope  for  ambitious  declamation,  and 
debars  from  the  oi)portunity  for  those  appeals  so  easily  offered  and 
always  favorably  received,  to  your  national  pride;  but  perhaps  a  more 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  161 

important  service,  could  it  be  adequately  performed,  inasmncli  as  infor- 
mation is  better  than  adulation,  and  truth  of  more  value  than  flattery. 
To  qualify  ourselves,  therefore,  for  the  decision  of  this  great  question, 
let  us  consider  some  of  the  causes  and  some  of  the  consequences  of 
American  independence.  The  personal  obversation  of  each  individual 
supplies  him  with  the  dear  bought  wisdom  of  experience,  but  history  is 
the  only  teacher  who  can  exhibit  lessons  for  nations.  Tn  the  events 
which  history  transmits,  the  voice  of  Providence  seems  to  be  addressing 
the  rulers  of  the  world.  It  seems  to  admonish  them,  in  solemn  and  im- 
pressive tones,  to  profit  by  the  severe  yet  voluntary  warnings  which  past 
errors,  past  crimes,  and  past  calamities,  afford  for  their  edification.  "  Be 
wise  now,  therefore,  oh  ye  kings !  Be  instructed,  ye  judges  of  the 
earth ! "  In  America  the  people  are  the  sovereigns,  and  in  order 
that  they  may  govern  well,  they  must  govern  understandingly :  they 
must  recognize  the  causes  and  the  consequences  of  great  political 
events. 

The  causes  of  American  independence  lie  deep  in  the  character  of 
the  continent  itself,  in  the  character  of  the  times  in  which  it  was  dis- 
covered and  colonized,  and  in  the  character  of  those  who  colonized  it.  , 
Subsequent  events  tended  to  develop  these  causes,  but  they  were  opera- 
ting surely  though  slowly,  and  sooner  or  later  must  have  produced  their 
effect,  even  though  those  events  had  never  occurred.  Let  us  dwell  for 
a  moment  on  each  of  these  particulars. 

The  character  of  the  times  in  which  the  discovery  and  settlement  of 
the  new  world  took  place,  first  demands  our  attention.  To  an  ordinary 
observer  living  at  that  period,  the  times  M'ould  not  have  appeared  pecu- 
liarly propitious  to  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  liberty.  The  fierce 
democracy  of  Athens,  the  unrelenting  sternness  of  that  unnatural  code 
by  which  Sparta  strove  to  eradicate  all  the  finer  feelings  of  humanity, 
and  to  condemn  her  whole  male  population,  to  serve  forever  as  an  armed 
garrison  under  martial  law  in  the  midst  of  enemies  ;  supported  by  the 
labors  of  slaves  of  kindred  stock,  extorted  from  them  at  the  point  of  the 
sword  ;  both  these  chimerical  systems  had  ages  ago  proved,  equally, 
total  failures.  So  it  was  with  the  lesser  republics,  all  had  proved  un- 
able to  sustain  themselves,  oblivion  had  closed  upon  them,  and  the  torch 
of  Grecian  liberty  was  extinguished  forever.  The  grinding  despotism 
of  the  privileged  orders  of  Rome,  a  form  of  tyranny  to  which  the  des- 
pots were  pleased  to  give  the  name  of  a  republic,  had  never  permitted 
any  real  liberty,  save  to  the  patricians  liberty  to  oppress.  It  trampled 
the  mass  of  the  people  beneath  its  feet,  as  vessels  formed  of  a  different 
clay  and  ordained  to  dishonor.  For  them  its  only  provision  was  heredi- 
tary, intolerable,  hopeless  servitude.     It  consigned  them,  without  pro- 

14* 


162  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

spect  of  relief  or  mitigation,  to  eternal  poverty  and  misery  at  home,  and 
for  all  this  they  were  consoled  by  the  glory  of  the  Roman  name  abroad. 
It  made  them  general  robbers,  but  the  booty  fell  to  the  share  of  the 
leaders  of  the  gang.  From  a  den  of  famished  wolves  prowling  for 
prey,  it  made  the  seven  hills  the  head-quarters  whence  its  victorious 
bands  issued  resistless  to  plunder  and  to  conquest,  and  finally  the  store- 
house of  the  accumulated  spoils  of  the  whole  known  world,  civilized  and 
barbarian.  Throughout  the  course  of  this  unparalleled  career  its  essen- 
tial features  remained  the  same.  The  kings  were  driven  out  because 
Roman  ears  would  no  longer  endure  the  name  of  king :  but  a  double 
annual  monarchy  succeeded,  and  rods  and  axes,  no  idle  ceremony,  were 
borne  before  the  consuls.  It  was  a  great  accession  to  the  already  vastly 
predominating  weight  of  the  oligarchy  in  the  state,  when  from  year  to 
year  they  could  deposit  this  enormous  executive  power  in  what  hands 
they  pleased.  They  had  swept  away  the  only  check  which  could  stand 
in  the  way  of  their  projects  of  aggrandizement,  an  hereditary  chief 
holding  office  by  a  tenure  independent  of  their  will.  They  had  gained 
an  exorbitant  increase  of  strength,  and  the  people  for  compensation  had 
got  ^rid  of  an  odious  word.  Thenceforth  the  government  was  more 
purely  aristocratic  than  ever,  and  Roman  patriotism,  still  stronger  than 
death,  was  more  truly  what  party  spirit  in  other  countries  has  been  well 
said  to  be,  "  the  madness  of  the  many  for  the  benefit  of  the  few."  The 
government  was  the  military  government  of  hereditary  captains,  over 
starved,  unpaid,  and  despised  soldiers  ;  and  this  government  the  perma- 
nent council  of  war  which  directed  its  operations,  the  haughty  senators, 
dignified  with  the  name  of  a  republic ;  and  the  moderns,  because  they 
had  no  other  name  to  bestow  upon  it,  ratified  the  title.  When  the 
power  passed  from  the  hands  of  the  patricians,  exhausted  with  intestine 
dissensions,  and  centred  in  the  person  of  a  successful  commander,  liberty 
lost  nothing  by  the  change.  The  republic,  if  so  it  must  be  styled,  was 
struck  out  of  the  list  of  republics  by  the  union  of  all  powers  under  one 
absolute  head :  but  the  forms  of  republicanism,  which,  so  far  a^  the 
rights  of  the  unprivileged  people  were  concerned,  had  never  been  any 
thing  but  forms,  were  sacredly  preserved  ;  and  the  people  certainly  lost 
none  of  the  substance  of  freedom  when  their  slavery  was  transferred 
from  many  masters  to  one.  The  iron  rule  of  the  emperors,  indeed, 
while  it  bore  more  heavily  upon  the  unsubdued  spirits  of  the  patricians, 
was  on  many  accounts  less  galling  to  the  subject  people,  and  brought 
them,  at  least  for  several  centuries,  some  alleviation  of  their  burdens. 
The  magnificent  fabric  of  the  empire  was  doomed  also  to  have  an  end. 
It  fell  into  the  hands  of  bad  men,  and  was  administered  with  indescrib- 
able profligacy  and  atrocity.     It  gradually  lost  the  affections,  ceased  to 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  163 

command  the  respect,  and  at  last  relinquished  its  hold  on  the  fears  of 
the  subject  nations.  Its  decay  impaired  its  vital  energy,  its  corruptions 
hung  like  a  millstone  about  its  neck,  it  tottered  long,  and  at  last  a  vigor- 
ous external  impulse  precipitated  it  in  ruins.  None  lamented  its  fall. 
It  sunk  loaded  with  the  curses  of  millions,  and  was  overwhelmed  by  the 
torrent  of  barbarian  invasion.  Out  of  the  chaos  that  ensued  was  to  be 
generated  a  prodigy  more  portentous  than  the  republic  in  its  most  vic- 
torious career,  or  the  empii-e  at  the  height  of  its  uncontrolled  dominion. 
An  element  of  power  had  in  the  meanwhile  been  growing  up,  advancing 
silently  but  irresistibly,  opposed  to  which  all  other  influences  were  to  be 
stripped  of  their  force,  and  which  was  to  subdue  beneath  its  sway  alike 
both  the  conquerors  and  the  vanquished.  Religion  had  never  hitherto 
played  any  but  a  subordinate  part.  It  had  been  a  useful  servant,  but  it 
had  never  pretended  to  act  independently  ;  much  less  had  it  attempted 
to  dictate  to  the  civil  authority.  Now,  however,  when  the  empire  is 
dismembered  and  the  fragments  left  masterless,  when  thrones  and  poten- 
tates are  prostrate,  and  so  great  the  confusion  that  government  cannot 
be  constructed  again  out  of  the  ordinary  materials,  religion  suddenly  pre- 
sents herself  under  a  new  aspect,  as  a  political  ruling  power,  not  an  en- 
gine in  the  hands  of  the  statesman  as  it  had  always  been,  but  as  itself  a 
power,  and  ready  to  meet  the  crisis  ;  able  to  reconstruct  the  social  edi- 
fice when  every  other  power  is  confessedly  incompetent  to  the  task  ;  pro- 
fiting by  the  convulsion  which  confounds  every  other  interest,  peculiarly 
fitted  to  ride  in  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the  storm.  Such  religion  rose 
in  her  might.  Fixing  her  lever  upon  the  hopes  and  fears  of  another 
world,  she  had  found  the  pivot  which  Archimedes  desired ;  there  was 
nothing  in  this  world  which  she  could  not  overturn.  Much  progress  had 
she  made  before  it  was  suspected  that  the  noiseless,  humble,  unobtru- 
sive agent,  was  to  become  an  imperious,  haughty,  all-controlling  master. 
But  when  once  fairly  landed  in  the  arena,  no  competitor  could  turn  her 
aside.  She  pushed  forwards  with  gigantic  strides  and  undeviating  pur- 
pose,.till  she  was  seated  in  majesty  on  the  throne  of  the  Ccesars.  The 
development  of  her  new  character  was  no  less  appalling  than  unex- 
pected. Gathering  the  scattered  reins  of  empire  and  grasping  them 
with  a  firm  hand,  she  guided  the  chariot  with  skill  and  with  firmness, 
and  its  course  was  ever  onward.  The  gerontochracy  of  the  senate  of 
Rome  was  succeeded  by  the  gerontochracy  of  the  pope  and  his  cardinals, 
and  they  inherited  from  their  predecessors  all  tlieir  passion  for  conquest 
and  consolidation.  The  apostle  of  him  who  was  meek  and  lowly  be- 
came the  autocrat  of  all  Christendom.  The  chief  of  the  subjects  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace  became  the  instigator  of  the  wars  of  Christendom. 
The  disciple  of  him  who  said,  "Judge  not  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  laid 


164  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WEITINGS 

claim  to  infallibility,  and  reared  the  palaces  and  the  dungeons  of  the 
Holy  Inquisition.  The  follower  of  him  who,  for  an  example,  washed  the 
feet  of  his  disciples,  exulted  in  manifesting  his  derision  for  whatever  the 
world  has  of  reverend,  if  so  be  it  held  not  its  patent  nnder  his  seal. 
"The  servant  of  the  servants  of  Christ"  set  his  foot  upon  the  neck  of 
kings.  In  his  colossal  greatness,  however,  he  neglected  no  means  of  in- 
fluence however  trivial,  and  disdained  not  to  borrow  the  worn  out  ma- 
chinery of  heathen  superstition.  The  Pantheon,  the  temple  of  all  the 
gods,  was  consecrated  anew  as  the  temple  of  all  the  saints.  Where  the 
Pontifex  Maximus,  the  high-priest  of  the  ancient  superstition,  went  up 
the  steps  of  the  capitol  to  burn  incense  at  the  altar  of  Jove,  the  Pontifex 
Maximus,  the  high-priest  of  the  new  religion,  w^ent  up  the  same  steps 
to  burn  incense  at  the  same  altar  in  honor  of  Jehovah.  The  very 
statue  of  father  Jupiter,  one  of  the  most  sublime  productions  of  heathen 
genius,  before  which  the  pagan  bowed  himself  in  the  devotion  of  ignor- 
ance, having  been  baptized  by  the  name  of  St.  Peter,  now  receives  the 
adoration  of  the  ignorant  devotee  as  the  image  of  the  chief  of  the  apos- 
tles. To  sum  up  all  in  a  Avord,  heathen  rites,  festivals  and  notions  were 
retained  with  slight  disguises  :  the  saints,  with  whom  the  heavens  were 
rcpeopled,  occupied  the  stations  of  the  inferior  deities  whom  they  had 
banished ;  an  obscure  woman  of  a  remote  province  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire was  w^orshipped  as  the  mother  of  God,  and  the  world  was  again 
overshadowed  with  practical  polytheism.  It  did  indeed  seem  as  if  the 
spirit  of  old  Rome,  daughter  of  Mars,  had  revisited  the  earth  in  the 
shape  of  the  church  militant,  to  exercise  a  more  terrible  domination  and 
to  sway  a  leaden  sceptre  over  men's  souls.  The  decrees  of  the  senate 
were  not  half  so  dreadful  as  the  bulls  fulminated  from  the  conclave. 
The  wars  which  ancient  Rome  waged  against  Carthage,  wxre  neither  so 
causeless,  so  fierce,  nor  so  destructive,  as  those  in  which,  at  the  fiat  of 
modern  Rome,  the  best  blood  of  Europe  watered  the  plains  of  Asia. 
Rome  seemed  to  have  risen  like  the  plienix  from  her  ashes  in  the  un- 
diminished vigor  of  her  pristine  youth ;  or  rather,  to  borrow  an  illustra- 
tion from  licr  own  faith,  more  apt,  as  it  figures  the  increased  fear  with 
less  respect  and  still  less  affection  which  her  second  dominion  insj^ired 
compared  with  her  first,  she  seemed,  after  she  had  circled  her  brows 
with  a  tiara  richer  than  the  diadem  of  the  Ca3sars,  her  priestly  empire 
seemed  to  be  but  the  ghost  of  the  old  Roman  empire  sitting  crowned 
and  ghastly  upon  the  mouldering  sepulchre  of  her  former  greatness.* 

But  enough  and  more  than  enough  of  this.     The  fascination  of  the 
subject  has  seduced  me  to  dally  with  it  too  long.     What  Greece  and 

=*  Hobbcs. 


OF  ROBEET  RANTOUL,  JR.  165 

Rome  had  failed  to  accomplish,  the  modern  Italian  republics  undertook 
with  little  better  success.  At  the  period  of  the  discovery  and  settle- 
ment of  America,  the  last  of  the  Italian  republics  were  degraded  and 
degenerate,  and  they  have  since  died  childless.  If  this  representation 
be  in  any  measure  correct,  it  must  be  apparent  that  down  to  the  time  of 
the  settlement  of  this  continent,  no  successful  experiment  of  self-gov- 
ernment had  ever  been  exhibited,  and  as  the  other  nations  of  the  old 
world  arc  generally  considered  to  have  been  less  free  than  those  we 
have  been  discussing,  it  is  equally  apparent  that  all  nations  have  been 
governed  far  too  much. 

I  have  said,  and  I  repeat  it,  that  an  ordinary  observer,  living  at  the 
time  of  which  we  treat,  would  nt>t  have  supposed  that  time  peculiarly 
propitious  to  the  growth  of  the  spirit  of  liberty.  He  would  have  looked 
back  at  those  abortive  experiments  already  enumerated,  and  would  have 
despaired  of  a  more  favorable  opportunity  to  renew  the  trial. 

He  would  have  seen  the  Greek  republics,  securing  to  their  citizens 
but  little  practical  liberty,  always  at  war  with  one  another,  and  at  last 
falling  an  easy  prey  to  Macedon,  to  Rome,  and  to  the  Turk.  He  would 
have  seen  the  Roman  republic,  an  aristocracy,  regardless  of  the  welfare 
of  the  people  in  its  best  days,  merged  in  the  empire.  He  would  have 
seen  Christianity,  from  whose  equalizing  tendency  and  benign  spirit 
some  amelioration  might  have  been  hoped  for,  in  the  hands  of  a  domin- 
eering hierarchy  monopolizing  wealth,  and  learning,  and  talents,  in  the 
service  of  the  church,  enslaving  body  and  soul,  and  lording  it  over 
the  consciences  of  men  —  exemplifying  emphatically  the  truth  of  the 
maxim,  "  Corruptio  optimi  pessima."  The  corruption  of  that  which  is 
most  excellent  engenders  evils  the  most  monstrous.  He  would  have 
seen  the  republics  of  Italy  growing  up  under  peculiar  circumstances, 
passing  through  corruption,  decline,  ond  decay,  apparently  natural  con- 
sequences of  their  constitution  and  mode  of  existence,  and  falling,  one 
after  another,  under  the  yoke  of  doges,  dukes,  grand  dukes,  and  mar- 
quises, if  not  previously  arrested  in  their  course  by  the  interference  of 
foreign  control. 

In  view  of  all  these  precedents,  he  would  have  looked  about  him  to 
observe  the  phenomena  of  his  own  times,  to  see  whether  th(;y  would 
afford  him  any  grounds  to  reverse  the  decision  of  history.  He  would 
then  perceive,  that  whereas  in  all  past  times  more  of  liberty  had  been 
enjoyed  in  smaller  states  than  in  great  empires,  now  the  universal  ten- 
dency was  towards  aggregation  and  consoHdation.  That  kingdoms  which 
had  existed  for  centuries  were  some  of  them  incorporated,  others  likely 
soon  to  be  incorporated,  with  the  territories  of  their  stronger  neighbors. 
That  provinces   which  had  been    for  many   generations,  substantially, 


166 

almost  independent  sovereignties,  were  one  after  another  annexed  to  tlie 
crown,  in  more  than  one  nation,  and  in  every  instance  augmenting  the 
power  of  the  central  government.  These  growing  monarchies,  under 
the  guidance  of  crafty  and  ambitious  rulers,  whenever  their  interests 
brought  them  into  collision,  propitiated  one  another  by  the  sacrifice  of 
weaker  princedoms,  made  peace  at  the  expense  of  some  feeble  neighbor, 
and  threatened  to  parcel  out  Europe  under  a  few  great  despotisms. 

If  he  should  then  reflect,  that  hitherto  the  only  protection  for  the  peo- 
ple from  an  excessive  authority  vested  in  the  crown  had  been  the  resist- 
ance of  the  barons,  naturally  jealous  of  any  encroachment  on  the  part  of 
their  feudal  superior,  he  would  behold  with  dismay  the  feudal  aristocracy 
divided,  disheartened,  and  broken,  their  ancient  prerogatives  discounte- 
nanced by  the  sovereign  on  the  one  hand,  and  invaded  by  the  people  on 
the  other,  deprived  of  the  power  of  carrying  on  war  at  pleasure,  no 
longer  exclusive  possessors  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  relinquishing 
their  hold  on  the  soil  and  on  the  cultivators  of  it,  and  fast  dwindling  into 
insignificance.  All  this  he  would  have  witnessed,  but  could  he  have 
been  so  far  gifted  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy  as  to  enable  him  to  foresee 
how  soon  all  respect  for  hereditary  nobility  was  to  vanish,  how  totally 
their  preponderance  in  the  political  system  was  to  be  reversed,  —  and 
had  he  been  informed  moreover  of  the  wonderful  alteration  that  was  to 
take  place  in  the  whole  art  of  war,  that  hereafter,  instead  of  nobles  at 
the  head  of  their  retainers,  instead  of  mercenaries  hired  for  a  short  ser- 
vice, and  ready  to  serve  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  contest,  when  their 
term  had  expired,  for  higher  pay,  —  standing  armies  were  to  be  insti- 
tuted, devoted  entirely  to  the  will  of  the  sovereign,  directed  by  officers 
of  his  appointment,  permanent,  and  having  a  constant  interest  in  tlie  in- 
crease of  the  power  on  which  they  depended ;  still  more,  had  it  been 
revealed  to  him  that  national  credit,  then  almost  unknown,  was  to  supply 
the  means  of  supporting  this  permanent  force,  wdthout  recurring  to  aids 
from  the  privileged  orders  or  direct  taxes  upon  the  people,  postponing 
for  posterity  the  burdens  of  the  present  generation,  and  furnishing  re- 
sources to  an  incredible,  to  an  indefinite  extent,  —  could  any  man,  I  say, 
at  that  time  have  known  all  this,  he  would  have  recoiled  with  terror  from 
any  further  investigation  into  the  destinies  of  his  race.  He  would  have 
pronounced  without  hesitation  that  there  was  no  power  existing  or  to 
exist  that  could  for  a  moment  withstand  a  government  entirely  unchecked 
by  that  body  in  the  state  which  had  hitherto  been  its  only  effectual  check, 
having  treasures  immeasurable  at  its  command,  and  wielding  with  such 
tremendous  energy  the  sword.  He  would  have  confessed  in  his  despair 
that  there  was  no  relief  in  prospect  for  him,  that  Asiatic  despotism  with 
unmitigated  sternness  was  about  to  be  visited  on  Europe,  that  all  man- 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  167 

kind  were  doomed  to  eternal  slavery,  or,  in  other  words,  that  henceforth 
the  whole  world  was  to  be  governed  too  much. 

Had  this  disconsolate  philanthropist  then  been  told  that  the  order  of 
the  Jesuits  was  to  be  established  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  arbitrary 
ecclesiastical  power,  and  of  debarring  the  people  from  that  knowledge 
which  is  power,  and  from  that  inquiry  which  leads  to  knowledge  ;  that 
this  institution  was  to  unite  in  its  service  vast  talents  and  learning,  a 
zeal  and  a  skill,  unquenchable  enthusiasm,  and  cool,  calculating  policy, 
such  as  were  never  before  combined  ;  and  that  with  an  untiring  perse- 
verance it  should  penetrate  and  influence  everywhere,  —  that  the  Holy 
Inquisition  should  put  forth  its  restrictive  energies  with  tenfold  fury,  — 
and  that,  further,  a  new  continent  should  be  discovered  ;  that  into  that 
continent  the  Jesuits  and  the  Inquisition  should  be  transplanted ;  that 
the  most  fertile  parts  of  that  continent  should  be  cultivated  by  negro 
slaves,  purchased  for  that  purpose  in  Africa ;  that  Charles  the  Fifth, 
uniting  in  his  person  the  full  sovereignty  of  Spain,  the  Netherlands,  and 
the  German  empire,  should  derive  from  that  continent  more  of  revenue 
in  gold  and  silver  than  had  ever  been  heard  of  since  the  days  of  Solomon, 
—  he  would  not  have  detected  in  any  of  these  facts  any  warrant  to  en- 
tertain a  doubt  of  the  conclusion  to  which  he  had  arrived. 

There  were  causes,  however,  in  operation,  which  sooner  or  later  must 
have  produced  a  mighty  revolution  in  the  condition  of  Europe,  even 
though  Columbus  had  never  been  born,  and  though  the  western  con- 
tinent had  never  been  disclosed  to  any  civilized  voyager.  Through  the 
influence  of  the  institution  of  chivalry,  sentiments  of  honor  and  a  sense 
of  personal  self-respect  and  independence  had  become  prevalent ;  and 
these  generous  feelings  were  by  no  means  confined  to  the  orders  among 
whom  they  originated.  The  crusades,  a  series  of  mad  enterprises,  which 
had  produced  a  more  general  transfer  of  property  and  a  greater  change 
in  the  relative  position  of  different  members  of  society,  than  had  taken 
place  before,  since  the  period  of  barbarian  conquest,  though  they  gave  a 
fatal  shock  to  the  feudal  aristocracy,  yet  gave  birth  also  to  that  commerce 
which  has  been  the  parent  of  every  thing  that  is  valuable  in  modern 
civilization,  whose  blessed  fruits  are  improved  manners,  comforts,  arts, 
science,  intelligence,  and  liberty,  —  which  has  erected  the  stupendous 
structure  of  British  greatness,  and  which  has  crowned  with  plenty  and 
lined  with  opulence  the  whole  western  coast  of  the  Atlantic.  Commerce, 
springing  out  of  the  crusades,  had  already  acquired  an  instrument  with 
whose  aid  she  was  to  enlarge  her  borders,  and  fearlessly  traverse  those 
unknown  oceans,  upon  which,  without  it,  she  could  not  have  ventured. 
Enterprise  was  already  awake.  The  Venetians  carried  on  a  lucrative 
trafiic  in  oriental  products  by  the  way  of  the  Levant :  the  Portuguese 


168  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

were  extending  their  maritime  empire  along  the  coasts  of  Africa,  and 
discovering  and  colonizing  the  islands  of  the  open  sea.  The  passage  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  was  soon  to  be  accomplished,  to  open  to  them 
the  direct  path  to  the  riches  of  the  In(Mes,  and  to  make  the  islands  of 
spices  their  own.  Out  of  the  enlarged  intercourse,  the  industry  and 
economy  which  are  the  concomitants  of  commercial  enterprise,  a  firm 
conviction  of  common  interest  and  a  liberal  zeal  for  the  common  welfare 
formed  bands  of  union  for  men  of  the  same  pursuits,  and  founded  and 
organized  guilds,  corporations,  towns,  and  cities.  These  rallying  points 
for  the  members  of  the  third  estate  gave  the  new  order  strength  and 
vigor  and  confidence.  The  monarchs  favored  them  because  they  fur- 
nished a  convenient  weight  to  balance  the  hated  power  of  their  turbulent 
nobility.  They  were  destined  to  grow  till  the  sons  of  toil  and  of  traffic 
were  more  powerful  than  the  sons  of  war,  and  they  whose  trade  is  pro- 
duction and  acquisition  more  numerous  than  those  whose  business  is 
destruction.  Through  the  whole  process  which  has  been  described,  you 
may  discern  the  infallible  operation  of  social  intercourse  preparing  the 
basis  and  developing  the  elements  of  general  freedom.  But  this  was  not 
all.  The  introduction  of  the  use  of  gunpowder  was  changing  the  entire 
character  of  war.  Instead  of  a  mere  struggle  of  brute  force  and  animal 
courage,  it  was  to  become  the  highest  exercise  of  the  human  faculties. 
Every  thing  became  the  prize  of  skilful  and  rapid  calculation,  and  just 
and  instantaneous  decision.  The  interests  inherent  in  the  new  state  of 
things  soon  came  into  collision  with  each  other.  The  controversy  as- 
sumed an  imposing  vastness.  In  the  fury  of  its  progress  nation  was 
dashed  against  nation,  and  the  shock  roused  from  its  long  torpor  the 
slumbering  intellect  of  the  popular  mass.  Life  and  death,  liberty  and 
slavery,  dej^ended  on  the  issue,  and  the  people  were  alive  to  the  momen- 
tous hazard  of  their  situation. 

The  vague  and  indefinite  immensity  of  the  rewards  which  success 
presents  in  prospect  to  the  victor,  the  total  and  final  annihilation  of  all 
his  hopes  which  defeat  involves,  in  short  the  desperation  of  the  stake, 
make  war  beyond  comparison  the  most  exciting  game  which  kings  can 
play  at.  When  all  that  we  have,  or  hope  for,  rests  on  a  single  cast,  the 
fear  of  sinking  into  nothing  —  the  illimitable  aspirations  of  ambition  for 
the  dominion  and  glory  almost  within  its  grasp  —  engross  the  whole 
soul,  and  quicken  all  its  dormant  energies.  The  irresistible  attraction 
of  this  intense  interest,  drew  to  its  sphere  a  large  proportion  of  the  tal- 
ent of  Europe.  The  passions  of  the  leaders  were  wrought  up  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  excitement.  Genius  is  nothing  but  strong  passions 
working  their  action  through  the  instrumentality  of  strong  intellect. 
Accordingly,  many  brilliant  constellations  of  genius  shone  successively 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  1G9 

through  the  troubled  gloom  of  three  stormy  centuries,  till  at  last,  the 
master  spirit,  Naj^oleon,  our  age's  leading  star,  rose,  even  as  the  sun,  in 
dazzling  splendor,  but  with  serene  majesty,  out  of  that  last  and  fiercest 
moral  tempest,  the  French  Revolution. 

It  is  then  evident,  that  war,  in  its  new  form,  directly  produces  and 
must  produce  genius  of  superior  order,  and  more  abundantly  than  any 
other  profession.  But  indirectly,  also,  it  calls  into  being  genius  of  every 
possible  variety,  and  puts  in  requisition  every  species  of  talent.  So 
suddenly  does  it  reverse  the  relative  position  of  nations,  that  the  states- 
man must  constantly  task  his  invention  for  the  means  of  recovering 
what  arms  have  lost,  or  of  making  the  most  of  the  advantages  which 
arms  have  won.  So  often  do  the  interests  of  belligerents  come  into  con- 
flict with  the  rights  of  neutrals,  that  the  profound  inquirer  must  discuss 
the  law  of  nations,  and  lay  down  a  code  of  morals  to  govern  the  mutual 
relations  of  independent  States.  So  rapidly  does  it  exhaust  the  most 
extensive  resources,  that  the  financier  finds  employment  for  all  his  inge- 
nuity to  supply  the  drain.  Political  economy  must  determine  how  this 
drain  may  be  supplied  with  least  detriment  to  the  general  welfare.  So 
suddenly  does  it  call  up  from  obscurity  to  rank  and  power,  so  suddenly 
does  it  impart  vigor  to  classes  of  men  whose  influence  in  time  of  peace 
was  unfelt  in  the  State,  so  suddenly  does  it  destroy  old  interests  and  cre- 
ate new  ones,  and  such  multitudinous  emulations  and  rivalships  does  it 
originate,  that  the  constitutionalist  must  take  care  lest  the  social 
machine  be  torn  in  pieces  by  the  violence  of  its  own  action.  Should  it 
be  rent  asunder,  or  should  some  modification  of  its  form  become  indis- 
pensably necessary,  he  must  study  the  nature  of  society  and  of  govern- 
ment, and  when  he  reconstructs  or  repairs  the  system,  disregarding 
ancient  prejudices,  he  must  take  care  to  deposit  the  effective  adminis- 
tration in  those  hands  in  which  power  appears  now  to  be  permanently 
lodged.  Such  apparently  inconsistent  obligations  does  war  oftentimes 
seem  to  impose  on  those  engaged  in  its  service,  that  the  moralist  must 
investigate  the  nature  of  human  duty,  to  decide  complicated  questions 
of  right  and  wrong,  cases  of  conscience  and  points  of  honor.  Not  only 
all  moral  and  political  science,  but  the  mathematical  and  physical  sci- 
ences, and  the  arts  connected  with  them,  are  exercised  and  invigorated. 
Geography  and  topography  survey  the  field  of  action.  Engineering 
lays  out  the  roads,  removes  the  obstacles,  and  erects  the  defences.  Tri- 
gonometry plans  the  fortifications,  and  geometry  measures  the  path  of 
the  projectiles.  Medicine  and  surgery  benevolently  strive  to  snatch 
some  few  fragments  from  the  waste  of  life,  while  chemistry  furnishes 
new  agents  of  destruction,  and  the  mechanic  arts  construct  new  engines 
for  the  employment  of  them.     Literature  and  the  fine  arts  also  are  nofc 

15 


170  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

■without  tlieir  slirire  of  impulse  from  the  all-pervading  spirit  which  war 
inspires  in  the  whole  body  of  the  community.  Philosophy  must  discuss 
its  causes,  its  consequences,  and  its  merits.  History  must  record  its 
fortunes.  Painting  and  sculpture  must  immortalize  its  heroes.  Poetry 
must  celebrate  their  achievements,  and  music  must  chant  anthems  for 
their  victories,  or  in  solemn  dirges  bewail  their  funeral. 

War  therefore,  directly  and  indirectly,  has  been  a  fruitful  occasion  of 
the  development  of  modern  genius.  And  it  is  too  obvious  to  need  re- 
mark, how  conducive  the  development  of  genius  in  classes,  having  no 
hereditary  share  in  the  government,  has  been  to  the  progress  of  freedom. 
But  war  and  commerce,  however  great  their  acknowledged  influence, 
Avere  not  the  only  instruments  of  the  mighty  revolution  going  on  in  the 
constitution  of  society  and  in  the  condition  of  Europe.  Other  causes 
were  cooperating,  causes  originating  further  back,  which  have  often  been 
considered,  but  to  which  a  few  words  must  now  be  devoted.  The  revi- 
val of  letters  had  come  like  the  dayspring  from  on  high,  after  the  dreary 
night  of  the  dark  ages.  The  beautiful  models  of  antiquity  infuse  a 
masculine  energy  into  the  mind  of  him  who  devotes  himself  with  ear- 
nestness to  the  study.  We  can  hardly  conceive  the  delight  with  which 
they  were  hailed,  when,  after  slumbering  neglected  for  so  many  ages, 
they  reappeared  in  the  freshness  of  their  immortal  youth.  The  rapture 
which  welcomed  these  long  lost  treasures  was  no  misplaced  enthusiasm. 
Whatever  we  may  judge  of  the  conduct  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
their  writings,  all  must  admit,  are  filled  with  the  noblest  sentiments. 
The  perusal  of  these  writings  brought  to  new  life  ideas  which  had  long 
been  forgotten.  Perhaps  there  is  even  now  no  literature  whose  tendency 
is  so  democratic  as  that  of  the  ancient  classics,  and  this  circumstance  is 
not  to  be  overlooked  in  forming  an  estimate  of  the  state  of  public  opin- 
ion in  the  ages  succeeding  the  revival  of  letters.  The  cloisters  of  those 
ages  must  have  contained  many  an  ardent  lover  of  the  rights  of  man, 
whose  situation  indeed  repressed  his  noble  rage,  but  who  nourished  with- 
in his  breast  the  sacred  flame  ready  to  burst  out  when  the  first  breath  of 
popular  commotion  should  fan  it.  The  general  currency  of  ideas  bor- 
rowed from  the  ancients  had  restored  the  tone  of  the  moral  system  and 
stimulated  the  intellect  so  that  it  was  prepared  to  enter  with  alacrity 
upon  new  channels  of  thought.  At  this  crisis  the  press  is  brought  into 
action.  Now  indeed  the  people  have  an  instrument  peculiarly  their  own. 
Thought  is  now  no  longer  to  be  locked  up  in  the  scarce  and  costly  man- 
uscript, jealousy  guarded  in  the  library  of  the  monastery.  No  bolts  can 
fasten  it.  No  dungeons  can  confine  it.  No  arbitrary  edicts  can  restrain 
it.  It  escapes  :  it  o'erleaps :  it  walks  abroad :  it  is  free  as  air :  it  flies 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind.     Ideas  which  had  long  been  brooded  over  in 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  171^ 

silence  are  now  communicated.  The  similarity  of  their  conclusions 
strengthens  their  convictions,  so  that  simultaneously  certain  great  prin- 
ciples seem  to  have  originated  in  opposite  quarters,  and  to  have  circula- 
ted among  countless  multitudes.  The  means  of  mutual  action  being  now 
afforded,  mind  was  brought  into  contact  with  mind,  and  doctrines  fi-aught 
with  portentous  consequence  were  the  issue  of  the  union.  The  seeds  of 
the  reformation  had  been  sown,  and  Martin  Luther  was  soon  to  cultivate 
them  into  an  abundant  harvest. 

In  many  respects,  therefore,  the  time  when  the  American  continent 
was  discovered,  and  still  more  especially  the  period  of  the  settlement  of 
North  America,  was  a  season  of  a  general  fermentation  and  heaving  in 
the  mass,  which  there  was  no  reason  to  apprehend  would  cease  till  the 
people  had  obtained  and  secured  a  share  at  least  in  the  government  of 
themselves.  Such  v/as  the  character  of  the  times,  and  if  America  had 
never  been  discovered,  convulsions  and  revolutions  must  have  taken  place 
in  Europe  and  had  their  course,  though  not  so  rapidly  as  in  the  actual 
state  of  things  has  happened. 

The  American  continent  was  situated  at  a  safe  and  desirable  distance 
from  the  old  world.  The  time,  expense,  and  difficulty  of  the  voyage 
were  so  great,  that  any  considerable  population  who  might  settle  here, 
might  fairly  calculate  upon  governing  themselves,  and  might  securely 
trust  that  they  were  out  of  the  reach  of  any  effectual  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  mother  country.  It  was  the  ruinous  expense  of  sup- 
porting an  army  thousands  of  miles  from  home  that  made  it  absolutely 
necessary  for  Great  Britain  to  abandon  the  war  and  acknowledge  our 
independence,  when  we  were  but  a  small  nation  comparatively,  though 
our  exertions  were  paralyzed  by  the  miserable  inefficiency  of  the  con- 
federation, and  though  George  the  Third  was  obstinately  bent,  as  long 
as  there  was  a  doubt  to  hang  a  hope  upon,  upon  reducing  us  to  subjec- 
tion. For  the  same  reason  it  is  impossible  for  Spain  to  recover  one 
of  her  lost  colonies,  though  the  South  American  republics  are  misman- 
aged, have  no  resources,  and  no  affection  for  their  ephemeral  gov- 
ernments. 

Again,  the  country  is  so  vast  that  when  thirty  thousand  men  could 
have  marched  through  it,  three  hundred  thousand  could  not  have  subdued 
it.  "While  inhabited  by  civilized  men,  it  might  be  overrun,  but  it  could 
not  be  conquered.  An  army  may  pass  through  Scythia,  but  it  cannot 
occupy  and  retain  it.  The  army  would  enforce  obedience  in  its  immedi- 
ate neighborhood  on  all  who  chose  to  remain  there,  but  before  it  the 
inhabitants  would  remain  free,  and  behind  it  they  would  rise  up  free. 
An  army  might  pass  through  Tartary,  but  the  Tartars  would  still  ac- 


172  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

knowledge  no  master.     Even  Russia  is  content  with  nominal  authority 
over  the  scattered  tribes  of  her  Asiatic  territory. 

Another  favorable  circumstance  is  the  face  of  the  country :  its  colossal 
ridges  of  mountains,  and  the  innumerable  •rivers  that  flow  from  their 
sides.  Every  mountain  is  a  natural  fortification,  every  river  is  a  line  of 
defence  behind  which  a  retreating  army  may  rally.  It  is  by  means  of 
its  mountains  and  precipices  that  Switzerland  has  maintained  its  inde- 
pendence so  long  in  the  midst  of  jealous  and  powerful  neighbors.  It 
was  by  means  of  its  mountains  that  Scotland  was  so  long  independent 
of  England,  that  Wales  was  so  long  unconquered,  that  the  Moors  held 
out  so  long  in  Grenada  against  the  efforts  of  Spain,  and  that  Spain 
herself  was  able  to  withstand  the  gigantic  power  of  Napoleon.  A 
determined  people  in  a  mountainous  country  cannot  be  subdued.  These 
remarks  apply  to  the  continent  as  a  whole,  and  prove  without  further 
examination  that  its  inhabitants  could  never  be  destined  to  dejDendence 
on  the  old  world.  Indeed  there  is  not  now  to  be  found  any  colony 
dependent  on  the  mother  country  except  those  who  derive  or  believe 
they  derive  more  benefit  than  they  suff*er  of  inconvenience  by  the  con- 
nection. Omitting  to  inquire  the  character  of  particular  sections  of  the 
continent,  we  may  be  excused  for  dwelhng  a  moment  on  that  of  New 
England.  Her  inclement  seasons  and  her  barren  soil,  requiring  habits 
of  exposure  and  of  indefatigable  industry,  as  well  as  rigid  economy, 
naturally  form  her  hardy  yeomanry.  The  sterility  of  her  sea-coasts 
provokes  her  adventurous  mariners  to  tempt  the  perils  of  the  ocean,  and 
to  draw  from  the  depths  the  treasures  of  the  sea.  While,  if  there  be 
any  truth  in  the  influence  of  climate,  so  long  as  her  north-west  wind 
blov/s  over  her  granite  mountains,  invigorating  body  and  soul,  breathing 
courage  into  all  who  have  courage  to  go  out  and  breathe  it,  her  pure  air 
ought  to  make  her  the  nursing  mother  of  a  race  of  heroes. 

And  who  are  the  inhabitants  of  New  England  ?  W^ho  were  their 
fathers?  Picked  men  every  one  of  them.  Tried  by  the  ordeal  of 
adversity,  and  selected  by  their  tenderness  of  conscience,  their  steadfast- 
ness in  duty,  their  daring  in  adventure,  their  fortitude  under  suffering. 
Plad  they  not  possessed  all  these  qualities,  the  desolate  coast  of 
Plymouth,  the  inhospitable  bay  of  Massachusetts  would  never  have 
received  them.  Had  they  not  been  actuated  by  the  love  of  civil  and 
religious  hberty,  no  other  motive  could  have  retained  them  "  in  this 
howling  wilderness"  till  tliey  had  made  it  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose. 
That  such  a  people,  coming  at  such  a  time,  to  such  a  country,  should 
have  there  planted  the  liberty  which  they  came  to  enjoy,  and  should 
have  kept  it  as  the  apple  of  their  eye,  and  that  in  process  of  time  they 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I73 

should  have  become  independent  of  the  mother  country,  cannot  excite 
surprise.  That  having  no  privileged  orders  or  aristocracy  of  land- 
holders among  them,  but  setting  out  on  the  principle  of  an  entire  equality 
of  rights,  they  should  have  framed  and  enacted  laws  calculated  to 
encourage,  promote,  and  preserve  that  equality,  is  not  to  be  doubted. 
Neither  is  it  any  thing  wonderful  that  t'lc  attempt  should  be  to  some 
extent  and  for  a  limited  time  successful.  But  the  question  v>'hicli  the 
patriot  anxiously,  the  advocate  of  arbitrary  governments  sneeringly, 
asks,  is  this, — Will  your  system  last?  Are  there  not  latent  causes  of 
corruption  inherent  in  it  which  must  sooner  or  later  work  its  overthrow  ? 
It  may  throw  some  light  upon  this  question,  to  notice  some  passages  of 
our  history  since  the  close  of  the  war  which  secured  our  national  inde- 
pendence. 

There  are,  in  the  history  of  every  nation,  where  the  mind  is  not  held 
in  complete  subjection  by  the  tyranny  of  established  habits,  which,  like 
the  laws  of  the  Modes  and  Persians,  may  not  be  altered,  certain  points 
of  time  when  the  principles  of  policy  upon  which  the  government  has 
acted,  or  the  means  by  which  it  has  supported  its  power  and  enforced  its 
authorit}',  become  unacceptable  or  inefficient,  and  a  new  order  of  things 
is  imperiously  called  for.  The  march  of  improvement  is  continually 
going  on  —  the  times  change,  and  the  people  change  with  them.  The 
varying  circumstances  of  other  nations,  their  different  dispositions 
towards  us,  the  fluctuations  of  commerce,  the  creation  of  new  wants,  and 
the  disuse  of  old  customs,  perpetually  vary  the  nature  of  our  foreign 
relations,  and  require  corresponding  alterations  in  our  foreign  policy. 
If,  while  the  wishes,  feelings,  and  interests  of  a  people  have  undergone 
great  modifications,  the  course  of  the  government  still  remains  the  same, 
its  operations  are  impeded,  its  influence  is  diminished,  and  a  change  in 
the  administration  becomes  necessary. 

In  arbitrary  or  mixed  governments,  whenever  the  measures  of  the 
government  are  at  variance  with  the  interests  of  the  people,  if  no 
powerful  body  in  the  State  is  strongly  interested  in  the  continuance  of 
the  course  objected  to,  the  sovereign  gives  way,  the  minister  is  sacrificed, 
and  the  machine  of  state  moves  on  smoothly  again.  But  should  the 
question  be  of  the  privileges  or  immunities  of  any  numerous  and  influ- 
ential class,  they  will  resist  innovation,  and  a  revolution  must  be  the 
consequence. 

Except  perhaps  the  hopeless  endurance  of  a  grinding  despotism, 
to  avoid  which  men  resort  to  this  bitter  remedy,  a  revolution  is  the 
greatest  of  all  evils :  it  may  be  likened  to  whatever  is  terrible  in  nature 
—  a  fever  of  the  social  system  —  a  tornado  in  the  political  atmosphere 
- — or  rather  an  earthquake,  obliterating  the  ancient  boundaries  of  law 

15* 


174  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  morality,  overthrowing  the  venerable  institutions  of  religion,  and 
shaking  the  very  foundations  whereon  society  reposes. 

The  imprisoned  fires  whose  force  suffices  to  upheave  a  continent, 
which  if  denied  a  vent  work  wide  destruction,  leaving  behind  them  no 
vestige  of  life  and  beauty,  issue  through  the  open  crater  of  the  volcano 
comparatively  harmless,  though  with  a  fearful  glare  and  threatening 
roar.  Popular  elections  furnish  the  safety-valve  for  the  elements  of  the 
moral  earthquake. 

It  is  the  great  excellence  of  the  popular  form  of  government,  that  it 
offers  facilities  for  the  frequent  expression  of  the  will  of  the  people,  and 
the  means  sooner  or  later  of  carrying  that  will  into  effect.  Causes 
which  elsewhere  would  lead  to  revolutions,  here  produce  only  a  tempo- 
rary fermentation  of  the  mass ;  the  w^ill  of  the  universal  democracy 
triumphs,  and  all  is  quiet  again.  A  stranger  would  imagine,  were  he  to 
witness  that  heat  and  uproar  of  one  of  our  contested  elections,  that  the 
rule  of  anarchy  had  begun,  and  that  all  other  government  was  at  an  end 
among  us  ;  but  incontinently  the  object  of  the  stronger  party  is  attained, 
the  weaker  party  acquiesces,  and  the  conflagration  of  the  passions  burns 
out  for  want  of  fuel. 

Since  the  era  of  our  national  independence,  three  times  has  the 
country  arrived  at  a  crisis  which  demanded  a  change  —  a  change  which 
under  any  other  form  of  government  could  not  have  been  effected  with- 
out a  revolution,  and  which  must  therefore  have  been  delayed  till  the 
evils  became  intolerable.  Three  times  has  the  change  demanded  been 
accomplished,  and  twice  have  the  consequences  been  observed  and 
recorded  ;  the  third  period  is  now  commencing.  The  effects  of  our  third 
moral  revolution  are  beginning  to  be  developed,  but  remain  for  the  most 
part  matter  of  speculation. 

The  first  crisis  was  that  of  the  downfall  of  the  confederation.  That 
form  of  government  which  the  energy  of  popular  excitement  had  made 
tolerably  efficient  during  the  revolution,  soon,  when  passion  had  sub- 
sided and  when  individual  interests  became  distinct  from,  and  preponde- 
rated over  those  of  the  nation,  began  to  discover  its  inherent  weakness. 
The  several  States  often  refused  to  furnish  their  quota ;  foreign  powers 
subjected  our  commerce  to  the  most  mortifying  embarrassments  ;  our 
credit  was  poor  and  precarious  :  in  short,  the  confederate  power  was 
neither  obeyed  at  home, '  respected  abroad,  nor  trusted  anywhere : 
neither  could  it,  from  its  feeble  constitution,  enforce,  avenge,  or  inspire 
confidence.  Our  trade  was  without  protection,  and  our  government 
without  revenue,  and  the  practical  evils  which  resulted,  not  only  showed 
the  statesman,  but  made  the  most  unthinking  feel  the  necessity  of  some 
central  power,  which  should  be  endued  with  the  concentrated  strength  of 


OF  EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  I75 

all  the  members,  and  act  for  the  common  good  with  a  force  that  should 
insure  success.  The  collected  wisdom  of  the  country,  met  at  Philadel- 
phia, having  adjusted  many  contested  points  in  a  spirit  of  compromise, 
formed  at  last  the  present  admirable  Constitution  which  creates  such  a 
power.  The  people,  jealous  of  their  rights,  and  unwilling  to  intrust 
their  best  friends  with  authority  which  ma}'  be  abused,  were  hardly  per- 
suaded by  the  sound  reasoning  and  commanding  eloquence  of  such  men 
as  Hamilton,  Jay,  Madison,  and  the  elder  Adams,  to  adopt  so  strong  a 
constitution.  Jefferson  denounced  its  form  as  a  close  imitation  of  the 
British,  and  seemed  to  consider  the  executive  as  a  king  in  miniature. 
Patrick  Henry  declared  that  the  president  possessed  both  the  sword  and 
the  purse,  and  by  their  means  might  make  himself  master  of  whatever 
powers  he  pleased.  The  new  Constitution  was  however  adopted,  —  in 
several  of  the  States  by  very  small  majorities, —  and  a  military  chief- 
tain, the  immortal  Washington,  called  on  to  administer  its  functions. 
He  gathered  round  him  an  able  cabinet ;  he  consulted  the  wishes  of  all 
sections  of  the  country  ;  the  evils  which  oppressed  us  were  removed,  the 
dangers  which  threatened  us  vanished,  commerce  revived,  and  prosperity 
was  restored.  Party  spirit,  therefore,  was  naturally  quiet  for  a  short 
period,  but  party  feehng  did  not  cease  to  exist.  The  materials  for  a 
great  party  division,  founded  upon  the  character  of  the  new  Constitution, 
existed  among  the  people.  The  jealous  fear  of  usurpation,  the  offspring 
and  the  safeguard  of  freedom,  on  the  one  hand,  led  many  honest  and 
high-spirited  republicans,  under  the  guidance  of  the  heart  rather  than 
the  head,  to  suspect  a  strong  tendency  towards  consolidation  in  the  new 
institutions.  The  dread  of  anarchy,  from  the  horrors  of  wdiich  they  had 
just  escaped,  led  many  honest  and  prudent  republicans,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  apprehend  danger  rather  from  encroachments  on  the  prerogative 
of  the  general  government,  and  from  the  unwillingness  of  the  people  to 
submit  to  any  even  the  most  wholesome  restraints.  Posterity  will  pro- 
bably decide  that  to  a  certain  extent  both  parties  were  right,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  both  were  wrong.  The  federalists  were  undoubtedly 
right  in  believing  that  the  common  good  required  great  powers  to  be 
conferred  on  the  general  government  —  far  greater  than  the  party  who 
opposed  the  acceptance  of  the  Constitution  were  wdliing  to  allow — for 
both  parties  have  since  practically  concurred  in  endowing  the  govern- 
ment with  more  power  than  the  federalists  at  that  time  contended  for. 
Experience  has  shown  also  that  the  democratic  party  were  right  in  be- 
lieving that  it  is  the  tendency  of  every  government  continually  to  accu- 
mulate power,  and  that  this  tendency  requires  to  be  closely  watched  and 
incessantly  counteracted  by  all  constitutional  methods.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  federalists  set  the  first  example  of  those  latitudinarian  con- 


176  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

structions  of  the  Constitution  whicli  liave  been  subsequently  carried  so 
much  further  than  they  who  founded  the  Constitution  would  ever  have 
approved  or  indeed  ever  have  dreamed  of,  which  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  sentence,  that  the  poivers  granted  to  the  government  imply  all 
other  poicers  which  the  government  may  find  it  convenient  to  assume,  a 
doctrine  not  yet  advocated  in  terms,  but  practically  acted  on,  and  which 
threatens  to  make  the  Constitution  a  mere  dead  letter,  and  to  leave  the 
government  absolute  and  unlimited  save  by  its  own  sense  of  propriety 
and  duty,  and  its  fear  of  popular  resistance  whenever  its  encroach- 
ments are  too  flagrant  to  admit  of  any  plausible  justification.  In  this 
precedent,  so  fruitful  in  dangerous  consequences,  the  federalists  were,  to 
say  the  least,  unfortunate.  The  popular  party  were  equally  unfortunate 
at  that  time,  in  contending  that  the  navy,  whose  brilliant  achievements 
have  since  shed  such  a  lustre  upon  our  annals  as  to  make  it  the  favorite 
of  all  parties  without  distinction,  was  a  useless  burden  upon  the  na- 
tional resources,  and  ought  to  be  dismantled  and  sold  :  that  the  national 
treasures  were  lavished  in  prodigal  profusion  for  the  support  and  im- 
provement of  the  army  ;  though  experience  afterwards  demonstrated 
that  a  just  economy  would  have  dictated  even  a  rnore  liberal  expendi- 
ture upon  those  objects,  and  would  thereby  have  saved  the  nation  from 
much  pecuniary  loss,  to  say  nothing  of  loss  of  time,  loss  of  blood,  and 
the  mortification  of  undertakings  thwarted  for  want  of  preparation,  and 
of  vast  means  thrown  away  on  projects  ending  only  in  discomfiture  : 
that  the  funding  system,  being  copied  from  the  practice  of  the  English 
government,  was  founded  on  aristocratical  principles,  would  build  up  an 
oligarchy  of  fundholders,  and  would  involve  the  nation  in  a  debt,  like 
that  of  England,  forever  to  be  augmented  without  prospect  of  relief; 
though  that  same  much  reviled  funding  system  has  since  carried  the 
party  that  denounced  it  through  a  v/ar  to  which  no  other  resource  could 
have  been  found  equal,  and  now  having  performed  its  ofltice  and  done  its 
work  well,  having  discharged  all  our  obligations,  and  redeemed  and  sus- 
tained our  shaken  credit,  it  is  about  to  leave  us  the  only  civilized  nation 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  having  a  superabundant  revenue  wdiolly  unin- 
cumbered with  debt.  These,  with  some  other  errors  which  might  be 
enumerated,  then  popular  but  now  admitted  to  be  errors,  belonged  to  the 
times  ;  they  have  long  since  been  abandoned  on  all  hands,  and  we  scarce- 
ly remember  the  strong  hold  they  once  held  on  the  public  mind.  Be- 
fore, however,  we  dismiss  them  forever  from  our  memories,  there  should 
be  time  to  tell  the  truth  about  them.  Let  us  derive  the  benefit  of  what- 
ever lessons  they  can  teach  us,  and  then  let  them  be  forgotten. 

Such  being  some  of  the  leading  views  of  the  two  parties,  the  federal 
claiming  a  broad  construction  of  the  Constitution  and  an  efficient  power 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I77 

for  the  government,  the  popular  party  invoking  the  strict  letter  of  the 
Constitution,  and  seeking  shelter  within  its  narrowest  limits  against  un- 
due assumptions  of  power  on  the  part  of  the  government ;  having  oppo- 
site views  also  of  foreign  policy  ;  as  was  to  have  been  expected,  causes, 
growing  chiefly  out  of  the  foreign  relations  of  the  country,  soon  brought 
them  into  open  hostility  with  each  other.  As  was  to  have  been  ex- 
pected, also,  after  a  long  and  exasperated  conflict  the  popular  party  pre- 
vailed. They  came  into  power  under  the  guidance  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, a  man  of  a  somewhat  speculative  character  for  a  statesman,  a  philo- 
sopher in  the  common  acceptation  of  that  word.  This  was  the  second 
moral  revolution.  In  as  great  a  degree  as- in  the  first,  the  event  disap- 
pointed the  expectations  of  both  parties.  Neither  the  fears  of  the  de- 
feated, nor  the  hopes  of  the  triumphant  party  were  destined  to  be  real- 
ized. The  federalists,  perhaps  it  would  be  more  just  to  say  some  of  the 
more  excited  and  alarmed  among  them,  feared  that  the  credit  of  the  na- 
tion would  be  prostrated,  that  commerce  would  no  longer  be  protected, 
and  the  flag  of  the  nation  cease  to  be  respected  abroad  ;  that  rash  ex- 
periments would  be  attempted  in  every  branch  of  the  administration  ; 
that  the  funding  system^  the  bank,  the  army,  the  navy,  would  fall  victims 
to  the  rage  for  innovation  ;  that  the  nation  would  be  degraded  before 
the  throne  of  a  European  despot;  that  religion  would  be  discounte- 
nanced and  scoffed  at ;  that  the  government  would  be  stripped  of  its 
essential  prerogatives,  and  thereby  rendered  incapable  of  fulfilling  its 
functions  ;  that  consequently  social  order  would  be  interrupted,  and 
nothing  but  anarchy  could  ensue. 

Such  were  the  gloomy  forebodings  of  honest,  enlightened,  and  patriotic 
statesmen  among  the  disheartened  and  discomfited  federalists,  and 
even  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  founders  of  the  Constitution, 
when  they  beheld  the  administration  of  that  Constitution  delivered  into 
the  hands  of  their  enemies.  They  were  mistaken,  however,  and  we 
rejoice  that  history  has  recorded  how  much  they  were  mistaken.  '  They 
did  not  repose  confidence  enough  in  the  character  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, they  did  not  repose  confidence  enough  in  the  excellence  of  their  own 
work,  destined,  we  trust,  to  weather  many  a  storm.  It  v>'ill  not  be  unin- 
teresting to  contrast  our  present  prosperous  condition  with  the  apprehen- 
sions entertained.  Our  credit  has  sustained  itself  through  difficulties  and 
dangers,  and  now  stands  unshaken  by  any  of  the  causes  which  are  at  this 
moment  producing  such  ruinous  fluctuations  in  the  credit  of  the  weathiest 
nations  of  the  old  world.  Our  commerce  has  flourished  by  its  own  in- 
herent vigor  :  it  has  extended  its  operations  to  sources  of  gain  at  that 
time  unknown,  and  has  gathered  the  spoils  of  every  clime  :  it  has  ac- 
cumulated the  wealth  which  has  built  up  our  great  cities,  and  the  sur- 


178  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

plus  of  wliicli  is  now  digging  our  canals,  projecting  our  railways,  and 
laying  the  foundations  of  our  manufacturing  establishments  :  through 
discouragements,  checks,  and  reverses,  it  is  still  living  and  healthy.  Our 
flag  commands  respect  on  every  sea :  wherever  it  floats  it  effectually 
protects  all  whom  it  covers.  Experiments  were  indeed  tried,  and  tried 
satisfactorily ;  but  after  a  short  period  of  change  and  trial,  the  govern- 
ment settled  down  into  tlie  former  course  of  practice,  and  affairs  went  on 
pretty  much  in  the  old  way.  The  funding  system  turned  out  to  be  the 
main  stay  of  the  government,  at  a  time  when  it  had  little  else  than  its 
credit  to  rely  upon,  and  its  capacities  have  been  tasked  far  beyond  what 
was  originally  calculated  on.  The  bank,  at  the  expiration  of  its  charter 
in  1811,  was  opposed  by  the  whole  strength  of  tlie  democratic  party,  and 
was  refused  a  renewal.  The  Hon.  Henry  Clay,  then  a  leading  demo- 
cratic member  of  the  United  States  senate,  in  an  able  speech  against 
the  recharter,  declared  the  bank  to  be  altogether  unconstitutional,  and 
on  that  occasion  made  use  of  these  memorable  words  :  "  This  doctrine  of 
precedent,  applied  to  the  legislature,  appears  to  me  to  be  fraught  with 
the  most  mischievous  consequences.  To  lj2gislate  upon  the  ground 
merely  that  our  predecessors  thought  themselves  authorized,  under 
similar  circumstances,  to  legislate,  is  to  sanctify  error  and  perpetuate 
usurpation.  The  great  advantage  of  our  system  of  government,  over  all 
others,  is,  that  we  have  a  avritten  Constitution,  defining  its  limits, 
and  prescribing  its  authorities  ;  and  that,  however,  for  a  time,  faction 
may  convulse  the  nation,  and  passion  and  party  prejudice  sway  its 
functionaries,  the  season  of  reflection  will  recur,  when  calmly  retracing 
their  deeds,  all  aberrations  from  fundamental  principles  will  be  corrected. 
But  once  substitute  practice  for  principle  ;  the  expositions  of  the  Consti- 
tution, for  THE  TEXT  of  the  Constitution ;  and  in  vain  shall  ice  looh  for 
the  instrument  in  the  instrument  itself  It  will  be  as  diffused  and  in- 
tangible as  the  pretended  Constitution  of  England.  I  conceive,  then,  sir, 
that  we  are  not  empowered  by  the  Constitution,  nor  bound  by  any  prac- 
tice under  it,  to  renew  the  charter  of  this  bank."  Soon,  however,  the 
administration  found  it  convenient  to  employ  a  bank,  and  they  accord- 
ingly chartered  one  upon  a  much  larger  scale  than  the  institution  which 
they  had  denounced.  And  now  Henry  Clay  sits  in  the  same  senate, 
the  champion  of  the  fedeiIx\l  doctrine  upon  this  subject,  answers  the 
arguments  contained  in  his  old  speeches,  and  ranks  as  the  most  able  ad- 
vocate for  the  recharter  of  the  corporation  with  powers  greater  than 
those  which  he  unequivocally  pronounced  to  be  unconstitutional. 

The  army  has  been  enlarged  and  restored  to  favor,  and  has  furnished 
the  readiest  passports  to  popular  applause.  The  navy  has  humbled  the 
piratical  states  of  Barbary,  rich  with  the  spoils  of  all  maritime  Christen- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I79 

dom,  and  confident  in  their  contempt  of  the  laws  of  warfare  amono- 
civilized  people.  It  has  visited  the  nests  of  those  vultures  and  tamed 
their  ferocious  voracity.  It  has  freed  us,  before  any  nation  of  Europe, 
from  the  dishonorable  tribute  paid  to  those  banded  outlaws  ;  others  have 
followed  our  example,  and  now  Christian  commerce  sweeps  over  the 
Mediterranean  secure  from  their  fearful  depredations,  protected  by  the 
terror  of  the  wholesome  chastisement  which  American  valor  first  in- 
flicted on  them.  In  the  last  conflict  in  which  it  was  engaged,  it  has 
covered  itself  with  a  plentiful  harvest  of  glory.  British  tars,  till  then 
invincible,  were  astonished  to  meet  their  equals  on  their  own  element. 
Let  us  not  insult  the  mother  country,  or  underrate  the  honor  of  such  an 
ancestry.  Till  that  hour,  her  dearest  boast  was  true.  Britannia  was 
ruler  of  the  waves  :  but  from  that  hour  when  Yankee  champions  of  free 
trade  and  sailors'  rights  first  challenged  her  to  equal  combat,  the  charm 
was  broken,  the  glory  had  departed  from  her.  Our  gallant  little  navy 
gave  her  many  defeats  to  mourn,  and  but  few  victories  at  which  to 
rejoice.  It  was  a  new  chapter  in  her  naval  annals.  From  that  hour 
we  claim  to  be  sharers  in  her  before  exclusive  dominion,  and  to  carry 
our  flag  with  the  proudest  of  those 

"Whose  march  is  on  the  mountain  Avavc, 
Whose  home  is  on  the  deep. 

We  had  met  the  enemy  and  they  were  ours,  on  the  ocean  as  well  as  on 
the  lakes.     From  that  hour  our  eagle, 

Saihng  with  supreme  dominion, 
Through  the  azure  depths  of  air, 
Glancing  with  an  un tired  pinion, 
Glory's  palm  shall  highest  bear. 

The  Guerriere,  the  Java,  the  Peacock,  the  Macedonian !  Would  that 
time  would  allow  me  to  enumerate  all  her  trophies,  and  last,  not  least,  to 
bring  before  your  imagination  Lawrence,  undishonored  by  disaster,  cut 
down  "  in  the  purple  blossom  of  his  youth,  while  the  lingering  graces  of 
manhood  yet  clustered  round  his  form,"  falling  in  a  desperate  and  san- 
guinary struggle,  the  respect  of  his  enemies  vying  with  the  anguish  of 
his  friends,  and  two  rival  nations,  in  generous  emulation,  honoring  with 
sympathetic  tears  his  premature  grave.  The  subject  has  a  witchery 
about  it:  but  your  patience  has  already  been  tasked  too  long.  The 
sketch,  brief  as  it  has  been,  must  be  condensed  still  more.  Suflice  it  to 
say,  then,  that  so  far  from  the  dignity  of  the  country  having  been  com- 
promised abroad,  American  diplomacy  has  ably  seconded  American 
valor.     While  the  nation  has  gone  on  steadily  in  its  march  to  greatness, 


180  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

it  has  commanded  a  still  larger  and  larger  portion  of  respect  and  atten- 
tion in  its  foreign  relations.  Religion,  confident  in  her  own  intrinsic 
strength,  neither  asks  nor  receives  aid  or  support  from  the  civil  authority. 
She  is  maintained  without  an  establishment,  she  is  obeyed  though  her 
ministers  do  not  hold  seats  in  the  senate  of  the  nation.  The  government 
has  been  so  far  from  weakness  and  inefficiency,  that  the  complaints,  and 
of  late  they  have  become  loud  and  startling,  have  been  all  of  an  opposite 
nature.  The  government  Is  accused  of  overstepping  its  legitimate  powers, 
and  if,  which  may  heaven  avert,  if  in  our  day,  discord,  rebellion,  and 
anarchy  shall  make  havoc  of  this  fair  land,  it  will  not  be  because  the 
government  has  forborne  to  use  powers  granted,  but  because  it  has  as- 
sumed powers  not  granted  by  the  Constitution.  So  much,  then,  for  the 
consequences  of  our  second  moral  revolution.  It  has  been  seen  that  both 
parties  were  somewhat  disappointed  in  its  effects  ;  that  when  outs  become 
ins,  they  view  questions  of  policy  under  different  bearings,  and  of  course 
come  to  different  conclusions.  These  considerations  will  assist  us  in  de- 
termining what  amount  of  change  may  result  from  our  third  moral  revo- 
lution, that  brought  about  by  the  elevation  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the 
presidency.  Of  this  I  shall  say  but  little,  this  not  being  the  time  or  the 
place  to  discuss  questions  upon  which  parties  at  present  divide.  I  will, 
however,  venture  to  remark,  that  violent  partizans  on  both  sides  have 
been,  and  will  probably  continue  to  be,  disappointed  In  their  expecta- 
tions. 

One  of  the  principal  weapons  used  in  bringing  about  the  late  revolution 
of  parties,  as  it  had  been  before  the  election  of  Jefferson,  was  the  promise 
of  a  thorough-going,  universal  system  of  retrenchment  in  the  national 
expenses.  So  soon,  however,  as  the  retrenching  party  came  into  power, 
they  found  serious  obstacles  Impeding  the  full  execution  of  their  promises. 
The  nature  of  mankind  is  the  same  under  one  administration  as  under 
another.  There  were  claims  innumerable  to  be  satisfied,  expectants 
more  numerous  than  offices,  and  wants  more  abundant  than  the  means 
of  gratifying  them.  Every  pretension  advanced,  if  admitted,  keeps  open 
some  outlet  for  expenditure  ;  if  rejected,  turns  a  friend  and  ally  into  an 
enemy  and  opponent.  Besides,  the  new  opposition  not  holding  so  strict 
a  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  retrenchment,  could  not  be  so  effectual  a 
check  on  the  propensity  of  the  new  administration  to  depart  from  its 
theory  of  rigid  economy.  Savings  indeed  to  some  extent  were  effected ; 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  navy  department,  the  expenditure  of  the  first 
three  years  of  this  administration  was  less  than  that  of  the  last  three 
years  of  the  preceding  by  1,582,000  dollars.  Other  instances  might  be 
selected,  but  still  the  expectations  of  many  of  the  most  ardent  supporters 
of  General  Jackson  have  not  been  fully  realized,  and  some  have  not 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  181 

scrupled  to  express  their  disappointment.  With  regard  to  rotation  in 
office,  the  practice  has  not  been  carried  to  the  extent  which  office-seekers 
hoped  and  office-holders  feared.  I  express  no  opinion  as  to  the  doctrine 
in  general,  or  as  to  the  propriety  of  removals  from  office  for  political 
causes ;  but  certainly,  since  the  election  of  Jeffi2rson,  it  cannot  be  pre- 
tended that  that  doctrine  is  not  an  essential  part  of  the  republican  sys- 
tem of  faith.  Many  gentlemen,  who  advocated  this  republican  doctrine, 
no  doubt  from  the  most  disinterested  and  patriotic  motives,  with  great 
zeal  and  effect  in  1801,  found  the  practical  application  of  it  extremely 
unpleasant  in  1829.  This,  however,  was  no  excuse  for  apostatizing 
from  the  fundamental  principles  of  democracy,  and  reprobating  so 
clamorously  the  faith  which  they  had  always  professed.  But  great  as 
has  been  the  outcry  raised  by  these  gentlemen,  and  others,  it  is  but  just 
to  add  that  the  administration  deserves  credit  for  the  moderation  with 
which  they  have  exercised  the  power  of  removal  from  office.  From  the 
third  of  March,  1829,  to  October,  1830,  out  of  10,093  public  officers,  the 
whole  number  of  removals  for  all  causes  whatsoever,  was  only  919,  or 
about  one-eleventh  of  the  whole  number.  When  we  consider  how  many 
of  these  were  removed  for  unfitness  or  dishonesty,  and  to  substitute  bet- 
ter men,  we  shall  probably  set  down  the  number  removed  for  political 
reasons  merely,  at  a  very  small  proportion  indeed.  In  the  treasury 
department  alone,  the  deficit  in  the  accounts  of  those  who  were  removed 
amounted  to  at  least  300,000  dollars.  How  groundless  is  the  charge- 
brought  against  the  administration,  of  an  unsparing  proscription  of  all 
who  do  not  profess  to  be  its  friends,  will  iijipear  from  the  proportion  of 
the  two  parties  among  the  office-holders  in  the  city  of  Washington.  On. 
the  accession  of  General  Jackson  to  the  presidency,  the  number  of  Adams 
and  Clay  men  in  office  in  Washington  was,  228 

The  friends  of  General  Jackson  in  office  there,  71 

The  number  of  removals  for  all  causes  was  40 

The  number  of  Clay  men  in  office  in  1831,  173 

And  of  the  friends  of  General  Jackson,  140 

So  that  this  prescriptive  administration  still  left  a  majority  of  thirty- 
three  of  the  offices  at  the  seat  of  government  in  the  hands  of  its 
enemies. 

At  the  time  of  the  elevation  of  the  present  incumbent  to  the  executive 
chair,  his  opponents  feared,  lest,  as  he  had  not  been  brought  up  a  diplo- 
matist, he  might  not  possess  the  knowledge  and  the  judgment  necessary 
for  the  proper  direction  of  our  foreign  relations.  The  history  of  his 
administration  thus  far  has  been  very  far  from  justifying  any  such  ap- 
prehensions. At  no  period  since  our  independence  have  our  negotiations 
been  so  successful.     The  trade  of  the  Black  Sea  opened  to  us ;  the  trade 

16 


182  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

of  the  British  West  Indies  restored  to  us ;  our  claims  on  Denmark  sat- 
isfactorily adjusted ;  indemnity,  which  our  merchants  had  almost  de- 
spaired of,  secured  from  France  5  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  advan- 
tages which  have  been  obtained  within  the  short  space  of  three  years. 
It  is  but  justice  to  attribute  some  portion  of  this  success  to  the  plainness 
and  directness  which  have  characterized  the  operations  of  the  present 
administration,  and  have  made  its  pithy  and  pertinent  state  papers  so 
opposite  in  substance  and  manner  to  the  endless,  involved,  verbose,  and 
unintelligible  declamations,  so  frequently  issued  by  the  members  of  the 
cabinet  under  the  late  administration. 

With  regard  to  our  domestic  policy,  it  was  feared  that  the  manufac- 
tures of  the  North  would  be  prostrated  by  the  sudden  and  total  aban- 
donment of  that  system  of  restriction  which  the  votes  of  the  South, 
some  years  since,  against  the  will  of  New  England,  fastened  upon  her. 
In  this  particular  also,  the  administration  has  displayed  more  of  justice 
and  of  wisdom  than  its  opponents  predicted.  It  has  proposed  a  system 
of  compromise,  which,  while  it  will  save  from  destruction  interests  that 
have  grown  up  under  existing  laws,  will  tend,  in  a  great  measure,  to  al- 
leviate the  dangerous  irritation  which  the  wrongs,  whether  real  or  imag- 
inary, of  the  present  system,  have  produced  through  an  important  section 
of  the  country,  —  a  compromise  which  we  may  safely  pronounce  to  be  a 
reasonable  one,  since  ex-president  Adams,  high  authority  for  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  present  administration,  has  adopted  it,  and,  with  some 
slight  modifications,  made  it  the  basis  of  his  own  proposed  arrangement : 
and  with  his  modifications,  there  is  a  fair  prospect  that  it  may  become 
a  law,  and  prove  satisfactory  to  a  large  class  of  the  manufacturers 
themselves. 

Thus  far  I  have  considered  some  of  the  consequences  of  the  three 
moral  revolutions  through  which  our  government  has  passed,  in  the  gen- 
eral manner  which  the  necessary  brevity  required,  but  with  enough  of 
particularity  to  answer  the  purpose  of  the  investigation :  and  I  now 
pause  to  sum  up  the  practical  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  them.  We 
cannot  help  admitting  the  obvious  truths,  that  our  party  contests  have 
not  that  intrinsic  importance,  with  which  the  lively  fancies  of  the  heated 
partisans  often  invest  them  :  that  they  are  often  in  a  great  degree  strug- 
gles for  office,  and  that  if  the  party  out  of  power  always  strives  to  fight 
itself  in,  by  the  vindication  on  all  occasions  of  certain  leading  popular 
principles,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  how  far  those  principles  will  be  ex- 
emplified in  its  practice  after  it  shall  have  prevailed  by  zealously  profess- 
ing them.  That,  however  great  may  be  the  inconsistencies  in  the  polit- 
ical conduct  of  individuals,  even  if  beyond  parallel  in  any  other  country, 
still  the  fluctuations   of  the  government  are  temporary,  and  of  lesser 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  183 

magnitude  than  they  at  first  appear  to  be.  We  may  therefore  expect 
the  government  to  go  on  through  reverses  and  vicissitudes.  We  may 
expect  the  dissatisfied  to  prochiim  peril  and  to  prognosticate  destruction : 
and  as  insurrections  have  taken  place  in  Massachusetts  and  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  have  been  threatened  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  we 
may  expect  the  execution  of  the  laws  to  be  sometimes  resisted  by  vio- 
lence. Yet  as  the  party  in  power  will  always  act  on  the  same  general 
principles,  and  as  the  party  out  of  power  can  always  take  possession  of 
the  administration  so  soon  as  it  can  command  a  majority  of  votes,  we 
may  trust  that  our  discontents  will  generally  evaporate  in  menaces,  and 
that  the  great  American  experiment  of  self-government  may  prosper  in 
its  course,  till  that  decay  which  is  the  fate  of  all  things  earthly  shall 
fasten  on  our  free  institutions.  If  in  the  long  lapse  of  ages  that  event- 
ful moment  should  ever  arrive  when  the  government  of  our  country 
must  yield  beneath  the  weight  of  its  abuses,  let  us  hope  that  the  princi- 
ples of  freedom  may  be  so  firmly  rooted  in  the  breasts  of  our  posterity, 
that  from  its  downfall  a.  new  republic  may  rise,  better  guarded  against 
corruption,  and  that  self-government,  purified,  and  renovated,  may  enter 
on  a  new  and  interminable  career.  To  make  free  government  securely 
permanent  among  us,  it  is  not  any  set  of  leaders  or  scheme  of  policy 
that  we  have  to  depend  upon.  We  must  rest  our  reliance  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  people,  and  to  this  end  we  should  do  all  in  our  power  to 
promote  intelligence,  morality,  temperance,  industry,  and  economy. 
Make  these  virtues  universal,  and  futurity  has  nothing  for  us  to 
fear. 

While  other  nations  are  trembling,  as  it  were,  on  the  brink  of  the 
precipice,  while  their  boldest  have  little  hope  to  escape  it,  and  their 
wisest  know  not  what  an  hour  may  bring  forth,  let  us  be  thankful  that 
union,  peace,  prosperity,  and  happiness,  are  the  prospect  we  see  before 
us.  Let  us  endeavor  to  merit  and  preserve  these  blessings.  Let  us 
conciliate  and  compromise ;  let  us  sacrifice,  if  need  be,  some  partial  in- 
terests to  the  general  good. 

Let  us  now  invoke  the  favor  of  divine  Providence  that  the  shield  of 
his  almighty  protection  may  be  spread  over  our  beautiful,  beautiful 
America.  That  her  land  may  reward  with  rich  harvests  the  labors  of 
agriculture ;  that  her  manufactures  may  revive  and  flourish,  and  furnish 
profitable  employment  for  her  redundant  population  ;  that  her  commerce 
may  whiten  every  sea  with  its  canvas,  and  enrich  and  gladden  all  her 
shores  with  the  returns  of  its  enterprise ;  and  that  the  free  soil  which 
we  .tread,  and  the  free  air  which  we  breathe  may  be  continued  free  to 
our  remotest  posterity. 


184  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  FEDERAL  UXIOX  CALCULATED.* 

In  the  following  pages  I  propose  to  show  the  paramount  importance 
of  the  Union  of  these  States  under  one  federal  head.  I  shall  maintain 
that  we  are  chiefly  indebted  for  the  unparalleled  degree  of  civil  and 
political  liberty  which  we  enjoy  to  our  absolute  independence  of 
foreign  control,  and  of  the  apprehension  of  it.  I  shall  then  undertake 
to  establish  that  the  Union  is  the  only  basis  upon  which  such  indepen- 
dence can  be  sustained  for  a  moment ;  that  immediately  upon  the  disso- 
lution of  the  general  government,  and  the  parcelling  out  of  our  territory 
under  several  governments  standing  in  the  relation  to  each  other  of 
foreign  powers,  all  the  principal  evils  which  have  oppressed  the  people 
of  the  old  world  would  be  entailed  upon  us,  —  that  frequent  wars,  stand- 
ing armies,  overgrown  debts,  enormous  inequalities  of  property,  titled 
aristocracies,  in  short,  a  strong  government,  with  all  its  characteristic 
accompaniments,  must  be  the  natural  consequence  of  the  presence  of 
jealous  rival  nations  on  each  other's  frontiers,  —  that  such  would  be  our 
lot ;  and  as  often  as  we  attempted  to  escape  from  it,  anarchy,  with  a  more 
hideous  array  of  sufferings  in  her  train,  would  seize  upon  us  and  make 
us  eagerly  fly  back  again  to  seek  refuge  under  despotism. 

That  from  such  a  condition  we  might  in  time  work  out  a  certain 
degree  of  liberty,  and  by  desperate  struggles,  often  repeated,  acquire 
:guarantees  for  it,  as  some  European  nations  have  done,  is  neither  to  be 
asserted  nor  denied ;  a  palpable  obscurity,  a  thick,  impenetrable  dark- 
ness would  rest  upon  our  future  prospects. 

We  shall  be  satisfied  of  the  correctness  of  these  positions  if  we  con- 
sider the  miserable  vicissitudes  through  which  the  nations  of  the  world 
have  passed  while  we  have  been  holding  on  our  glorious  course  of  im- 
provement and  of  happiness,  the  reasons  why  their  attempts  to  better 
their  condition  have  proved  so  generally  signal  failures,  and  the  operation 
which  the  same  causes  would  probably  have  in  producing  the  same 
mischiefs  upon  our  States  if  severed  from  their  present  compact,  and 
placed  in  independent  and  hostile  relations  towards  each  other. 

The  independence  of  the  United  States  of  America  is  not  only  a 
marked  epoch  in  the  course  of  time,  but  it  is  indeed  the  end  from  which 

"^  An  oration  delivered  before  the  Gloucester  Mechanic  Association,  on  the  Folirtli 
of  July,  1833. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  Ig5 

the  new  order  of  things  is  to  be  reckoned.  It  is  the  dividing  point  in 
the  history  of  mankind ;  it  is  the  moment  of  the  political  regeneration 
of  the  world. 

Before  it,  came  the  governments  of  force  ;  after  it,  come,  and  shall  come 
in  long  succession,  the  governments  of  opinion.  They  who  wielded  the 
sword  had  hitherto  directed  the  fate  of  nations  :  the  Fourth  of  July, 
seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-six,  announced  the  principle  of  self- 
government,  and  hereafter  nations  shall  follow  no  guidance  but  the 
mastery  of  mind.  It  is  not  enough  then  to  say  that  on  that  day  a  new 
empire  was  born ;  let  us  extend  our  views  over  the  earth,  and  through 
futurity  ;  let  us  characterize  that  day  by  a  more  comprehensive  expression 
of  its  consequences,  and  say  that  then  a  principle  v/as  ushered  for  the 
first  time  into  avowed,  and,  as  the  event  has  shown,  effectual  action, 
whose  operation  shall  change  the  destiny  of  man  in  all  empires  and 
forever. 

Fifty-seven  years  have  passed,  and  not  only  has  a  small  people  become 
a  great  nation,  not  only  has  the  energy  of  freedom  hurried  us  onward  in 
a  career  of  unparalleled  rapidity,  but  the  American  principle  of  self- 
government  has  gained  converts  and  acquired  influence  in  countries 
where  it  was  scarce  heard  of  before,  or  if  heard  of,  treated  only  as  the 
speculation  of  some  visionary  theorist.  It  has  been  like  leaven  thrown 
into  the  mass,  and  lasting,  wide,  and  increasing  has  been  the  fermenta- 
tion. Let  us  cast  a  brief  glance  over  the  annals  of  the  world  since  we 
have  had  an  independent  existence,  and  trace  the  progress  of  change  in 
different  countries. 

The  first  peculiarity  which  we  cannot  overlook,  is  the  magnitude  and 
appalling  character  of  the  events  which  have  been  crowded  into  the 
compass  of  that  short  period.  Every  line  of  the  chronicle  is  a  history, 
and  years  seem  to  have  sufficed  for  the  work  of  centuries.  France,  the 
centre  and  the  heart  of  the  European  body  politic,  whose  throes  are  felt 
to  the  farthest  extremities  of  that  system,  was  the  first  to  feel  the 
influence  of  the  new  ideas,  and  was  agitated  with  strange  convulsions. 
Some  of  her  most  distinguished  sons  had  taken  part  in  our  contest  with 
the  parent  empire,  and  returned  home  with  their  bosoms  glowing  with 
the  fire  of  liberty.  They  found  their  countrymen  ripe  for  the  reception 
of  democratic  principles,  and  their  situation  made  them  apostles  of  the 
new  faith.  Fenelon  had  declared  to  the  corrupt  court  of  the  fourteenth 
Louis,  while  the  great  monarch  was  at  the  height  of  his  absolute  power, 
the  uncourtly  truth  that  kings  were  created  to  be  servants  of  their  people, 
and  not  the  people  for  their  kings.  Lafayette  had  just  Avitnessed  on  this 
side  the  Atlantic  the  sublime  spectacle  of  a  nation  of  whom  the  people 
were  sovereigns,  and  he  was  resolved,  if  it  might  not  be  so  on  his  side  of 

16* 


186  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WHITINGS 

the  ocean,  at  least  to  make  the  experiment  of  a  sovereign  ruling  in  the 
interest  of  the  people,  and  under  their  control  through  the  medium  of 
responsible  ministers.  In  the  castle  of  If,  and  in  the  dungeon  of  Vincen- 
nes,  Mirabeau  had  had  leisure  to  meditate  on  the  nature  of  arbitrary  power, 
and  was  disposed  to  lend  his  aid  to  remodel  the  government  whose 
injustice  he  had  felt,  so  as  to  protect  his  fellow-citizens  from  the  danger 
of  similar  oppression.  With  such  leaders  from  the  higher  nobility,  it  is 
•not  strange  that  the  commons  rushed  on  eagerly  to  secure  that  share  in 
the  administration  of  affairs  which  was  necessary  to  their  well  being  and 
their  safety,  and  which  seemed  so  suddenly  brought  within  their  grasp. 
They  anticipated,  and  plausibly  too,  an  easy  task,  and  a  speedy  deliver- 
ance. Under  the  mild  reign  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  with  an  imbecile 
and  fickle  ministry,  embarrassed  by  an  empty  treasury,  without  means 
;to  fill  it,  resting  for  support  on  an  aristocracy  worthless  and  powerless 
as  a  body,  while  the  few  splendid  exceptions  to  this  general  character, 
■of  which  it  might  with  justice  make  its  boast,  the  possessors  of  almost 
all  the  virtue  and  almost  all  the  talent,  rare  qualities  in  that  degenerate 
caste,  were  to  be  found  in  open  opposition  to  its  pretensions  and  fighting 
in  the  ranks  of  its  enemies,  the  people,  —  in  such  a  state  of  things  we 
can  easily  pardon  those  who  believed  that  the  abolition  of  obsolete 
abuses  was  a  work  of  easy  and  speedy  accomplishment,  and  that  es- 
tablishing the  regenerated  government  with  the  power  of  self-preserva- 
tion, with  vital  force  enough  to  enable  it  to  perform  its  proper  functions, 
and  well-adjusted  checks  sufficient  to  prevent  it  from  overstepping  its 
proper  limits  was  an  achievement  of  equal  facility.  Terrible  was  the 
•  disappointment  of  all  these  hopes.  The  privileged  orders  had  lost  the 
substance  of  power  before  the  revolution,  so  called,  commenced:  the 
substance  gone,  the  ensigns  were  soon  wrested  from  their  hands,  and 
power,  both  real  and  nominal,  fell  into  the  possession  of  the  people. 
But  in  the  struggle  to  divide  the  glittering  prize,  the  conquerors  became 
animated  with  an  epidemic  fury  and  turned  their  weapons  against  each 
other's  breasts.  The  French  monarchy  which  dated  from  its  origin 
■thirteen  hundred  years,  the  kingdom  of  France,  properly  speaking, 
swhich  could  claim  an  antiquity  of  nine  centuries  and  a  half,  the  royal 
iliouse  of  Capet  which  for  eight  hundred  years  had  reigned  over  that 
kingdom,  crumbled  into  ruins,  —  the  throne  and  the  altar  were 
■overturned  and  trampled  in  the  dust;  and  king,  noble,  and  priest, 
expiated  with  their  blood  the  errors  of  their  ancestors,  and  balanced  the 
long  arrears  of  popular  vengeance.  Discord  stalked  undisputed  master 
of  the  field,  anarchy  let  loose  all  her  Titans  to  destroy,  and  law  and 
order,  religion  and  justice  were  the  sport  of  their  rage.  Day  by  day, 
in  the  light  of  the  blessed  sun,  grim  murder,  insatiate  as  Moloch  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  187 

relentless  as  tli'^  grave,  bared  liis  red  arm  and  laughed  at  punishment. 
Systematized  carnage  deluged  tlie  cities  with  the  purple  blood  of  human 
sacrifice,  while  confusion  and  desolation  swept  over  the  Imid  in  one 
broad  cataract  of  blood  and  fire.  The  period  is  not  misnamed  "the 
Reign  of  Terror."  It  is  too  horrible  for  particularity.  We  look  back 
upon  it  as  on  some  sh  )i  t  revolting  and  unnatural  drama,  and  can  hardly 
help  regarding  the  actors  in  the  different  parts  as  unreal  monsters  cre- 
ated by  a  disturbed  imagination.  They  pass  before  us  like  the  figures 
of  a  moving  panorama  exhibited  by  torchlight.  The  terrible  energies 
of  Danton,  the  fiendlike  ferocity  of  Marat,  emerge  from  obscurity, 
glare  fearfully  for  a  moment,  and  sink  into  the  surrounding  gloom ; 
while  Robespierre,  Couthon,  and  St.  Just  make  but  two  strides  across 
the  bloody  scene,  the  one  from  insignificance  to  the  supreme  j)ower,  and 
the  next  from  the  supreme  power  to  the  scaffold. 

Though  weary  of  her  nine  months'  madness,  though  exhausted  by  par- 
oxysms each  more  convulsive  than  those  that  had  preceded  it,  there  was 
no  repose  for  France.  In  the  lowest  depth  of  her  despair  she  beheld  a 
lower  deep  wide  opening  threaten  to  devour  her.  She  rushed  on  in  her 
agony  till  she  had  sounded  the  last  abyss  of  her  woe,  and  then,  when 
rest  should  have  awaited  her,  she  found  herself  thrust  back  by  a  conti- 
nent in  arms,  and  thrown  again  into  the  boiling  whirlpool.  Her  frontier 
was  bristling  with  the  bayonets  of  confederate  nations,  who  had  marched 
to  war  against  the  principles  of  the  revolution. 

The  long  and  arduous  struggle  which  ensued,  with  its  various  vicissi- 
tudes and  absorbing  interest,  was  fitted  to  form,  as  far  as  any  circum- 
stances could  form,  a  character  of  controlling  power.  If  nature  had  de- 
posited anywhere  the  spark  of  a  sublime  genius,  in  such  a  crisis  as  this 
it  must  blaze  out.  Now,  if  ever,  mankind  might  expect  to  arise  one  of 
those  master  spirits,  who  "  ride  on  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the  storm  " 
of  revolution  ;  who,  sitting  above,  like  Jupiter,  scatter  the  thunderbolts 
of  war,  or  wield  the  sword  of  destiny,  and  who  smile  upon  the  crash  as 
the  political  world  that  is  to  pass  away  is  shivered  around  them  ;  who 
touch  with  unerring  hand  the  secret  springs  of  change,  and  order  all 
things  after  the  counsel  of  their  own  will,  while  the  ordinary  herd  of 
mortals  stand  aghast,  gaze  and  admire  below.  One  of  this  class  ap- 
peared in  the  person  of  the  man  to  whom  the  nine  hundred  millions  of 
his  contemporaries  furnish  no  compeer  —  the  child  of  destiny  —  the  throne- 
creator  —  the  modern  Mars  —  Napoleon.  He  lifted  the  curtain  with  his 
own  red  blade,  and  strode  the  stage  like  a  deity.  He  came  like  the 
tenth  Avatar,  to  destroy  and  recreate.  The  elements  of  commotion 
were  still  at  his  bidding,  order  was  welcomed  again  after  her  long  ab- 
sence, and  law  resumed  the  reins. 


188  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

The  energy  wliicli  the  revolution  had  developed,  his  mind  directed  and 
concentrated  against  the  enemies  of  France,  and  their  daring  was  con- 
verted into  dismay,  the  torrent  of  invasion  was  turned  back  upon  them ; 
opposition  was  but  another  name  for  defeat.  The  eagles  of  conquest, 
issuing  from  tlie  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  soared  over  the  ancient  capi- 
tals, successively,  of  nations  who  were  astonished  to  recognize  a  foreign 
master  ;  till  the  emperor,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  greatness,  wielded  a 
more  extensive  sway  than  Rome  could  boast  under  the  most  powerful  of 
the  Caisars.  France  was  at  that  time  mistress  of  the  civilized  world. 
Spain  was  her  province,  Italy  a  part  of  the  same  body  politic,  and  Ger- 
many, trembling,  crouched  at  her  feet.  When  the  conflagration  broke 
out  in  Spain,  Austria  again  ventured  into  the  field  —  in  vain  —  she  was 
completely  humbled,  and  the  daughter  of  her  monarch  became  the  bride 
of  Napoleon.  To  complete  the  climax  of  his  happiness,  a  son  was  born 
to  inherit  these  vast  possessions,  and  his  throne  seemed  to  be  established 
upon  a  solid  foundation.  But  in  an  evil  hour  the  South  crusaded  against 
the  North,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Europe,  in  defiance  of 
the  laws  of  nature,  yet  with  an  irresistible  impulse.  In  two  months  and 
a  half,  from  the  passage  of  the  Niemen,  June  24th,  1812,  the  grand 
army  arrived  at  Moscow,  a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  sixty  leagues. 
The  Russian  autocrat  abandoned  his  capital,  but  an  ocean  of  fire  rolled 
its  devouring  billows  over  temple  and  palace,  the  dwelling-place  of  com- 
fort and  the  storehouse  of  merchandize,  and  Napoleon's  conquest  w^as 
but  a  heap  of  ashes.  The  sanguinary  battle  of  Borodino  had  shattered 
his  strength,  and  now  want  of  shelter  and  supplies  left  him  no  alterna- 
tive, but  instant  retreat ;  cold  and  fatigue,  want  and  fiimine,  hung  upon  his 
rear.  The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  him.  The  northern  blast 
breathed  over  the  fugitives  like  the  angel  of  destruction.  Ilorse  and  rider 
felt  its  benumbing  influence,  and  strewed  the  ground  with  the  dying  and 
the  dead.  The  passage  of  the  Berezina  represented  but  too  faithfully  the 
hosts  of  Fharaoli  overwhelmed  in  the  Red  Sea.  Of  the  countless  mul- 
titude that  had  sallied  from  beautiful  France,  full  of  hope  and  exulting 
in  the  confidence  of  success,  only  a  few  straggling  detachments  set  foot 
upon  their  native  soil  again.  The  French  territory  did  not  remain  in- 
violate. The  recoil  of  vengeance  paused  at  the  frontier  only  till  the 
pursuers  could  take  breath.  The  war  rolled  back  from  the  Kremlin, 
across  the  battle-field  of  Leipsic,  to  the  heights  of  Montmartre,  and,  on 
the  31st  of  March,  1814,  the  allies,  who  had  leagued  against  him,  en- 
tered Paris.     The  emperor  abdicated  and  retired  to  Elba. 

Now  was  the  time  to  satisfy  the  first  wish  of  France,  free  institutions 
and  a  representative  government.  But  no  !  The  loathed  and  hated 
Bourbons  were  thrust  upon  the  nation.     That  ill-starred  family  had  for- 


OF   ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR  189 

gotten  nothing,  and  had  learned  nothing  ;  while  the  revolution  had  pass- 
ed over  France  with  its  heavy  levelling  wheel,  and  had  crushed  into 
the  dust  hereditary  privileges,  and  distinctions  not  founded  in  merit  or 
services  ;  while  the  nations  had  been,  for  twenty-five  years,  in  their 
great  school  of  mutual  instruction,  imbibing  and  imparting  the  true  fun- 
damental political  theory  of  government  for  the  benefit  of  the  governed. 
The  prejudices  to  which  they  clung  were  of  course  more  obsolete  than 
at  the  era  of  their  exile,  and  less  in  unison  with  the  spirit  of  the  age 
than  before  political  ideas  were  diffused  among  all  classes  of  the  people. 
Their  obstinacy  in  disregarding  the  lessons  of  twenty-six  years,  and  the 
pertinacity  with  which  they  adhered  to  plans  of  conduct  unsuited  to  the 
existing  state  of  things,  and  adopted  in  contempt  of  public  feeling, 
alarmed  the  lovers  of  constitutional  liberty,  irritated  the  army,  alienated 
their  friends,  and  exasperated  their  enemies  ;  so  that  when  the  exile  of 
Elba  returned  to  claim  the  empire,  the  nation  received  him  with  open 
arms.  He  came  like  thunder  falling  from  a  clear  sky.  He  landed  at 
Cannes,  March  1st,  1815,  with  a  handful  of  men,  and  proclaimed  that 
he  would  bring  back  victory  chained  at  his  chariot  wheels.  His  old 
companions  in  arms  heard  the  well-known  voice,  and  flew  to  surround 
him.  His  progress  resembled  the  welcome  of  some  mighty  conqueror 
revisiting  his  delighted  subjects,  his  brows  bound  with  fresh  laurels 
gathered  in  the  glorious  campaign  which  is  to  terminate  his  wars.  The 
gallant  and  unfortunate  Labedoyere,  the  lion-hearted  Prince  of  Moskwa, 
bravest  of  the  brave,  with  tens  of  thousands  of  their  veteran  followers, 
the  soul  of  the  French  soldiery,  rushed  with  rapture  to  swell  the  train  ; 
and  in  twenty  days  from  his  disembarkation  the  triumphal  procession 
entered  the  city  of  Paris.  The  degenerate  Bourbons,  the  obsolete  no- 
blesse, and  the  imbecile  emigrants,  who  had  pressed  upon  France  like  a 
deadly  incubus,  were  hurled  from  their  seats.  They  fled  to  the  Low 
Countries,  and  their  besotted  partisans  followed  them.  The  professors 
of  the  doctrines  of  legitimacy,  divine  righc,  and  absolutism,  hid  their 
diminished  heads,  and  were  silent  as  the  obscene  birds  of  night  before 
the  noonday  sun.  Bonaparte  was  a  second  time  emperor  by  the  will 
of  the  French  people. 

Here  was  again  a  golden  opportunity,  when  France  might  well  hope 
for  a  hberal  Constitution,  to  limit  the  imperial  prerogative,  and  to  guar- 
antee individual  liberty.  The  emperor  was  not  dazzled  by  the  bril- 
liancy of  his  first  reception:  he  saw  clearly  all  the  peril  of  his  situation. 
He  felt  the  necessity  of  resting  his  power  on  that  popular  will  from 
which  it  was  derived;  and  he  promulgated  a  Constitution  which  im})Osed 
reasonable  restrictions  on  the  executive  will,  and  secured  a  tolerable 
share  of  hberty  to  the  subject,  while  it  provided  the  means  of  consult- 


190  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

ing  the  nation  on  the  measures  to  be  pursued,  and  allowed  it  a  direct  in- 
fluence in  the  management  of  affairs.  Bj  this  Constitution,  and  in  the 
liberal  spirit  which  directed  it,  he  solemnly  promised  that  his  adminis- 
tration should  be  regulated,  and  the  conscientious  Benjamin  Constant, 
with  other  leaders  of  that  patriotic  band  who  had  opposed  the  misgov- 
ernment  of  the  restoration,  lent  him  their  cordial  support.  But  the 
legitimate  monarchs  beheld  in  a  popular  sovereign  their  national  foe. 
He  was  outlawed  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  stigmatized  as  a  wild 
beast  to  be  hunted  down,  and  Europe  again  took  up  arms  against  the 
principles  and  the  man  of  the  revolution.  He  dashed  across  his  north- 
ern frontier,  trusting  to  the  celerity  of  his  movements,  and  attempted  to 
annihilate  by  separate  attacks  the  armies  of  Blucher  and  of  Wellington. 
Fortune  was  faithless  to  him.  The  battles  of  Quatre  Bras  and  of 
Ligny,  and  the  disastrous  route  at  Waterloo  closed  the  eventful  drama, 
and  swelled  the  grand  total  of  the  two  millions  of  victims  who  had  fallen 
in  this  protracted  struggle.  The  second  march  on  Paris,  the  second 
abdication,  ensued  without  an  interval,  and  the  hundred  days  were 
ended.  France  was  transformed  into  a  vast  encampment,  which  the 
allied  invaders  filled  with  a  million  of  heterogeneous  troops  of  all  nations 
and  languages.  Wild  Cossacks  from  the  Don  and  the  Volga  devoured 
and  laid  waste  the  harvests,  and  the  hoofs  of  the  Prussian  dragoon 
horses  profaned  the  Elysian  fields.  The  barbarians  of  the  north  glutted 
their  vengeance  upon  their  downcast  enemy;  desolation  stalked  through 
her  provinces,  and  plunder  rioted  in  her  cities.  The  monuments  of  her 
victories  were  overthrown,  her  treasures  of  art  torn  from  her  capital, 
and  that  queen  of  cities  drained  to  its  dregs  the  bitter  cup  of  humilia- 
tion. The  greatest  captain  of  the  age,  when  he  found  it  impossible  to 
reach  the  common  asylum  of  the  unfortunate  in  this  home  of  liberty, 
threw  himself  upon  the  magnanimity  of  England,  and  was  consigned  to 
a  barren  volcanic  rock  in  the  midst  of  the  Atlantic,  swept  by  the  per- 
petual trade-winds,  and  alternately  drenched  by  torrents  of  rain,  or 
scorched  by  the  fierce  rays  of  the  tropical  sun.  On  this  inhospitable 
isle  he  lingered  out  the  sad  remnant  of  his  days,  and  that  he  preserved 
to  the  last  his  characteristic  traits  is  witnessed  by  the  fact,  that  in  the 
hour  of  his  dissolution  the  dress  of  his  battles  covered  him,  the  field  bed 
of  Austerlitz  su[)ported  his  sinking  frame,  and  the  sword  which  he  had 
girded  on  at  Marengo  lay  beneath  his  pillow.  He  is  now  resting  in  the 
bosom  of  that  rock  of  the  ocean ;  the  stone  of  his  prison-place  is  laid 
over  his  ashes  ;  the  Roman  cement  covers  him  who  tamed  the  Roman 
eagle.  His  fame  will  fiourish  in  perennial  youth,  and  like  the  Phoenix, 
rise  freshly  from  his  tomb  as  often  as  successive  revolutions  shall  con- 
vulse the  world.     Peace  to  his  parted  spirit ! 


191 

After  the  final  effort  of  the  great  agitator  had  been  baffled,  and  he 
secluded  in  the  water-girt  rock  of  banishment,  the  continent  was  quiet 
for  awhile ;  no  more  was  to  be  heard  of  wars  and  commotions,  and  the 
potentates  of  Europe  vegetated  in  undisturbed  security  on  their  paternal 
thrones.  And  now  that  France  has  been  sufficiently  humbled  at  the  feet 
of  her  enemies,  now  that  the  confederate  nations  have  shorn  her  locks 
of  power,  and  have  no  longer  cause  to  fear  her  restless  ambition,  is  her 
ardent  longing  for  liberty  to  be  gratified,  —  is  she  now,  after  these  re- 
peated disasters,  after  this  calamitous  issue  of  her  desperate  enterprise, 
to  be  blessed  with  free  institutions,  and  a  government  of  her  own  choice? 
Alas  I  Very  far  from  all  this,  —  she  is  doomed  once  more  to  bow  under 
the  odious  yoke  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  rendered  still  more  galling  to 
her  proud  spirit  from  the  circumstance  that  foreign  arms  have  imposed 
it  on  her.  These  much  loathed  masters  rule,  as  in  a  conquered  country, 
a  people  which  despises  and  abhors  them.  Force,  therefore,  compels 
obedience ;  and  France  is  further  from  the  object  of  the  revolution,  an 
object  she  will  never  cease  to  keep  in  view,  than  she  was  during  the 
period  of  the  first  restoration. 

The  disbanding  of  tliat  army  which  had  shed  eternal  glory  over  the 
annals  of  France ;  the  execution,  as  traitors,  of  Labedoyere  and  Ney, 
who  had  only  acted  as  circumstances  compelled  them  to  act ;  the  base 
submission  of  the  French  government  to  refund  to  the  allied  sovereigns 
the  expenses  of  their  war  against  the  independence  of  France ;  the 
agreement  that  the  troops  of  the  allies  should  be  quartered  for  years  in 
the  heart  of  France,  and  that  she  should  hold  herself  bound  to  support 
the  army  of  occupation,  filled  full  the  measure  of  universal  detestation. 
To  stifle  the  expression  of  this  feeling,  the  censorship  was  instituted,  the 
law  of  election  was  altered ;  prosecutions  for  political  offences  became 
frequent,  and  the  more  zealous  ultras,  in  a  treasonable  correspondence, 
begged  the  allies  to  allow  their  troops  to  remain  in  France,  when  they 
were  about  to  withdraw  them.  At  the  Congress  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
France  was  leagued  with  the  northern  powers  in  their  policy  of  legiti- 
macy, armed  intervention  and  stability,  —  a  policy  more  fully  developed 
at  Yerona  in  1822,  and  which  it  devolved  on  France  to  illustrate  in  1823, 
by  the  march  on  Spain  of  one  hundred  thousand  French  troops  for  the 
suppression  of  democratic  principles  in  that  peninsula  ;  so  that  it  was  not 
enough  for  this  high-minded  and  chivalrous  nation  to  be  forced  to  relin- 
quish with  bitter  regret  the  fruits  of  so  many  years  of  suffering,  but  she 
must  be  made  the  miserable  and  unwilling  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
her  masters  to  crush  the  rising  hopes  of  liberty  among  a  neighboring 
gallant  and  much  abused  people. 

Louis  XYIIL,  well-meaning  but  weak,  died,  and  the  crown  passed  to 


192  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Charles  X.,  bigoted  and  obstinate.  The  victory  of  Navanno  lighted  up 
for  a  moment  the  sombre  gloom  of  his  short  and  luckless  reign,  and  the 
conquest  of  Algiers  threw  a  gleam  of  transient  splendor  over  the  last 
days  of  the  house  of  Bourbon  ;  but  the  general  aspect  of  his  affairs  was 
lowering  and  ominous.  The  last  three  ministries  in  the  service  of  legit- 
imacy, those  of  Yillele,  of  Portalis,  and  Martignac,  and  finally  of  Polignac, 
conducted  the  government  to  the  precipice  over  which  it  threw  itself  on 
the  day  of  the  issuing  of  the  three  fatal  ordonnances.  The  inconsiderate 
outrage  that  day  offered  to  the  genius  of  democracy,  by  an  administration 
smitten  with  judicial  blindness,  "  Unweetingly  importuned  their  own  de- 
struction to  come  speedily  on  them." 

The  intolerable  provocation  with  which  they  dared  to  insult  the  en- 
thralled Samson,  "despised  and  thought  extinguished  quite,  his  fiery 
virtue  roused ; "  and  grasping  the  pillars  whereon  their  much-abused 
power  reposed,  he  tumbled  the  whole  fabric  into  a  promiscuous  ruin. 

The  revolution  of  July,  1830,  must  not  be  judged  by  itself,  or  by  its 
immediate  effects  ;  but  as  the  first  of  a  new  series  of  revolutions.  It  is 
the  beginning  of  the  debacle,  —  the  grand  breaking  up  of  the  general 
congelation.  It  has  sanctioned  the  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people,  and  dealt  a  fatal  blow  to  the  absurd  notion  of  passive  obedience. 
For  the  first  time,  too,  the  foreign  powers  have  j([orborne  to  interfere,  for 
which  quiescence  they  had  doubtless  two  good  reasons  ;  first,  the  con- 
sciousness that  their  own  armies  and  people  sympathized  with  the  insur- 
gent nation,  and  not  with  the  overthrown  dynasty ;  and  that  therefore  it 
might  be  apprehended,  if  they  should  be  marched  into  the  infected  re- 
gion, that  a  sudden  development  of  their  predisposition  to  liberalism 
would  produce  an  incurable  derangement  of  their  steady  habits  of  obe- 
dience ;  second,  the  recollection  that  the  career  of  Napoleon  had  demon- 
strated that  the  south-west  of  Europe  holds  the  good  military  position 
against  the  northern  despotisms,  and  that  in  case  of  a  rupture,  France 
can  make  a  foray  upon  either  of  the  capitals  of  the  holy  allies,  at  her 
election.  This  is  a  great  point  gained  ;  the  abolition  of  hereditary  peer- 
age is  another,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  iii  most  respects  the 
change  of  masters  has  not  been  a  change  of  system.  The  significant 
coldness  with  which  Russia  received  the  annunciation  of  the  new  dynasty 
left  the  French  no  room  to  doubt,  that  if  it  was  not  prudent  and  con- 
venient to  resent  their  late  exercise  of  the  right  to  be  pullers  down  and 
setters  up  of  their  own  kings,  still  they  were  considered  as  on  their  good 
behavior  for  the  future.  The  government  looked  for  support,  and  even 
for  toleration,  from  foreign  despotisms,  only  in  proportion  as  it  should 
disappoint  the  expectations  of  those  who  achieved  the  revolution,  and  it 
seems  to  have  been  anxious  to  deserve  the  forbearance  of  the  self-con- 


OF   EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I93 

stituted  regulators  of  the  continent.  The  venerable  Lafayette  was  shuf- 
jEled  from  his  post  of  commander-in-chief  of  the  National  Guards  ;  the 
office  itself  was  abolished :  unpopular  nominations  were  made  and  per- 
sisted in  ;  the  men  and  the  principles  of  July  were  discountenanced  ; 
Poland  was  left  to  struggle  and  perish  unaided  ;  the  projects  of  the 
movement  party  were  disconcerted,  and  their  policy  scouted,  and  the 
rule  of  action  seemed  to  be  never  to  advance  while  it  was  possible  to  re 
main  stationary.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  pronounced  that  this  experi- 
ment is  conclusive  of  the  fact,  that  either  branch  of  the  house  of  Bourbon 
is  equally  incapable  of  ruling  an  enlightened  nation  in  a  liberal  spirit  : 
and  though  we  cannot  expect  such  an  event  immediately,  still  we  are 
waiting  for  the  occurrence  of  another  more  effectual  revolution,  to  be 
accomplished  by  moral  means,  and  to  finish  the  work  of  the  last. 

The  Spanish  peninsula,  whose  position  recommends  to  it  so  strongly  a 
perpetual  neutrality,  and  whose  colonial  dominions  contributed  so  much 
to  estrange  it  from  the  internal  order  of  Europe,  has  unwisely  entangled 
itself  in  quarrels  with  which  it  had  no  concern,  and  has  consummated  its 
own  ruin  by  unnecessary  connections  and  unnatural  antipathies.  With 
an  intellectual,  brave,  ardent,  passionate,  heroic  population,  —  souls 
formed  of  fire  and  children  of  the  sun,  —  a  licentious  and  bigoted  court 
has  neglected  the  advantages  and  wasted  the  resources  which  the  national 
character  afforded,  and  dragged  her  along  the  brink  of  frightful  preci- 
pices to  a  melancholy  but  sure  perdition.  Hurried,  against  her  interest, 
into  the  war  of  conspiring  monarchs  against  the  French  republic,  a  war 
in  which  the  lavish  expenditure  of  her  treasure,  her  commerce,  her  pos- 
sessions, and  her  fame,  led  only  to  most  discredited  results,  she  was  left 
to  conclude  by  an  ignominous  peace,  those  hostilities  which  she  should 
have  avoided  before  they  were  ventured  on.  Scarce  was  the  treaty 
signedi,,  when  she  foolishly  entered  into  a  contest  with  Great  Britain,  an 
enemy  with  whom  she  could  never  cope,  and  out  of  the  series  of  losses 
and  disasters  which  she  experienced  on  this  occasion  she  was  brought  by 
the  peace  of  Amiens,  chastised  biit  not  made  wiser  by  her  sufferings. 
When  this  short  truce  was  broken,  Spain  purchased  of  Napoleon  per- 
mission to  remain  neutral  by  the  payment  of  a  monthly  tribute,  and  by 
secret  reinforcements  of  seamen  for  his  navy ;  an  arrangement  which 
England  resented  by  the  capture  of  her  bullion  fleet  and  the  destruction 
of  its  convoy.  Not  content  with  this  flagrant  violation  of  the  laws  of 
civilized  warfare,  she  proceeded  to  demand  that  the  equipment  of  ships 
of  war  in  Spanish  ports  should  be  forthwith  suspended.  The  requisition 
was  not  complied  with  :  His  CathoHc  Majesty  felt  compelled  to  declare 
war  against  England.  In  less  than  a  year  after  Spain  had  avowed  her- 
self an  enemy,  Nelson  annihilated  her  marine  at  Trafalgar,  the  crowning 

17 


194  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

victory  of  his  bright  career ;  while  shortly  after,  Miranda  excited  tlie 
insurrectionary  spirit  in  her  American  provinces,  which  four  years  later 
he  instigated  to  break  out  again  under  more  favorable  auspices,  and 
which  slumbered  not  until  her  vast  colonial  possessions  were  severed 
from  all  dependence  on  the  parent  state.  Under  the  guidance  of  Godoy, 
the  infamous  Prince  of  Peace,  lured  by  the  promised  spoil  of  Portugal, 
Spain  was  but  too  deeply  involved  in  the  ambitious  enterprises  of  Napo- 
leon, while  her  royal  family,  embroiled  in  domestic  discords,  offered  a 
tempting  and  an  easy  prey  to  the  iron  grasp  of  the  conqueror.  Whether 
it  were  his  passion  for  aggrandizement,  or  a  philanthropic  wish  to  deliver 
a  gallant  nation  from  the  miseries  which  a  misgovernment,  the  most 
preposterous,  was  inflicting  on  her,  or  the  undeniable  necessity  of  making 
her  resources  subservient  to  his  general  system  under  a  more  energetic 
and  efficient  administration,  or  all  these  motives  combined,  the  opportu- 
nity was  too  flattering  to  be  resisted  :  he  converted  Spain  into  an  appan- 
age of  his  im2)erial  family,  and  delegated  his  brother  Joseph  to  occupy 
the  vacant  throne.  The  throne  was  filled,  the  military  posts  were  seized, 
the  passes  guarded,  and  the  country  seemed  to  be  permanently  subjugated 
before  a  blow  was  struck.  To  alleviate  the  bitter  feelings  which  subjec- 
tion to  a  foreign  master  never  foils  to  excite,  the  new  dynasty  proposed 
to  confer  on  Spain  blessings  of  incalculable  value.  It  tendered  political 
regeneration  to  a  people  exhausted  and  degraded  by  the  vile  misrule  of 
a  despicable  tyranny.  It  conferred  and  guaranteed  a  new  constitution 
eminently  calculated  to  draw  forth  her  neglected  resources  :  it  abolished 
that  antiquated  restrictive  system,  which  had  there,  as  is  its  tendency 
everywhere,  depressed  agriculture  and  destroyed  commerce  :  it  provided 
more  effectually  for  the  protection  of  persons  and  property,  a  more  equal 
and  vigorous  administration  of  justice,  means  for  the  education  of  the 
common  people,  equal  toleration  to  all  sects  of  religion,  equal  protection 
to  all  classes  of  industry.  It  swept  away  the  tribunals  of  the  infernal 
Inquisition ;  it  cut  off  the  exorbitant  privileges  of  the  aristocracy  ;  in  a 
word,  it  emancipated  the  industry,  persons,  property,  and  consciences  of 
the  people.  In  these  intentions  it  was  sincere,  for  Bonaparte's  interests 
were  identical  with  those  of  Spain.  By  raising  her  people  from  the 
permanent  inferiority  into  which  vicious  institutions  and  the  debasing 
influence  of  a  corrupt,  profligate,  venal,  and  perverse  government  had 
degraded  it ;  by  exalting  her  in  the  standard  of  improvement  to  a  level 
with  the  most  civilized  nations  of  modern  times,  he  hoped  to  develop 
rapidly  those  immense  resources  which  he  was  desirous  to  employ.  But 
the  haughty,  headstrong  Spaniard  took  little  note  of  this,  obvious  though 
it  might  be  to  the  obtusest  intellect ;  an  infatuation  possessed  him,  over 
which  he   has  siiice  lamented  with  many  crimson  tears.     The  blind 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  195 

fanaticism  of  the  monks,  natural  enemies  of  an  enlightened  government, 
the  brutal  ferocity  of  a  crafty,  cruel,  and  vindictive  people,  broke  into 
open  rebellion  everywhere  ;  and  extraordinary,  wild,  and  anomalous 
was  the  manifestation  of  popular  wrath  which  burst  in  an  overw^helminfr 
hurricane  upon  the  heads  of  the  devoted  French. 

War  to  the  knife  and  the  knife  to  the  hilt,  was  not  only  proclaimed  by 
Palafox,  but  carried  on  by  innumerable  chiefs  of  bands  of  guerrillas. 
The  uncontrollable  fierceness  of  anger,  and  the  long  cherished  tenacity 
of  vengeance,  which  are  characteristic  of  the  Spaniard  when  pro- 
voked, exhibited  themselves  in  deeds  of  ruthless  cruelty.  Officers 
and  even  civilians  travelling  in  security  were  waylaid  and  shot; 
every  straggling  soldier  that  could  be  cut  off  from  his  detachment 
was  butchered  by  the  mob ;  the  sick,  the  wounded,  and  the  medical 
attendants  were  murdered  without  shame  or  remorse,  and  French 
troops,  who  had  surrendered  themselves  prisoners  under  a  solemn  capit- 
ulation, were  massacred  in  cold  blood  in  the  face  of  day.  Trcacliery 
was  employed  to  inveigle  victims  into  the  toils,  and  assassination  wreak- 
ed itself  on  innocent  and  meritorious  citizens  as  well  as  enemies.  Yet 
these  ebullitions  must  have  subsided,  this  outbreaking  of  passionate  en- 
thusiasm would  have  died  away  from  the  excess  of  its  undefined  fury, 
had  it  not  been  fostered  by  British  gold  and  British  arms.  Napoleon 
pushed  forward  several  columns,  each  resting  on  the  main  army  from 
which  it  radiated,  and  spread  them  over  the  peninsula,  overpowering 
opposition  as  they  went.  But  the  directing  head  could  not  be  every- 
where at  once  :  while  he  was  settling  affairs  with  Austria,  the  irresolu- 
tion and  incapacity  of  Savary  and  Dupont  led  to  disasters  which  neither 
the  daring  intrepidity  of  Junot,  the  ever  v^^atchful  activity  of  Soult,  the 
fiery  impetuosity  and  long  tried  skill  and  valor  of  Ney,  nor  all  the 
sagacity  and  genius  of  Massena,  the  favorite  child  of  victory,  were  suf- 
ficient fully  to  retrieve.  During  six  bloody  campaigns,  the  tide  of  war 
ebbed  and  flowed,  till  fortune  and  the  elements  drove  back  the  child  and 
champion  of  the  revolution  discomfited  from  the  smoking  ruins  of  Mos- 
cow, and  then  it  wffB  that  the  victorious  "Wellington,  defeating  them  in 
one  pitched  battle  after  another,  chased  the  survivors  of  that  hard  fought 
struggle  across  the  Bidassoa. 

Spain  is  now  freed  from  a  foreign  yoke,  and  her  national  independence  is 
secured ;  is  she  to  be  freed  from  the  yoke  of  that  legitimate  despotism 
which  had  dilapidated  the  resources,  perverted  the  moral  sense  and  de- 
based the  lofty  character  of  the  nation  ;  is  the  individual  independence 
of  man  to  be  recognized ;  will  a  grateful  king,  not  unmindful  that  the 
best  blood  of  his  people  has  been  poured  out  without  stint,  like  water, 
in  his  cause,  respect  their  rights,  accede  to  their  reasonable  requests,  and 


196  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

ratify  the  constitution  they  have  established  in  his  absence  ?  Alas  !  no. 
That  constitution  he  annuls,  the  regency  and  the  Cortes,  whose  mistaken 
patriotism  had  preserved  for  him  the  throne  of  his  ancestors,  he  arrests 
and  punishes  for  the  crime  of  having  been  f^xithful  to  him.  He  restores 
the  convents,  recalls  and  reinstates  the  Jesuits  and  revives  the  Inquisi- 
tion. The  friends  of  the  Cortes  and  of  Joseph  are  condemned  alike, 
with  their  wives  and  children  to  perpetual  exile.  Officers  who  had 
aided  in  his  restoration  are  executed  as  conspirators  if  they  incur  the 
dislike  of  the  domineering  monks,  and  his  few  honest  counsellors  are 
banished  or  imprisoned  because  they  dare  to  utter  unpalatable  truths. 
Meanwhile  the  privateers  of  the  South  American  patriots  cruised  before  ' 
Cadiz,  cut  up  the  commerce,  and  captured  prizes  within  sight  of  the 
coast.  Vast  preparations  exhausted  the  national  resources,  to  attempt 
the  chimerical  project  of  reconquering  the  American  insurgents,  and  the 
people  were  exasperated  with  extraordinary  taxes,  while  the  industry 
and  property  of  the  country  were  encumbered  by  heavy  loans  to  supply 
the  deficiencies  which  extortion  could  not  satisfy.  When  this  genuine 
Bourbon  returned,  and  his  people  received  him  with  open  arms,  he  had 
pledged  himself  to  grant  them  a  liberal  constitution,  security  of  prop- 
erty and  person,  and  liberty  of  the  press :  the  perfidious  monster  ful- 
filled none  of  these  fair  promises,  but  committed  instead  all  the  enormi- 
ties that  have  been  described.  Human  nature  could  not  long  endure  it 
The  very  army,  proverbially  the  passive  instrument  of  despots,  revolted 
against  such  an  atrocious  dereliction  of  good  faith,  and  so  execrable  an 
abandonment  of  every  principle  of  duty,  gratitude,  or  honor.  Riego 
raised  the  cry  of  liberty  on  the  first  of  January,  1820,  and  Quiroga, 
delivered  from  confinement,  superintended  the  rising  of  an  insurgent 
nation.  Ferdinand  abandoned  by  his  troops  swore  to  supjiort  the  con- 
stitution and  summoned  the  Cortes.  Now  was  the  time  to  redeem  his 
honor,  and  to  repossess  himself  of  the  affections  and  confidence  he  had 
so  justly  forfeited.  Let  him  be  true  to  the  oath  he  has  sworn,  true  to 
the  nation,  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  oblivion  will  close  over  his 
glaring  and  multiplied  offences.  A  magnanimous  people  would  forget 
their  wrongs  and  remember  only  the  redressor.  The  glory  of  the  na- 
tion would  illuminate  his  name  with  some  portion  of  its  lustre ;  impa¥- 
tial  history,  looking  only  to  final  results,  would  deliver  it  to  the  remotest 
posterity  with  blessings  and  with  eulogies,  instead  of  handing  it  down 
forever  to  incur,  what  it  now^  deserves  and  receives,  the  scorn,  derision 
and  contempt,  malediction  and  anathema  of  the  whole  civilized  world. 

The  spectacle  of  a  free  nation  was  not  to  be  tolerated  on  the  conti- 
nent. France  and  her  allied  masters  determined  in  their  infernal  con- 
claves the  ruin  and  the  misery  of  unfortunate,  noble  Spain.     A  hundred 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  I97 

tliousand  soldiers  crossed  the  frontiers,  under  the  Duke  of  Angouleme, 
to  tread  out  the  last  spark  of  liberty  in  Spain.  Step  by  step,  overcom- 
ing a  brave  resistance,  he  advanced  through  the  country :  the  patriots 
unaided,  Vv^ere  suffered  to  fall  a  sacrifice  to  their  integrity ;  for  though 
British  allies,  arms,  and  subsidies  v/ere  furnished  Spain  for  the  defence 
of  Spanish  independence  against  a  benefactor  v,dio  eifected  melioration 
forcibly,  Britain  could  not  spare  a  soldier,  a  musket,  or  a  shilling  to  de- 
fend Spanish  liberty  against  foreign  invasion  when  it  came  in  the  name 
of  a  legitimate  tyrant  to  inflict  on  his  miserable  subjects  absolutism  and 
al]  its  concomitant  woes.  On  the  thirtieth  of  September,  1823,  the 
absolute  king  left  Cadiz  and  joyfully  threvv"  himself  into  the  camp  of  his 
deliverers.  From  that  fatal  day  when  Ferdinand,  the  ingrate,  again 
found  in  his  grasp  that  iron  sceptre,  with  which  from  May,  1814,  to 
March,  1820,  he  had  oppressed  a  generous  people,  down  to  the  present 
date,  one  continued  system  of  persecution  has  been  constantly  pursued, 
which  surpasses  in  its  iniquity  and  perfidy  the  vilest  and  the  meanest 
acts  of  .Nero  and  Caligula.  From  that  day  Spain  has  been  blasted  with 
the  paralysis  of  this  abhorred  legitimacy.  Her  choicest  sons,  unright- 
eously condemned  to  suffer  a  frightful  death  as  the  recompense  of  their 
civic  virtues,  have  sought,  from  the  free  States  of  North  America  to  the 
despotic  empire  of  Morocco,  a  refuge  from  the  atrocious  injustice  and 
fell  pursuit  of  the  modern  Ileliogabalus,  who,  ingrate  and  despot  as  he 
is,  has  succeeded,  by  the  aid  of  the  legitimates  of  Europe,  in  establish- 
ing a  government  as  opposed  to  what  the  illumination  of  this  age  requires, 
as  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  patricidal  ideas  of  his  brothers  the  late 
autocrat  of  Russia,  the  emperor  of  Austria,  and  the  rest  of  the  cohort 
of  the  sovereigns  of  degraded  Europe.  But  though  freedom's  sacred 
fire  be  scattered  and  trodden  down,  some  lingering  sparks  must  yet  sur- 
vive, hidden  and  smouldering  beneath  the  recent  ashes.  The  misnamed 
Holy  Alliance  reposes  in  false  security  upon  the  bayonets  of  its  mercen- 
aries, —  but  let  it  be  ever  present  to  their  recollection,  that  not  the  least 
portentous  of  the  wonderful  phenomena,  which  our  age,  fruitful  in  won- 
ders, has  exhibited,  was  the  spectacle  of  a  nation  whose  mercenaries  in 
a  moment  became  freemen,  and  raised  that  cry  of  liberty  which  made 
them  tremble  on  their  thrones.  That  if  Spain  displayed  this  then  un- 
paralleled spectacle  in  the  year  1820,  a  neighboring  nation  has  repeated 
it  in  1830,  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  such  an  example  may  ex- 
tend its  influence  before  another  decade  of  years  has  run  its  course. 
Tyrants  have  taught  the  people  to  be  free,  and  to  value  the  blessings  for 
the  price  it  costs,  and  the  bliss  it  brings.  Without  Tarquin  would 
Rome  have  been  free  ?  It  is  with  great  justice  that  Rousseau  has  styled 
THE  riiiNCE  of  Machiavel  the  text  book  of  republicans.     The  invasion 

17* 


198  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

of  Spain  by  Napoleon,  whether  justifiable  or  unjustifiable,  occasioned 
the  wonderful  impulse  which  European  liberty  finally  received.  The 
tyranny  of  Ferdinand  prepared  the  public  mind  for  the  revolution  of 
1820,  and  the  liberty  then  proclaimed,  though  overthrown,  has  left  a 
germ  in  the  Spanish  soil  which  sooner  or  later  must  produce  souls  of  a 
temper  firm  enough  to  undertake  the  destruction  of  that  hydra  of  des- 
potism which  now  proudly  boasts,  that  it  has  secured  forever  its  reign  of 
abomination  and  infamy. 

Of  the  remaining  portion  of  the  Peninsula,  it  is  necessary  to  say  but 
a  few  words  in  the  present  connection.  Fear  and  jealousy  of  her 
stronger  neighbor,  Spain,  had  naturally  led  Portugal  to  throw  herself 
into  the  arms  of  Great  Britain,  of  which  latter  power  she  had  been  a 
mere  dependency  for  more  than  a  century.  The  Spanish  revolution  of 
1820,  was  imitated  in  Portugal  in  the  course  of  the  same  year.  En- 
couraged by  France  and  Spain,  the  apostolicals  and  absolutists,  after  in- 
cessant intrigues  and  rebellions  with  varying  success,  have  at  last  sub- 
verted the  constitution  then  adopted,  though  sustained  by  England  under 
Canning's  ministry.  Since  the  counter-revolution  triumphed,  Don  Mi- 
guel, proclaimed  absolute  king,  has  run  a  mad  career  of  usurpation  and 
tyranny.  Poison  and  the  poignard,  secret  assassination,  and  public 
massacre  in  open  day,  the  execution  of  the  flower  of  Portuguese  nobili- 
ty, confiscations  of  the  most  tempting  estates,  the  imprisonment  of  forty 
thousand  of  his  subjects  on  suspicion  of  dislike  to  the  despotism  which 
had  wrested  from  them  their  liberties,  and  threatened  their  fortunes  and 
their  lives,  the  expulsion  from  their  native  soil  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
its  worthiest  citizens  ;  these  are  the  means  hitherto  employed  to  2^erpe- 
tuate  the  withering  curse  of  his  domination  over  a  prostrate,  groaning, 
desolated  kingdom  ;  these  are  the  proofs  he  has  exhibited  to  an  observ- 
ing world,  that  a  lawful  sovereign,  for  as  such  the  legitimates  of  Europe 
have  recognized  him,  can  overact  the  direst  excesses  of  the  foulest  Jaco- 
binism, and  perpetrate  deeds  of  unequalled  enoraity  and  baseness,  with- 
out provocation  or  palliation,  for  the  mere  enjoyment  of  the  spectacle  of 
universal  misery  of  his  own  creation.  For  five  years  helpless  Portugal 
has  been  given  up  to  him  for  a  prey :  this  ogre  has  feasted  his  diabolical 
appetites  in  every  modification  of  torture  exercised  upon  her,  which  the 
ingenuity  of  malice  could  suggest  to  him,  and  has  not  yet  supped  full  of 
horrors.  We  can  only  hope  that  a  day  of  retribution  must  soon  come. 
We  trust  indeed  that  it  has  arrived.  Already  in  his  dastardly  flight 
from  condign  punishment,  he  hears  behind  him  the  exulting  shouts  of  a 
capital  freed  from  his  detested  presence :  but  though  at  last  dehvered 
from  his  fangs,  Portugal  must  long  languish  beneath  the  wounds  he  has 
inflicted 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  199 

If  we  turn  to  the  Italian  peninsula,  the  prospect  there  is  scarcely 
more  exhilarating.  Northern  Italy,  the  richer  half,  pertains  to  Austria, 
a  power  impregnably  strong,  who  holds  it  with  a  grasp  not  easily- 
loosened.  Southern  Italy  must  remain  subservient  to  England  as  long 
as  she  commands  the  Mediterranean.  Italy,  the  garden  of  Europe,  the 
home  of  ancient  power  and  the  cradle  of  modern  civilization,  if  incor- 
porated into  one  free  nation,  might  again  be  independent,  powerful,  and 
happy  :  but  ferocious  hands  have  torn  her  into  fragments,  and  with  all 
the  elements  of  greatness  and  of  happiness,  excepting  union,  she  is 
doomed  to  insignificance  and  misery.  The  republics  which  started  into 
being,  full  of  hope,  at  the  stormy  termination  of  the  last  century,  have 
passed  away  like  a  shadow,  and  are  forgotten  :  Avhen  Naples  undertook 
to  repeat  the  Spanish  melodrama,  the  Holy  Alliance  precipitated  Austria 
upon  her  ;  and  a  hundred  thousand  bayonets  enforced  the  practical  ap- 
plication of  the  homily  read  to  her  by  the  Congress  of  Laybach. 

Notwithstanding  these  untoward  circumstances,  and  in  spite  of  their 
ominous  aspect,  the  maintainers  of  the  righteous  cause  by  no  means  de- 
spair. Good  principles  have  in  their  nature  a  recuperative  vigor.  They 
may  be  hidden  in  silence  and  lie  buried  in  obloquy,  but  though  you  pile 
on  them  mountains,  they  will  rise  elastic  from  beneath  the  pressure.  You 
cannot  wash  away  the  fond  devotion  to  their  natural  rights,  from  the 
memory  of  a  people  whose  hearts  have  once  throbbed  v/itli  the  holy  love 
of  liberty,  though  you  shed  such  rivers  of  their  best  blood  as  would  the 
multitudinous  seas  incarnadine.  It  becomes  an  instinct  and  a  passion, 
which  many  waters  of  affliction  cannot  quench,  nor  all  the  billows  of  ad- 
versity overwhelm.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  church, 
and  the  dying  exhortations  of  innumerable  patriots,  victims  in  the  great 
struggle  between  right  and  power,  falling  like  good  seed  into  good  ground, 
have  brought  forth  an  hundred-fold  in  the  hearts  of  the  survivors,  un- 
changeable resolves  to  achieve  their  purpose,  and  steadfast  hate  against 
all  who  oppose  its  consummation. 

Europe  is  full  of  firm,  determined  spirits  burning  for  freedom,  and  no 
more  fixed  decree  is  v,^ritten  in  the  book  of  fate  than  that  she  shall  be 
free.     As  sure  as  the  God  of  heaven  is  a  God  of  justice,  so  sure  she 

SHALL    BE    FREE. 

But  although  such  are  our  hopes  and  such  our  confidence  in  human 
perfectibility  in  general,  and  in  the  future  fortunes  of  Europe  in  parti- 
cular, still  it  is  not  to  be  disguised  that  many  obstacles  intervene  between 
her  present  situation  and  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  those  anticipations 
which  a  firm  reliance  on  Providence  enables  us  to  entertain.  These  ob- 
stacles are  the  same  which  have  hitherto  prevented  the  suggestions  of 
sages,  and  the  exhortations  of  patriots,  though  received  with  hearty  ac- 


200  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

quiescence  by  innumerable  multitudes  of  the  wise  and  good  in  every 
country,  from  effecting  any  considerable  portion  of  those  desirable  meli- 
orations in  tlie  condition  of  the  political  world  at  which  they  have  aimed. 
Let  us  review  the  picture  we  have  sketched  and  see  what  are  these  ob- 
stacles, that  knowing  them  we  may  know  how  to  avoid  them  ;  that  being 
preeminently  fortunate  in  our  exemption  from  their  baneful  operation, 
we  may  know  how  to  guard  and  preserve,  to  the  latest  posterity,  the  in- 
valuable prerogative.  Let  us  look  back  and  ask,  why  such  repeated  de- 
feats, such  melancholy  disasters?  Why  have  the  very  experiments 
which  seemed  richest  with  promise,  proved  blackest  with  disappoint- 
ment, and  the  golden  fruit,  fair  to  the  eye,  only  mocked  the  taste  with 
dust  and  bitter  ashes  ?  Why  have  so  many  well  meant,  generous  ef- 
forts, of  so  many  splendid  capacities,  of  so  many  magnanimous  hearts, 
undertaken  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  ended  in  grievous 
loss  —  worse  route  —  more  miserable  ruin  ?  The  answ^er  to  these  ques- 
tions, in  which  philanthropy  is  so  deeply  interested,  may  be  compre- 
hended in  a  single  word,  —  a  word  which  speaks  volumes  of  consolation 
and  encouragement  to  ourselves.  The  great  secret  of  all  tiieik  mis- 
fortunes, the  fatal  clog,  the  weight  that  hangs  like  a  millstone  about  the 
neck  of  European  liberalism,  is  the  absence  of  a  real,  substantial,  na- 
tional independence.  For  this  fundamental  defect  in  their  system, 
they  have  as  yet  found  no  remedy,  and  probably  none  can  be  found  till 
the  doctrine  of  the  right  of  interference  is  abandoned  in  practice  by  all, 
as  most  have  already  renounced  it  in  theory. 

Independence  is  the  talisman  which  secures  all  our  other  blessings, 
among  which  peace,  prosperity,  and  liberty  are  not  the  least,  and  it  is  to 
the  federal  Union  that  we  owe  both  it  and  them.  Let  us  examine  the 
evidence  of  this  proposition  and  then  we  shall  be  prepared  to  appreciate 
the  value  of  independence,  and  recognize  that  the  declaration  of  the  fourth 
of  July,  seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-six,  sanctioned  by  the  treaty  of 
seventeen  hundred  and  eighty-three,  gave  us  not  the  empty  name  Of 
independence  merely,  but  a  real  independence,  then  we  shall  be  prepared 
to  feel  the  force  of  the  sentiment,  the  federal  Union,  it  must  he  preserved ; 
a  sentiment  worthy  the  lips  of  the  illustrious  chief  who  uttered  it,  and 
whose  talents,  energy,  and  influence  are  all  concentrated  to  the  one 
grand  purpose  of  preserving  the  Union. 

W^hen  on  the  twenty-first  of  February,  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven,  a  grand  committee  of  which  the  Honorable  Nathan  Dane  was 
chairman,  reported  to  Congress  their  entire  conviction  of  the  inefficiency 
of  the  federal  government  under  the  old  confederation,  and  of  the 
necessity  of  devising  such  further  provisions  as  should  render  the  same 
adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Union,  and  strongly  recommended  to 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  201 

the  different  legislatures  to  send  delegates  to  tlie  convention  at  Phila- 
delphia which  formed  the  joresent  Constitution,  they  not  only  felt  the 
evils  to  which  the  want  of  a  supreme  federal  head  exposed  the  country, 
while  the  bands  of  union  were  so  loose  that  we  could  not  be  entitled  to 
the  character  of  a  nation,  —  they  not  only  perceived  that  the  country 
stood  upon  the  verge  of  ruin;  divided  against  itself;  all  tics  dissolved; 
all  parties  claiming  authority  and  refusing  obedience ;  sedition,  though 
intimidated,  not  disarmed;  ourselves  in  debt  to  foreigners,  and  large 
sums  due  internally ;  the  taxes  in  arrears  are  still  accumulating ;  manu- 
factures destitute  of  materials,  capital,  and  skill;  agriculture  des]oondent; 
commerce  bankrupt,  *  —  they  not  only  saw  and  felt  all  this,  I  say,  but 
they  felt  the  imminent  danger  of  still  greater  evils  which  as  yet  they 
knew  not  of ;  they  saw  the  combustibles  collected ;  the  mine  prepared ; 
the  smallest  spark  capable  of  producing  an  explosion.  Their  sagacity 
showed  them  in  no  distant  future  the  fearful  vision  of  the  abyss  of 
anarchy  into  Avhich  they  must  plunge  when  that  explosion  had  scattered 
the  crazy  fabric  of  their  government.  Hanging  over  the  precipice  they 
gazed  into  the  dark  recesses  beyond,  and  there  beheld  the  broken 
and  dishonored  fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union;  States  dis- 
severed, discordant,  belligerent ;  a  land  rent  with  civil  feuds,  or 
drenched,  it  might  be,  in  fraternal  blood.f  The  Congress  who  accepted 
that  report  knew  well  that  a  way  of  escape  must  be  found  from  the 
perils  that  environed  them,  and  they  knevv^,  too,  that  no  other  refuge 
remained  than  the  possibility  of  erecting  an  efficient,  substantial,  and 
permanent  government.  They  knew  that  a  more  intimate  union  of  the 
States  must  be  established  or  the  country  must  perish:  every  ray  of  hope 
that  could  light  them  on  in  any  course  but  this,  was  already  extinguished. 
When  Washington,  in  the  same  year,  consented  to  serve  in  the  conven- 
tion called  for  that  purpose,  to  assist  in  "  averting  the  contemptible 
figure  which  the  American  communities  were  about  to  make  in  the 
annals  of  mankind,  with  their  separate,  independent,  jealous,  State 
sovereignties,"  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  momentous  import  of  the  crisis 
and  of  the  appalling  weight  of  responsibility  which  devolved  upon  the 
members  of  that  body.  He  looked  forward  to  success  in  this  final 
undertaking  as  to  a  welcome  salvation  from  the  vortex  of  ruin,  and 
he  looked  upon  the  failure  of  this  attempt,  if  it  had  issued  in  fixilure,  as 
upon  the  wreck  of  American  liberties,  and  the  catastrophe  of  republican 
governments  forever. 

It  needed  not  the   study  of  the  Amphyctionic   council,   or  of  the 
Achaian  league,  or  of  any  of  those  ephemeral  alliances  which  were 


=^  Fisher  Ames.    March,  1787.  t  Daniel  Webster.    January,  1830. 


202  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

contimially  forming  and  dissolving  among  the  ancient  petty  states  of 
Greece,  to  impress  upon  his  mind  the  solemn  conviction  of  the  reality 
of  tlie  view  he  then  took  of  the  posture  of  our  affairs.  It  was  not  ne- 
cessary to  explore  the  annals  of  the  German  empire ;  to  peruse  the 
chronicles  of  the  unceasing  and  murderous  struggles  of  the  Italian 
republics ;  to  search  the  history  of  the  restless  cantons  of  Switzerland, 
or  examine  the  records  of  the  United  Provinces  of  the  Low  Countries ; 
no,  nor  to  recur  to  any  other  unsuccessful  experiment,  ancient  or  modern, 
to  be  abundantly  satisfied  that  the  relation  of  free  States,  bordering  on 
each  other  and  not  restrained  by  a  common  government,  is  a  relation  of 
fierce,  relentless,  and  almost  unintermitted  warfare.  The  circumstances 
of  the  times  exhibited  but  too  distinctly  the  prevailing  tendencies ; 
collisions  were  becoming  every  day  more  frequent  and  more  violent ; 
the  fury  of  hostile  passions  was  kindling  fast,  and,  with  a  little  more 
fanning  would  have  burst  into  one  universal,  all-devouring  conflagra- 
tion. 

Thanks  be  to  God,  America  was  saved.  Under  the  guidance  of 
Washington,  and  his  illustrious  compeers,  she  trod  the  path  of  safety, 
and  her  progress  in  it  has  been  a  career  of  unparalleled  prosperity  and 
glory.  Her  wise  men  erected  the  well  proportioned  edifice  of  a  national 
government,  upon  which  foreign  nations  could  not  look  but  with  respect ; 
under  whose  protection  the  several  States  enjoy  securely  all  their  re- 
served rights  witliout  encroaching  upon  each  other's  privileges  or  con- 
flicting with  each  other's  interests ;  beneath  whose  friendly  shelter 
agriculture,  commerce,  and  the  arts  thrive  and  fructify.  May  its  bless- 
ings be  magnificent  as  its  objects,  coextensive  with  its  influence,  and  its 
duration  lasting  as  time ;  and  when,  after  a  complete  century  shall  have 
rolled  over  the  continent,  and  two  hundred  millions  of  freemen  calling 
our  language  their  mother  tongue,  shall  have  peopled,  but  not  crowded, 
our  vast  territory,  may  they  as  one  united  nation  of  brethren,  look 
forward,  through  the  distant  and  dim  perspective  of  countless  future 
ages,  to  the  bright  vision  of  coming  generations,  more  numerous,  wiser, 
happier,  and  better  than  themselves,  successively,  to  the  end  of  time, 
with  the  same  confidence  in  the  perfectibility  of  our  race,  and  the  same 
reliance  on  the  overruling  favor  of  Providence  with  which  we  now  look 
forward  to  tlieir  destiny. 

In  these  delightful  anticipations  we  may  indulge  without  fear  of  self- 
delusion  ;  but  liad  the  relaxation  of  the  federal  government  proceeded 
to  its  annihilation,  had  the  Union  been  dissolved  instead  of  strengthened, 
there  are  a  thousand  ways  in  which  I  might  illustrate  the  miseries  which 
must  of  necessity  follow.  Of  these,  the  extent  to  which  I  have  already 
taxed  your  patience  will  allow  me  to  select  but  one,  that  to  which  I  have 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JE.  203 

already  alluded,  the  calamitous  course  and  disastrous  issues  of  all  tlie 
revolutions  in  Europe  since  our  own.  Let  us  begin  our  investigations 
with  the  history  of  France,  since  in  France  the  revolutionary  volcano 
first  broke  out,  and  all  the  other  revolutionary  phenomena  of  the  old 
world  arc  but  secondary  exj)losion3  consequential  upon  that  grand 
primary  eruption. 

Whence  originated  all  those  abuses  in  France  which  rendered  the 
revolution  unavoidable  ?  From  war  and  from  the  liability  to  war  to 
which  the  nation  had  always  been  exposed.  The  orighi  of  privileged 
classes  was  in  war  and  conquest.  The  Franks  had  conquered  the  Gauls, 
and  the  nation  was  for  a  long  time  composed  of  two  classes  :  the  invaders, 
the  Franks,  formed  the  nobility ;  the  subdued  Gauls  were  the  commons, 
the  peasantry,  roturiers,  base-born.  The  aristocracy  not  only  derived  its 
origin  from  conquest :  it  supported  itself  by  war.  An  immense  military 
establishment  was  kept  up,  and  to  them  belonged  exclusively  all  the 
titles,  honors,  emoluments,  and  influence  of  military  command.  The 
government  was  despotic,  because  a  constant  recurrence  of  wars  made  a 
very  strong  government  necessary  to  develop  the  energies  essential  to 
the  defence  of  the  nation,  and  because  the  consequent  superiority  of  the 
military  class  over  the  civil,  and  the  concentration  of  the  military  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  had  enabled  the  government,  particularly 
during  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  to  make  itself  even  much 
stronger  than  was  necessary,  and  indeed  to  monopolize  all  power  in 
itself.  The  court  squandered  away  the  treasures  of  the  nation,  because 
it  is  the  natural  tendency  of  a  military  life  to  beget  a  passion  for  splendor, 
pomp,  and  profusion.  The  army  —  I  mean  those  who  held  military 
honors  as  well  as  those  who  served  —  absorbed  most  of  the  resources 
of  the  nation,  because  it  is  the  nature  of  that  branch  wherever  it  is 
suiFered  to  grow,  to  determine  to  its  own  supply  the  best  part  of  the  sap 
of  the  Vv'hole  tree.  The  church  was  rich,  burdensome,  and  overbearing, 
because  it  was  the  natural  ally  of  the  aristocracy,  and  propj^ed  up  their 
usurpations  to  be  by  them  maintained  in  its  ovv'n.  The  nation  was  in 
debt,  because,  while  the  disbursements  of  the  government  were  excessive, 
the  military  aristocracy  and  their  religious  allies  had  exempted  their  own 
property,  no  small  part  of  the  wealth  of  the  country,  from  all  taxation, 
and  the  revenue  that  could  be  wrung  from  the  commons  by  taxing  them 
to  the  utmost  limit  of  sufferance,  would  not  meet  the  current  expenditures 
of  the  year.  The  taxes  were  exorbitant,  because  the  people  had  to  pay 
the  expenses  of  the  government,  the  profligacy  of  the  higher  orders  pen- 
sioned by  the  government,  and  the  interest  of  the  odious  debt  whereby 
the  industry  of  the  country  was  mortgaged  before  it  became  available, 
and  made  tributary  for  years  to  come  to  the  support  of  these  abuses,  — 


204  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

■\vliile  the  privileged  exempts  made  it  tlieir  business  to  spend  all  and 
contribute  notliing.  And  so  wherever  the  military  principle  decides  the 
fundamental  character  of  the  government,  we  may  expect  to  find  not 
merely  an  overgrown  standing  army  of  soldiers,  placemen,  and  pensioners, 
devouring  the  substance  of  the  people,  but  its  concomitants,  an  oppressed 
and  overburdened  people,  a  church  rioting  in  luxury,  a  merciless  aristo- 
cracy feeding  upon  the  fat  of  the  land,  a  court  all-grasping  and  insatiable, 
yet  wdth  an  always  empty  treasury,  a  debt  hanging  over  its  head  which 
it  would  beggar  the  nation  to  discharge,  and  presiding  over  this  whole 
prodigious  system  a  military  executive,  in  other  words  a  despotic  ruler, 
no  matter  by  what  name,  consul,  director,  dictator,  protector,  king,  em- 
peror, czar,  or  sultan.  I  do  not  say  that  every  article  of  this  description 
applies  to  every  government  in  which  the  military  power  makes  a  com- 
ponent part ;  that  would  be  far  from  correct.  But  in  proportion  as  the 
government  is  more  or  less  military,  the  description  will  be  found  more 
or  less  applicable.  We  can  now  see  how  our  Union  cuts  up  by  the  roots  the 
main  causes  of  misgovernment  and  despotism.  The  abuses  that  have  been 
enumerated,  grow  up  where  a  state  of  soldiery  professed  predominates ; 
and  this  can  only  take  place  where  war,  or  the  apprehension  of  war,  is 
perpetual.  Where  prudence  requires  great  armies  to  be  kept  on  foot, 
and  frontiers  of  neighboring  rivals  to  be  jealously  watched  and  lined  Avith 
garrisoned  fortresses,  popular  institutions  have  never  yet  been  able  to 
maintain  themselves.  We  have  no  rival  nations  on  our  frontiers,  and 
as  long  as  the  Union  lasts  we  can  have  none  ;  we  need  no  standing 
army  that  can  excite  a  moment's  apprehension ;  and  our  future  wars, 
if  we  shall  ever  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  any,  must  be  carried  on 
principally  through  the  Instrumentality  of  navies,  a  species  of  force  less 
liable  than  any  other  to  the  objections  that  have  been  made  against 
standing  armies.  Our  Union  then  preserves  us  from  the  operation  of 
those  Influences  which  have  deprived  most  other  nations  of  their  liberty. 
When  France  undertook  in  good  earnest  the  reformation  of  all  polit- 
ical abuses,  what  gave  the  controversy  that  ensued  so  malignant  a  char- 
acter ?  The  opposition  of  the  privileged  classes,  using  the  power  they 
derived  from  their  situation,  which,  had  France  been  an  island  a  thousand 
miles  from  an  enemy,  they  would  never  have  possessed,  to  defend  their 
pretensions.  Their  resistance  stemming  the  torrent  for  awhile,  caused 
it  to  gather  head  and  burst  with  greater  force  when  it  had  accumulated 
strength  to  sweep  before  it  all  obstacles.  When  the  National  Assembly 
had  extorted  every  thing  it  could  ask  from  prostrate  royalty,  when  a  just 
revenge  had  stormed  the  Bastile,  laid  open  its  horrid  confines  to  the 
light  of  day,  and  levelled  its  dismal  walls ;  when  the  National  Guard 
had  been  organized  under  the  true-hearted  La  Fayette,  to  prevent  any 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  205 

disastrous  surprise  or  retrograde  movement,  and  to  hold  within  the 
power  of  the  j^eople  the  advantages  they  had  won  ;  when  the  Assembly 
had  unanimously  abolished  all  feudal  riglits,  and  the  confiscated  estates 
of  the  church  had  furnished  the  means  of  freeing  the  treasury  from  its 
embarrassments,  and  at  the  same  time  alleviating  the  burdens  of  the 
people  ;  when  the  declaration  of  the  rights  of  man  had  been  adopted, 
when  a  free  constitution  had  been  prepared,  and  the  king  of  the  French, 
proclaimed  the  restorer  of  French  liberty,  had  sworn  to  maintain  that 
constitution,  perhaps  in  good  faith,  certainly  without  the  means  of  break- 
ing his  oath ;  what  point  of  support  remained  in  France  upon  which  the 
aristocracy  could  fi-^  any  "species  of  political  enginery  to  shake  the  new 
order  of  things,  or  to  make  any  even  the  most  desperate  attempt  to  re- 
cover their  lost  ascendancy  ?  The  acutest  vision  could  discover  none. 
But  woe  to  nations  situated  in  the  midst  of  rivals  and  enemies. 

A  resource  presented  itself  in  foreign  intervention,  and  the  fallen 
noblesse  eagerly  embraced  the  opportunity  of  an  alliance  with  the  foes 
of  the  French  people.  Had  there  been  no  hope  of  foreign  intervention, 
the  nobility  and  clergy  would  not  have  emigrated,  of  course  no  emi- 
grants would  have  returned  in  the  van  of  invading  armies.  The  revo- 
lution would  have  been  accomplished,  and  after  the  tempest  of  so  wild 
a  commotion  had  had  time  to  subside,  France  would  have  settled  down 
quietly  into  a  permanent  enjoyment  of  a  rational  liberty.  But  the  arm- 
ing of  the  emigrants,  followed  by  the  declaration  of  Pilnitz,  by  Austria 
and  Prussia,  drove  the  legislative  assembly  to  a  declaration  of  w^ar. 
Russia  and  the  German  empire  joined  the  coalition  against  democratic 
principles.  The  terror  of  the  allied  arms  brought  violent  measures  into 
favor  with  the  people,  and  gave  the  Jacobins  the  predominance  in  the 
assembly,  and  still  more  in  the  convention  which  followed,  and  which 
was  elected  during  the  highest  pitch  of  excitement.  The  infuriated  pas- 
sions of  the  populace,  w^rought  up  to  frenzy  by  the  invasion  of  the 
Prussians,  and  emboldened  by  the  victory  of  the  republican  forces  at 
Jemappe,  gave  birth  to  the  decree  of  the  abolition  of  royalty;  and 
afterwards  compelled  the  convention,  but  by  a  bare  majority,  to  the  con- 
demnation of  the  unfortunate  Louis.  The  allied  invaders  approached 
the  seat  of  that  ancient  monarchy,  only  to  hear  the  crash  of  its  fall  as  it 
tumbled  into  ruins,  and  were  driven  back  with  utter  discomfiture.  The 
republic  offered  fraternity  to  all  people,  and  proclaimed  war  against  all 
kings.  The  coalition  against  it  became  universal ;  while,  fomented  by 
foreign  intrigues,  a  civil  war  arose  in  La  Vendee  to  avenge  upon  the 
regicifles  the  death  of  their  sovereign.  The  cause  of  the  revolution 
seemed  to  be  lost :  the  people  stung  to  madness  vented  their  rage  in 
savage  and  brutal  excesses ;  reckless  of  all  subordinate  considerations 

18 


206  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tliey  cared  not  by  wliom,  or  liow,  the  government  was  administered,  if  it 
possessed,  and  exerted  energy  sufficient  to  maintain  the  integrity  and 
independence  of  France.  It  was  the  vital  struggle  of  the  nation  ;  and 
the  people  in  their  despair,  were  indeed  criminally  indifferent  what,  or 
how  many  individuals  were  sacrificed,  if  the  nation  could  be  saved. 
The  republic  armed  itself  with  the  weapons  of  terror.  The  ferocious 
and  sanguinary  Mountain  seized  the  reins  of  government,  directed  the 
fury  with  which  they  inspired  all  ranks  successfully  against  the  invaders, 
and  ruled  the  nation  with  the  guillotine.  Who  does  not  see  that  had 
France  been  situated  geograpJiically  as  we  are,  the  atrocities  of  this 
period  would  have  been  impossible  ?  Who  can  believe  that  the  reign  of 
terror  could  have  continued  for  one  week  in  Paris,  had  the  ocean  rolled 
between  France  and  her  foreign  enemies  ? 

I  might  proceed  with  this  review,  after  the  fall  of  Robespierre,  and 
through  the  whole  period  of  the  Directory,  and  show,  step  by  step,  the 
inherent  impracticability  of  all  the  plans  of  liberty  that  were  tried  or 
proposed,  so  long  as  it  was  necessary  that  the  nation  should  clothe  itself 
in  joanoply,  and  rush  en  masse  to  the  frontiers,  to  defend  the  integrity  of 
its  territory,  and  its  independent  existence.  While  such  questions  were 
pending  in  the  field,  there  was  no  time  for  deliberation  at  home,  for  cool 
reflection  on  theoretic  principles,  or  nice  adjustments  of  checks  and 
balances  :  and  even  if  there  had  been,  few  limitations  could  profitably  be 
imposed  upon  an  executive  whose  first  function  it  was  to  wield  at  once, 
and  vrith  the  tenfold  energy  of  the  new  system  of  tactics,  the  thirteen 
armies  of  the  republic,  and  to  launch  them  with  an  all-subduing  impetus, 
upon  Savoy,  Nice,  Belgium,  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands.  Such  a 
government,  in  such  times,  must  be  too  weak  to  execute  its  office,  too 
weak  to  stand  the  first  shock  of  a  revolutionary  earthquake,  or  else  far 
too  strong  for  the  popular  liberties,  two  strong  to  suffisr  any  theoretic 
checks  to  have  much  practical  operation  in  controlling  its  movements. 
In  running  the  eye  over  the  succession  of  events,  and  recalling  the  rapid 
transitions  that  occurred  at  this  time,  in  all  the  facts  which  present 
themselves  to  our  observation,  we  read  the  same  lesson,  our  own 
peculiar  felicity  in  possessing  the  best  part  of  a  continent  to  ourselves, 
without  hostile  or  intriguing  neighbors-,  to  attack  us  by  force  from 
without,  or  to  excite  internal  troubles  among  us  by  fraud,  —  too  happy, 
if  we  but  understood  our  happiness.  Particularity,  however,  would  be 
superfluous  here,  since  the  rise  and  overthrow  of  the  Empire,  teach  the 
same  great  lesson  in  a  much  more  emphatical  manner. 

While  Bonaparte  was  absent  in  Egypt,  it  became  apparent  that  the 
tottering  Directory,  undermined  as  it  was  by  the  Bourbonists  on  one  side, 
by  anarchists  on  the  other,  was  too  weak  to  sustain  itself  against  com- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  207 

bined  Europe.  All  that  the  revolution  had  jrninGd  must  be  given  up  for 
lost.^  and  the  blood  tlicit  has  deluged  France  was  spilled  in  vain,  if  a 
stable  government  cannot  be  formed,  and  clothed  with  powers  adequate 
to  the  crisis.  Moreau  who  declined,  Joubert  who  accepted  the  offer, 
were  invited  by  their  friends  to  assume  the  helm ;  but  the  latter  fell  at 
the  battle  of  Novi.  The  case  became  more  critical,  and  the  need  more 
urgent  of  a  chief  magistrate  of  commanding  character,  who  could  unite 
contending  factions,  and  form  a  nucleus  for  the  friends  of  order,  and  of 
the  revolution,  to  rally  around.  He  must  be  a  statesman  of  the  highest 
grade,  to  overcome  the  intrinsic  difRculties  of  the  foreign  relations,  and 
to  adjust  the  fluctuating  elements  of  society  at  home.  lie  must  possess 
unrivalled  military  talents,  to  cut  whatever  Gordian  knot  his  policy  can- 
not unravel ;  and  as  genius  cannot  operate  without  instruments,  his  influ- 
ence must  be  based  on  public  confidence,  and  that  this  may  be  perma- 
nently secure,  the  principal  directors  of  public  opinion  must  feel  and 
acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  his  intellect,  —  he  must  be  the  favorite 
of  the  people,  and  the  idol  of  the  army. 

Bonaparte  returned,  the  man  whom  fate  provided  for  the  occasion. 
All  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him ;  all  hearts  implored  him  to  rescue  his 
humbled  country  from  the  thick  dangers  that  beset  her ;  to  become  the 
redeemer  of  despairing  France.  It  is  no  new  discovery  that  amid  the 
din  of  arms,  the  voice  of  law  is  hushed.  A  revolution,  in  which  a 
column  of  grenadiers  supplied  the  immediate  impulse,  concluded  the 
directorial  rule,  and  installed  the  new  Consulate.  Its  power  was  mili- 
tary in  its  occasion,  the  pressure  of  foreign  foes ;  military  in  its  origin, 
the  favor  of  the  army ;  mihtary  in  its  mode  of  creation,  1)y  an  assembly 
of  officers,  through  the  instrumentality  of  bayonets ;  and  depending  on 
the  -prestige  of  military  glory  for  its  endurance.  That  bright  illusion 
outdazzled  the  splendid  victories  of  the  great  monarch,  Louis  XIY,  and 
produced  the  full  effect  expected  from  it.  The  military  spirit  predomi- 
nant in  the  State,  its  military  position  with  reference  to  the  continent,  as 
they  had  first  called  into  being  the  Consulate,  strengthened  its  hands. 
Surrounded  by  irreconcilable  enemies,  distracted,  impoverished,  disor- 
ganized, France  willingly  intrusted  to  the  first  consul  the  powers  with- 
out which  he  could  not  repel  the  foes,  quell  the  factions,  and  restore 
credit  and  order.  Every  branch  of  the  government  required  reform  ; 
he  undertook  to  re-model  and  direct  all  its  operations,  and  thereby  con- 
centrated in  himself  all  its  functions.  The  title  of  emperor  followed  the 
assumption  of  all-controlling  power;  the  renewed  war  stimulated  the 
military  spirit  to  still  greater  excess  ;  the  military  establishment  acquir- 
ed a  gigantic  disproportion  to  other  classes  in  the  State,  and  the  govern- 
ment became,  and  for  some  years  remained,  essentially  absolute.     Could 


208  MEMOIES,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

France  have  enjoyed  repose  after  the  treaty  of  Amiens,  she  would  have 
demanded  and  gradually  obtained  guarantcca  of  civil  liborty :  but 
while  her  Tictorious  legions  embodied  the  vigor  and  youth  of  the  people, 
the  head  of  the  army  was  the  autocrat  of  the  nation,  wielding  an  arbi- 
trary, unchecked,  irresponsible  power,  exercising  the  full  force  of  his 
dictatorship  to  develop  the  tremendous  energy  necessary  in  his  novel 
and  peculiar  strategy,  monopolizing  all  free  action  to  himself,  and  carry- 
ing constraint  through  all  the  ramifications  of  the  social  system.  To 
consolidate  the  fabric  of  his  empire  he  surrounded  his  throne  with  sub- 
sidiary institutions,  and  provided  for  the  aggrandizement  of  his  family 
and  his  followers :  his  brothers  became  kings,  and  his  generals  consti- 
tuted a  new  nobility.  His  genius  planned  a  collossal  fabric  and  reared 
it  in  its  full  proportions,  but  its  vastness  was  the  very  cause  of  its  down- 
fall. It  occasioned  umbrage,  jealousy,  fear,  and  hatred  everywhere. 
France  was  exhausted  by  over-exertion  to  maintain  it ;  a  universal  re- 
action rose  against  it,  and  it  was  overthrown.  When  Napoleon  appear- 
ed a  second  time  on  the  scene,  a  panic  spread  that  he  would  re-construct 
his  former  power  and  overshadow  the  sovereigns  once  more.  It  was  an 
idle  fear,  but  it  sufficed  to  rally  them  again,  to  his  final  overthrow.  That 
the  subsequent  efforts  to  establish  freedom  in  France  have  failed,  for 
want  of  that  perfect  and  absolute  independence  of  foreign  influence, 
which  we  alone  enjoy,  has  already  been  sufficiently  shown. 

That  Spain  cannot  unloose  her  fetters  because  France  has  riveted 
them  on  her ;  that  Spain  still  endures  those  degrading  institutions  which 
have  obliterated  her  national  virtues,  because  she  has  been  too  much 
exliausted,  impoverished,  and  depressed  by  long  wars  in  which  she  has 
been  involved  by  her  neighbors,  to  have  the  power  of  resistance  left;  — 
that  Portugal,  having  relapsed  into  helplessness,  through  the  habit  of 
foreign  dependence,  is  now  writhing  under  excruciating  tortures  inflicted 
by  an  usurper  with  the  countenance  of  the  legitimates,  because  her  mili- 
tary caste  at  home  leans  for  support  on  the  military  aristocracy  of 
Europe,  and  her  unarmed  citizens  have  no  means  of  defence,  is  equally 
obvious  after  what  has  been  said. 

That  northern  Italy  cannot  be  free  because  of  the  immediate  pressure 
of  Austria  ;  that  Naples  cannot  be  free  because  the  Holy  Alliance  com- 
missions Austria  to  extinguish  her  freedom ;  that  Italy,  as  one  great 
nation,  with  historical  recollections  to  animate  her,  such  as  belong  to  no 
other  people,  cannot  be  independent  of  these  influences,  and  free  in 
spite  of  these  enemies,  with  her  eighteen  millions  of  inhabitants  of  a 
magnificent  country,  speaking  a  common  language,  hokling  a  common 
faitli,  their  true  interests  common,  having  the  sea  on  three  sides,  and  the 
Alps  for  a  northern  barrier,  because  her  separiite  States  have  no  bond 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  209 

of  union,  and  from  tlieir  mutual  hatred  can  hardly  hope  to  have,  while 
two  deadly  factions  struggle  for  mastery  in  each  of  those  States,  is  too 
evident  to  require  further  elucidation. 

The  German  empire  has  long  been  the  mere  shadow  of  a  political 
body,  possessed  of  no  real  strength  either  in  peace  or  w^ar.  Before  it 
was  dissolved  in  1806,  it  contained  a  congregation  of  nominal  princes 
without  States,  whose  suppression  has  considerably  meliorated  the  condi- 
tion of  Germany.  The  confederation  now  contains  only  thirty-eight 
members,  instead  of  several  hundred  as  before.  "  This  show^s  that  some 
progress  has  been  made  towards  the  great  object  for  which  Germany 
has  sighed  for  centuries,  unity  and  independence."  "  It  may  be  asserted," 
says  a  German,  "  that  union  is  at  present  more  necessary  for  Germany 
than  liberty;  at  least,  give  her  the  former  and  the  latter  wdll  soon  fol- 
low." With  union  she  may  "  rest  from  the  bloody  conflicts  in  wdiich  for 
centuries  Germans  have  slain  Germans,  and  which  have  wasted  their 
wealth,  checked  their  industry,  imj)eded  the  development  of  public  law, 
and  extinguished  in  their  literature  that  manhness,  which  is  so  striking 
a  feature  in  that  of  a  neighboring  nation  partly  descended  from  them." 
Lying  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  bordering  on  three  seas,  with  numerous 
large  rivers,  it  should  have  been  one  of  tlie  first  commercial  States  of  the 
world;  but  its  disorganization  produced  incessant  intestine  w^ars,  and 
what  is  no  less  to  be  lamented,  a  restrictive  system,  with  its  ruinous 
effects,  which  reduced  it  to  a  subordinate  rank  among  commercial  na- 
tions :  in  short  her  imbecile  confederation  has  made  one  of  the  most  ex- 
tensive countries  in  Europe,  one  of  the  most  impotent.  Her  thirty 
years'  war,  to  go  back  no  further,  with  the  anarchy  and  chaos  she  has 
presented  ever  since  that  awful  tragedy,  form  the  most  instructive  study 
for  all  who  w^ould  coolly  "  calculate  the  value  of  our  Union."  To  reca- 
pitulate all  that  would  assist  in  the  calculation  w^ould  occupy  volumes. 
The  fact  that  disunion  paralyzes  her  energies  as  it  does  those  of  Italy, 
and  keeps  back  thirty-four  millions  of  the  noblest  race  of  mankind  in- 
finitely behind  their  brethren  of  England  and  of  America,  making  their 
"  unhappy  country  the  theatre  of  foreign  aggression,  domestic  convul- 
sion, and  political  oppression,"  is  abundantly  sufficient,  without  pursuing 
the  subject  into  details,  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  argument. 

The  fate  of  Poland  and  its  causes,  civil  discord  and  foreign  interfer- 
ence, are  too  well  known  to  be  more  than  mentioned  here.  The  suf- 
ferings of  Prussia  during  the  general  war,  a  small  State  in  the  midst  of 
great  ones,  torn  by  their  contests,  and  crushed  by  their  collisions,  w^ould 
furnish  an  impressive  warning,  if  we  had  not  already  more  striking  in- 
stances in  larger  States.  Austria  is  the  hammer  with  which  Russia 
rivets  the  fetters  of  Europe.     That  these  two  powers  could  not  exert  a 

18* 


210  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

deadening  influence  on  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  continent,  nor  exclude  it 
from  their  own  dominions,  if  the  military  element  did  not  enter  largely 
into  the  constitution  of  their  governments,  is  too  obvious  for  proof. 

The  situation  of  Great  Britain  demands  a  more  particular  examina- 
tion :  but  I  have  not  time  to  enter  on  it  now.  I  will  only  allude  to  the 
point  that  bears  directly  on  the  topic  of  this  address.  What  makes  re- 
form dangerous  though  inevitable  ?  The  artificial  system  in  which  her 
entanglement  in  continental  aifairs  has  involved  her.  Her  debt  carried 
to  that  amount  that  it  can  hardly  be  increased,  or  endured,  or  reduced, 
for  vast  military  and  naval  establishments,  for  subsidizing  the  nations  of 
the  continent,  for  Pitt's  system  of  eternal  war  against  revolutionary 
France.  It  was  necessary  that  British  arms  and  British  gold  should 
win  victories  abroad  to  keep  the  power  in  the  hands  of  English  tories 
at  home.     The  power  has  departed,  but  the  debt  remains. 

The  view  we  have  just  taken  of  the  condition  and  recent  history  of 
the  principal  nations  of  the  Old  W^orld,  abundantly  confirms  the  position 
we  have  advanced,  that  the  federal  Union  is  essential  to  our  indepen- 
dence, and  that  more  than  one  substantially  independent  nation  could 
not  exist  w^ithin  our  present  limits.  It  establishes  further  that  a  real 
national  independence  is  essential  to  liberty,  and  a  comparative  freedom 
from  such  Avars  as  are  carried  on  by  standing  armies,  essential  to  any 
high  degree  of  liberty.  In  the  words  of  Washington,  taken  from  that 
farewell  address  which  cannot  too  often  be  quoted,  the  unity  of  govern- 
ment which  constitutes  you  one  people,  is  a  main  j^illar  in  the  edifice  of 
your  real  independence,  the  support  of  your  tranquillity  at  home,  your 
peace  abroad  ;  of  your  safety  ;  of  your  prosperity  ;  of  that  very  liberty 
which  you  so  highly  prize. 

Should  this  unity  of  government  from  any  cause  be  abandoned,  it  is, 
not  to  be  inferred  from  these  remarks,  that  we  should  at  once  be  placed 
precisely  in  the  situation  of  the  nations  of  Europe,  whose  misfortunes 
we  have  been  considering.  In  some  respects,  our  condition  would  be 
more  eligible  than  theirs  ;  in  others,  quite  the  reverse.  From  many  of  the 
grievous  plagues  that  infest  their  social  state  we  should  be  at  the  first 
outset  exempted ;  but  it  would  require  the  gift  of  j^rophecy  to  say  how 
long  we  should  continue  so.  We  have  no  aristocracy,  and  should  have 
none  till  war  had  built  up  a  military  order  of  nobility.  We  have  no 
debt,  but  all  the  sources  of  revenue  that  would  be  left  available  are  so 
exceedingly  unpopular  among  us,  that  to  meet  the  heavy  expenditures 
that  would  be  indispensable,  debts  would  grow  up  like  mushrooms,  at 
enormous  rates  of  interest,  and  to  an  amount  not  to  be  foreseen ;  if  in- 
deed the  credit  of  the  precarious  governments  formed  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, did  not  prove  too  weak  to  obtain  funds  on  any  terms,  in 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  211 

which  ease  the  property  of  the  country  would  be  subjected  to  an  opera^ 
tion  more  deplorable  in  its  effects  than  any  debt ;  a  system  of  confisca- 
tion and  plunder,  such  as  has  frequently  followed  violent  revolutions  in 
all  ages,  and  such  as  has  often  been  resorted  to  in  the  South  American 
States.  But  our  people  are  animated  with  the  love  of  liberty,  it  will  be 
said,  "  it  is  interwoven  with  every  ligament  of  their  hearts,"  and  there- 
fore they  will  never  wear  the  yoke  of  a  military  despotism.  The 
Greeks  loved  liberty  better  than  they  loved  life,  yet  some  Greek  States 
were  held  in  the  most  galling  bondage  by  others  ;  there  never  was  a 
time  when  the  principal  Grecian  States  did  not  lord  it  over  the  lesser. 
The  Romans  loved  liberty  to  such  excess  that  they  esteemed  the  assas- 
sination of  a  personal  friend  a  glorious  action,  when  that  crime  was  per- 
petrated for  the  sake  of  liberty  ;  yet  Rome  bowed  beneath  the  sway  of 
the  Caesars.  An  inextinguishable  love  of  liberty  burns  in  the  bosoms 
of  the  French ;  yet  the  liberty  they  so  ardently  desire  and  seek,  they 
cannot  obtain.  What  warrant  have  we  that  we  shall  love  liberty  with  a 
stronger,  a  more  enduring,  a  better  omened  passion,  than  the  French, 
the  Romans,  or  the  Greeks  ;  what  warrant,  save  our  one,  sole,  conserva- 
tive principle,  our  federal  Union  ?  Again,  it  may  be  said,  we  have  no 
such  hordes  of  unprincipled  and  abandoned  wretches  as  are  to  be  met 
with  in  the  corrujDt  cities  of  the  Old  World ;  we  have  not  the  materials 
of  which  a  moh  is  made,  in  the  European  acceptation  of  that  term. 
True,  but  war  makes  more  rogues  than  peace  can  hang,  and  the  inces- 
sant wars  which  mu^  rage  between  separate  communities  in  our  own 
territories,  would  multiply  the  class  in  a  ratio  beyond  the  power  of  cal- 
culation. The  pressure  of  extreme  poverty  is  unknown  among  us,  the 
debasement  of  extreme  ignorance  is  comparatively  rare,  so  that  there  is 
not  a  populace,  maddened  by  want  and  blind  to  consequences,  ready  to 
rush  wherever  a  momentary  impulse  may  lead  them :  but  let  property 
become  insecure  by  frequent  confiscations,  and  more  frequent  bankrupt- 
cies, from  political  revolutions,  so  that  the  inducements  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  capital  shall  be  suddenly  diminished,  and  tens  of  thousands  who 
are  now  living  by  honest  industry  will  be  thrown  out  of  employment ; 
those  who  continue  to  labor,  from  the  great  reduction  of  wages,  will  feel 
the  hand  of  poverty  heavy  upon  them  ;  high  taxes  to  which  we  have 
hitherto  been  unaccustomed,  will  grind  the  middling  interest  into  the 
dust,  and  a  horizontal  division,  here  as  elsewhere,  will  distinguish  society 
into  pampered  lords,  and  pauperized  peasantry.  Those  who  feel  no 
concern  in  the  management  of  the  government,  except  the  desire  to 
throw  off  the  burden  that  bears  upon  them,  will  cultivate  but  a  small 
circle  of  political  ideas  :  those  who  are  so  hedged  in  in  a  state  of  miserable 
destitution  as  to  have  no  hope  in  life  and  no  refuge  but  death,  will  waste 


212  MEISIOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

but  little  time  in  acquiring  a  general  education,  which  to  their  view 
would  serve  no  other  purpose  than  to  fit  them  to  feel  more  keenly  the 
depth  of  their  degradation  :  extreme  indigence,  therefore,  would  beget 
extreme  ignorance.  The  circumstances  in  which  we  should  be  placed 
would,  therefore,  generate  a  large  and  constantly  increasing  class  fit  to 
become  slaves  themselves,  and  to  help  to  make  slaves  of  others,  quite  as 
certainly  as  they  would  produce  ambitious  and  enterprising  spirits  dis- 
posed to  make  themselves  masters,  and  would  furnish  opportunities,  from 
time  to  time,  to  plot  and  execute  conspiracies  against  liberty. 

While,  therefore,  these  peculiarities  of  our  social  condition,  would  not 
confer  upon  us  so  decided  a  superiority  as  might  at  first  be  sujiposed, 
there  are  some  other  particulars  in  which  we  should  be  circumstanced 
much  more  unfavorably  than  most  other  nations.  Our  newly  formed 
communities  would  have  no  natural  boundaries.  Rivers  are  the  worst 
possible  lines  of  demarcation  between  jealous  neighbors,  because  each 
party  will  continually  interfere  with  the  trade  of  the  opposite  bank. 
Our  ridges  of  mountains  do  not  pass  where  in  all  human  probability  the 
outlines  of  independent  empires  would  first  be  drawn  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  run  through  States,  as  at  present  constituted  ;  and  besides,  in  the 
present  state  of  internal  commerce,  with  the  railroad  and  the  locomotive 
engine,  such  mountains  as  ours  are  no  longer  impassable  barriers. 
Without  natural  boundaries,  the  conventional  limits  will  be  continually 
fluctuating.  The  most  fruitful  source  of  warfare,  an  undefined  territory 
and  conflicting  claims  to  a  debatable  tract  betwecnrivals,  will  entail  im- 
placable hostility  on  the  contiguous  nations.  Whoever  has  observed 
how  often  the  waters  that  surround  her,  have  sheltered  Great  Britain 
from  invasion,  how  often  the  Pyrennees  and  the  ocean  have  protected 
Spain,  how  often  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Alps  have  shielded  Italy, 
how  effectually  her  mountains  have  guarded  Switzerland,  how  ill-fated 
Poland  has  fallen  a  prey  to  the  spoilers  because  her  territory  was  one 
vast  plain,  how  futile  has  been  the  attempt  to  restrain  France  for  any 
length  of  time,  where  nature  has  not  drawn  the  line,  how  impossible  it 
has  been  to  fence  in  the  Netherlands,  even  with  a  double  barrier  of 
strongly  fortified  towns,  how  Flanders,  because  it  lay  open  on  both  sides 
to  the  opposing  powers,  has  been  made  again  and  again  the  battle-field 
of  Europe,  till  all  its  soil  was  fattened  with  the  slain  ;  in  short,  not  to 
multiply  instances,  whoever  has  cast  the  most  casual  glance  over  the 
history  of  Europe,  cannot  underrate  the  importance  of  this  considera- 
tion, pregnant  with  momentous  consequences.  Even  the  petty  States  of 
Greece,  had  for  the  most  part  natural  fortifications  stretched  around 
them,  an  advantage  of  which  we  should  be  almost  entirely  destitute. 

Another  circumstance,  most  fortunate  for  the  nation  if  we  continue 


213 

one  people,  most  unfortunate  if  we  should  ever  be  constituted  into  many, 
is,  that  we  have  all  one  language,  and  with  slight  shades  of  difference, 
the  same  religion,  manners,  habits,  and  political  principles.  Nations 
having  different  languages,  and  different  trains  of  thought  and  modes  of 
feeling  on  most  great  subjects  of  human  interest,  have  little  mutual 
action  :  thej  move  in  different  spheres,  and  there  are  but  few  points  on 
which  they  have  occasion  to  interfere  with  each  other.  Discussing  the 
same  topics  in  the  same  language,  imagination  can  form  no  estimate  of 
the  fury  with  which  political  controversies  would  be  carried  on  in  the 
disunited  States  of  this  Union.  The  inflammatory  harangues  of  leading 
demagogues  in  one  State,  would  be  circulated  and  read  through  all  the 
rest ;  engendering  antipathies  and  awakening  animosity  and  wrath  not 
easily  to  be  allayed.  Crimination  and  recrimination  would  proceed  to 
intemperate  vituperation  and  corroding  calumny,  and  these  would  be  re- 
torted back  with  mingled  scorn  and  defiance.  The  appeal  to  arms  in 
which  such  collisions  must  inevitably  end,  from  the  similarity  of  char- 
acter between  the  parties,  must  partake  of  the  nature  of  a  civil  war,  — 
fell,  relentless,  truculent,  fiendlike  ;  which  casts  into  shadow  the  unspeak- 
able calamities  of  ordinary  warfare,  by  the  direr  horrors  in  which  Mo- 
loch revels  when  fraternal  affection  is  converted  into  fierce  abhorrence. 

No  only  have  we  no  natural  boundaries  to  divide  our  physical  force, 
and  no  difference  of  language,  religion,  or  general  character  to  supply 
moral  distinctions  which  would  favor  separation,  but  we  have  no  distinct 
mte?'ests  which  each  section  might  cultivate  without  need  of  assistance  or 
fear  of  interference  from  the  others.  The  agricultural  products  of  the 
South  furnish  the  medium  through  which  our  foreign  commerce  is  car- 
ried on.  If  no  cotton,  rice,  or  tobacco,  were  shipped  from  southern 
ports,  our  merchants  could  not  draw  bills  on  England,  nor  could  they 
find  any  other  adequate  means  to  pay  for  their  purchases.  To  declare 
war  against  the  South  and  blockade  her  ports,  would  therefore  be  an 
act  of  suicide  on  our  part.  She,  on  the  other  hand,  is  unfitted  by  the 
nature  of  her  population  and  her  pursuits,  to  carry  on  navigation  ad- 
vantageously:  for  the  transportation  of  her  merchandise  it  is  her  inter- 
est to  be  indebted  to  us,  and  were  the  Union  dissolved,  the  empire  of  the 
ocean  would  remain  with  us,  so  that  she  could  not  transport  her  surplus 
products,  but  must  leave  them  to  rot  upon  the  soil.  To  withdraw  from 
the  Union  would  be,  therefore,  equally  on  her  part  an  act  of  suicide. 
The  harvests  of  the  West,  where  soil  which  has  lain  unfilled  since  the 
creation,  returns  a  hundred-fold  to  the  cultivator,  finds  its  way  to  the 
markets  of  the  world  only  through  the  Atlantic  coasts,  or  through  the 
rivers  that  flow  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Let  the  West  secede  from 
the  Union,  and  the  Atlantic  States  forbid  a  passage  through  their  bor- 


214  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

ders,  Avliile  Louisiana,  or  a  New  England  fleet,  sealed  up  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  all  the  crops  of  the  noblest  valley  inhabited  by  civil- 
ized man  must  perish  where  they  grow.  To  renounce  the  benefit  of  the 
federal  Union  would  be  destruction  therefore  to  the  West.  I  forbear 
to  enlarge  upon  the  necessity  which  New  England  feels  of  a  wider  mar- 
ket than  her  own  for  her  manufactured  articles ;  the  Middle  States  for 
their  flour  and  grain ;  the  security  against  a  servile  insurrection  which 
the  moral  influence  of  the  federal  Union,  watli  its  preponderance  of 
free  white  population,  affords  to  the  slave-holding  States  ;  or  the  entire 
freedom  from  taxation,  the  munificent  bounties  to  education,  the  exten- 
sive and  costly  w^orks  of  internal  improvement  which  the  West  owes  to 
the  fostering  care  of  the  general  government ;  because  I  have  not  time 
to  exhaust  this  fruitful  subject.  I  have  enumerated  mutual  dependen- 
cies enough  to  show  how  deep  and  lasting  injuries  we  should  have  it  in  our 
power  to  inflict  on  each  other,  and  this  will  enable  us  to  form  some  idea 
of  the  intensity  of  that  natural  hate  which  the  exacerbation  of  such 
mutual  w^'ongs  must  needs  originate. 

'No  balance  of  'power  could  be  established  to  preserve  peace  between 
the  several  confederations.  In  Europe,  where  changes  in  the  number  and 
pursuits  of  the  population  of  the  different  countries  take  place  gradually, 
and  where  they  have  passed  through  the  fiery  furnace  of  those  afflictions 
which  w^e  must  anticipate,  and  have  learned  that  wisdom  through  suffer- 
ing which  we  could  only  hope  to  acquire  in  the  same  school,  —  there, 
they  adjust  the  political  equilibrium,  so  that  it  remains  undisturbed  for  a 
short  period ;  and  w^hen  alterations  in  the  state  of  any  member  of  the 
body  derange  the  system,  diplomacy  endeavors  to  accommodate  a  new 
apportionment  of  power  to  the  new  state  of  things  which  requires  it. 
But  with  us,  where  some  communities  Avould  be  rapidly  developing  their 
resources,  wdiile  others  were  stationary,  or  perhaps  declining,  while  the 
character  and  pursuits  of  the  people  were  changing  every  day,  as  the 
wilderness  was  converted  into  fertile  fields,  and  the  sparse  into  a  dense 
population,  no  such  arrangement  could  be  any  thing  more  than  a  tem- 
porary expedient.  Our  States,  watching  each  other  with  a  jealousy  that 
would  never  slumber,  their  interests  clashing  with  each  other  perpetually, 
and  often  in  new  particulars,  our  passions  acted  on  by  the  most  prolific 
press  that  ever  existed,  scattering  envenomed  missiles  of  discord  on  the 
wings  of  the  wind,  and  kindling  the  flame  of  popular  fury,  now  here,  now 
there,  —  not  a  year  would  pass  away  that  did  not  change  their  relations 
to  each  other.  Peace  would  seldom  be  more  than  a  transient  truce,  and 
the  sword  would  be  the  only  acknowledged  arbiter  in  their  innumerable 
collisions. 

Nor  must  it  be  omitted  that  'party  spirit,  the  bane  of  commonwealths, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  215 

would  "have  freer  scope  and  wider  sway  among  us  than  In  the  older  coun- 
tries, and  would  infest  our  narrower  communities  with  a  more  virulent 
contagion  than  has  ever  infected  the  united  republic.  In  most  of  the  old 
countries,  it  is  but  a  very  small  class  that  interests  itself  in  the  opera- 
tions of  government.  The  mass  are  too  ignorant  and  too  degraded  to 
concern  themselves  with  affairs  so  totally  beyond  their  comprehension. 
They  know  and  feel  the  government  only  by  the  dead  weight  with  which 
it  rests  on  them :  under  this  they  were  born  and  have  lived  all  their 
days,  and  of  course  have  become  habituated  and  in  some  measure  recon- 
ciled to  the  pressure.  They  take  no  part  in  political  transactions,  but 
remain  an  inert  and  passive  substratum,  over  which  the  battles  of  the 
higher  classes  are  fought  out,  while  they  themselves  are  as  seldom  moved 
as  the  deep  sea.  It  is  not  so  with  us.  Our  common  schools  qualify  all 
our  children  in  the  art  of  reading,  while  ten  thousand  newspapers  carry 
political  information  to  every  man's  door.  In  our  party  agitations, 
therefore,  it  is  the  whole  frame  of  society  to  its  very  basis  that  heaves 
and  tosses.  And  if  the  fabric  of  the  government  sometimes  rocks,  now, 
when  party  spirit  is  comparatively  mild  and  diffused  over  a  continent, 
what  ruinous  convulsions  must  we  not  expect  whenever  parties  are 
brought  face  to  face,  and  pent  up  in  small  States,  to  spend  their  unmiti- 
gated fury  upon  each  other :  especially  v.dien  we  reflect  that  direct  taxa- 
tion, the  species  of  oppression  to  which  the  people  at  large  are  ever  most 
sensitive,  will  fall  with  a  crushing  weight  upon  each  fragment  of  the 
broken  Union  the  moment  it  is  dissevered.  Duties  on  imports  could  no 
longer  be  collected  on  the  seaboard,  because  each  section  would  underbid 
the  others  in  its  tariff,  to  entice  away  their  commerce,  and  because 
smuggling  over  the  frontiers  could  not  be  prevented :  so  that  the  vast 
revenue  required  to  set  on  foot  the  necessary  armaments,  to  build,  equip, 
and  support  the  separate  navies,  and  to  maintain,  with  proportionably 
higher  salaries,  stronger  governments,  must  all  be  raised  by  the  hard, 
ungrateful  process  of  direct  taxation.  Discontent  would  excite  rebellion 
against  the  sectional  governments ;  each  party  as  it  predominated  would 
decimate  the  front  ranks  of  the  other ;  the  minority  would  league  with 
the  majority  in  the  neighboring  State,  and  invite  an  invasion  to  their 
assistance,  and  then  revolutions,  civil  wars,  and  foreign  wars  would 
alternate  and  mingle  their  horrors. 

Subserviency  to  foreign  nations  is  not  the  least  of  the  evils  that  would 
follow  the  rupture  of  the  ties  that  bind  us  together.  A  section  which 
found  itself  endangered  by  the  superiority  of  another  at  home,  would 
eagerly  seek  "  an  apostate  and  unnatural  connection  "  abroad.  However 
humiliating  the  terms  on  which  their  aid  might  be  obtained,  we  should 
be  driven  to  accept  whatever  terms  the  nations  of  the  old  world  might 


216  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

offer  us.  When  our  dlles  became  belligerents,  we  must  enlist  in  all  tlieir 
quarrels.  It  would  be  their  policy  to  foment  by  their  intrigues  all  our 
dissensions,  in  order  to  make  us  more  dependent  on  them,  to  prevent  us 
from  regaining  any  weight  in  the  political  balance,  and  to  take  from  us, 
and  share  among  themselves,  that  large  portion  of  the  commerce  of  the 
world,  which,  while  united  under  a  wise  government,  we  shall  always  be 
able  to  retain. 

As  the  bands  of  national  government  are  strengthened  in  proportion 
as  the  number  of  the  States  increases,  each  State  of  twenty-four  having 
less  power  to  resist  the  delegated  authority  of  the  whole,  than  each 
State  of  the  thirteen  had  originally,  and  as  combinations  among  two  or 
three  States  of  fifty,  if  that  number  shall  ever  be  reached,  will  be  much 
less  dangerous  to  the  integrity  of  the  Union  than  a  combination  of  two 
or  three  of  the  original  thirteen  would  have  been,  we  may  infer  that  the 
power  of  any  new  confederacy  formed  out  of  a  part  of  our  sister  States, 
would  be  less  competent  to  hold  together  its  members  than  the  present 
federal  Union.  The  causes  of  disunion  which  had  operated  in  the  whole 
system,  would  continue  to  act  with  a  centrifugal  impulse  in  each  of  the 
parts ;  and  with  increased  violence,  for  who  can  doubt  that  the  majority 
would  tyrannize  over  the  minority  with  less  restraint  from  generosity  or 
conscientious  scruples  in  each  of  the  States,  if  they  were  cut  asunder, 
than  it  ever  can  under  the  government  of  the  Union.  The  history  of  the 
Greek  and  of  the  Italian  republics  shows  that  it  would  be  so,  for  such  is 
the  nature  of  little  communities  with  popular  governments.  Common 
sense  applied  to  the  case,  shows  that  it  would  be  so,  for  the  struggles  of 
parties  would  degenerate  from  honorable  contests  involving  general 
principles,  into  the  base  altercations  of  personal  rancor.  Besides,  the 
weight  of  taxation,  augmenting  as  it  must,  would  be  a  fruitful  source  of 
discontent,  and  they  would  have  before  them  the  example  of  a  Union, 
older  and  more  hallowed  than  theirs,  successfully  resisted  and  broken  up. 
The  tendency  to  subdivision  therefore  would  grow  stronger.  Revolutions 
would  spill  the  best  blood  in  the  land,  and  sunder  confederations  as  soon 
as  they  were  formed :  ephemeral  governments  would  rise  and  disappear, 
till  anarchy  held  indisputed  possession,  and  society  was  resolved  into  its 
original  constituents,  unless  some  influence  of  an  opposite  nature  arrests 
this  obvious  tendency  before  the  downward  progress  reaches  this  ulti- 
mate limit. 

But  there  is  another  element  which  must  enter  into  the  calculation, 
whose  influence  is  to  counteract  the  tendency  to  perpetual  subdivision, 
and  that  element  is  military  force.  The  great  will  devour  the  small. 
The  larger  States  will  annihilate  the  separate  political  existence  of  their 
lesser  neighbors,  and  if  these  last  do  not  acquiesce  in  their  unavoidable 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  217 

condition  of  inferiority,  the  right  of  conquest  will  put  into  the  hands  of 
the  ruling  States  a  rod  of  iron  ;  the  inhabitants  of  the  conquered  terri- 
tory must  be  made  suh-jacti  —  subjects  —  thralls;  and  the  force  their 
masters  must  keep  on  foot  to  secure  their  servitude  Vv'ill  enable  the  suc- 
cessful soTdiers  who  head  their  troops  to  make  slaves  of  the  citizens  of 
the  invading  States,  and  involve  victors  and  vanquished  in  one  common 
doom. 

This  imperfect  investigation  of  the  probable  consequences  of  disunion, 
brief  as  it  has  necessarily  been,  discloses  sufficient  cause  of  alarm,  if 
indeed  the  Union  has  been  put  in  jeopardy.  The  Union  lost,  all  is  lost : 
the  Union  safe,  all  our  prospects  arc  bright  and  cheering.  We  are 
happy  to  perceive  symptoms  of  a  growing  conviction  of  this  great  truth 
in  every  quarter  of  the  country. 

Though  from  the  present  sound  and  healthy  state  of  public  opinion 
on  this  subject  we  cannot  believe  the  Union  to  be  in  any  immediate 
danger,  yet  we  cannot  but  deeply  regret  the  deplorable  fanaticism  whicli 
has  seized  upon  an  unfortunate  and  misguided  sister  State  :  South  Caro- 
lina, distinguished  for  the  number  of  her  clear-headed  and  warm- 
hearted statesmen  and  patriots,  till  in  an  evil  hour,  the  baneful  theory 
of  nullification  took  root  in  her  soil.  It  flourished  rank,  and  grew  up  a 
moral  hohon  upas,  to  blast  and  wither  all  within  its  atmosphere.  Its 
pestilential  boughs  have  overshadov/ed  with  their  blighting  influence  the 
prospect  of  her  noblest  sons.  We  mourn  their  aberrations  from  the 
straightforward  path  of  political  duty,  we  pity  the  hallucination  which 
has  bewildered  their  strong  but  metaphysical  intellects,  yet  we  must  not 
the  less  condemn  the  heresy  which  threatens  our  existence  as  a  nation, 
our  liberties  as  a  people,  and  all  the  blessings  which  we  hold  most  dear. 
Happily  for  us  the  voice  of  condemnation  will  preclude  the  necessity  of 
raising  the  cry  of  war.  Public  opinion  will  strangle  in  its  infancy  the 
monster  nullification,  and  thus,  without  the  cruel  alternative  of  intestine 
hostilities,  we  shall  be  delivered  from  the  impending  peril.  But  while 
we  hesitate  not  to  condemn  their  extravagance,  let  us  compassionate  and 
do  all  in  our  power  to  alleviate  their  distresses.  Let  us  remember  that 
partial  and  sectional  legislation,  while  it  is  not  warranted  by  the  letter 
of  our  Constitution,  is  inconsistent  also  with  the  genius  of  our  institu- 
tions. There  can  be  no  lasting  peace  which  is  not  based  on  justice ;  but 
if  any  part  of  our  revenue  sj^stem  is  calculated  to  produce  an  advantage 
for  one  set  of  interests  or  one  section  of  our  country  at  the  expense  of 
another,  its  operation  is  unjust  towards  those  whom  it  injures ;  and  it 
must  not  be  wondered  at  if  they  are  loud  in  their  complaints,  and  some- 
times even  push  their  opposition  beyond  the  exact  limits  which  sober 
reason  would  prescribe.     Let  us  be  first  just,  then  generous.     Let  us 

19 


218  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

remove  all  their  grieyances,  and  tlien  the  work  of  conciliation  will  be 
easy. 

Washington,  in  that  immortal  legacy  of  the  political  wisdom  which 
his  active  life  had  been  spent  in  accumulating,  the  farewell  address, 
every  line  of  which  ought  to  be  indelibly  engraved  on  the  heaVts  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  tells  us  that  it  occurs  to  him  as  matter  of  serious  con- 
cern that  any  ground  should  be  furnished  for  characterizing  parties  by 
geographical  discriminations  —  Northern  and  Southern  —  Atlantic  and 
Western  —  and  he  bids  us  indignantly  frown  upon  the  first  dawning  of 
every  attempt  to  alienate  any  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  or  to 
enfeeble  the  sacred  ties  which  now  link  together  the  various  parts.  If, 
rejecting  this  advice,  we  press  a  course  of  policy  which  tends  strongly 
to  alienate  an  important  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  we  not 
only  jeopardize  our  own  Union,  "  the  palladium  of  our  political  safety 
and  prosperity,"  but  we  put  in  hazard  all  the  blessings  we  enjoy  under 
its  shelter,  and  more  than  all  we  throw  doubt  and  uncertainty  over  all 
the  hopes  of  future  improvement  which  mankind  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe  may  reasonably  entertain. 

The  example  of  our  free  institutions  in  the  full  tide  of  successful  ex- 
periment, does  more  to  promote  the  progress  of  a  rational  political  sys- 
tem on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  than  all  the  speculations  of  philos- 
ophers who  have  reasoned,  all  the  eloquence  of  orators  who  have  de- 
claimed, all  the  exhortations  of  all  the  authors  v.^ho  have  written  for  the 
people,  since  mind  first  began  to  act  on  mind.  Let  them  look  at  our 
firmly  cemented  Union,  whose  value  is  beyond  calculation,  and  see  how 
the  economy  and  flexibility  of  local  governments  may  be  happily  blend- 
ed with  the  energy  and  strength  of  a  general,  central,  controlling  power. 
Here  is  illustration  !  Here  is  demonstration !  With  this  brilliant  spec- 
tacle before  them,  they  need  not  doubt  the  possibility,  nor  dispute  about 
the  manner,  of  accomplishing  the  great  ends  of  government,  without  in- 
vading any  desirable  liberty  of  the  citizen.  Let  us  not  then  suffer  this 
hope  of  the  world  to  sink  in  despair,  —  this  beacon  light  of  the  tempest- 
tost  nations  to  be  quenched  in  blood,  —  this  guiding  star,  on  which  the 
pilgrims  of  transatlantic  liberty  gaze  with  fond  devotion,  to  go  down  in 
darkness  and  eternal  gloom. 

Already  intestine  dissension,  to  whose  relentless  power  all  the  repub- 
lics whose  epitaphs  are  written  in  history  have  fallen  a  prey,  has  rear- 
ed her  horrid  head  among  us.  Shall  we  listen  to  the  dictates  of  preju- 
dice and  passion  ?  Shall  we  enter  that  career  of  civil  strife,  wherein, 
like  the  broad  road  that  leads  to  the  pit  of  woe,  there  are  no  steps 
backward  ? 

It  cannot  be.     Our  guarantee  is  in  the  intelligence  of  the  American 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  219 

people.  The  intelligence  of  the  people  is  the  original  cause  —  the  op- 
erating instrument  —  the  sure  palladium  of  American  union  and  liberty. 
We  have  read  the  annals  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us.  We  know 
how  they  tempted  their  destiny  till  it  overwhelmed  them.  History  has 
given  us  a  faithful  chart,  and  we  know  where  are  the  rocks  and  quick- 
sands, and  where  we  must  shun  destruction.  With  our  eyes  open  we 
shall  not  follow  the  downward  path  in  which  all  the  elder  republics  have 
preceded  us  to  ruin.  If  the  common  welfL^re  demands  any  sacrifices 
from  New  England,  certain  it  is  New  England  will  never  be  backward 
to  make  them.  In  fidelity  to  the  union,  she  is  true  to  the  core,  and  for 
no  subordinate  interest  will  she  suffer  it  to  be  endangered.  T/w  federal 
Union  must  be  preserved,  and  ivill  he.  Under  its  protection  may  we 
realize  the  dying  wish  of  the  patriotic  patriarch  of  liberty  —  Inde- 
pendence  FOREVER. 

These  speculations,  prepared  on  another  occasion,  I  have  ventured  to 
incorporate  in  this  library,  because  it  is  necessary,  at  the  present  time, 
that  every  good  citizen  should  understand  the  true  interests  of  his  coun- 
try, and  realize  their  value :  more  especially  the  working  men  of  the 
republic,  who  are  in  truth  the  bone,  muscle,  and  sinew  of  the  nation. 
With  them  is  deposited  the  physical  force  in  every  country:  in  our 
highly  favored  land  a  superior  education  endows  them  with  a  corre- 
sponding moral  force.  You  do  well  then,  gentlemen,  to  cultivate  intelli- 
gence, —  to  make  it  a  prominent  object  of  your  pursuits.  Knowledge  is 
not  only  power, — knowledge  is  also  safety.  It  is  the  stability  of  our 
times,  —  our  trust  and  stay  amid  the  dangers  that  thicken  around  us. 
Foster  then  your  intellectual  faculties ;  treasure  up  useful  information. 
So  doing,  you  will  qualify  yourselves  to  discharge  the  duties  of  good 
citizens :  you  will  enable  yourselves  to  judge  fairly  of  public  men,  and 
public  measures :  you  will  increase  —  vastly  increase  —  your  share  of 
influence  in  the  body  politic,  and  you  will  feel  more  and  more  sure  that 
you  are  exerting  that  influence  in  the  right  direction. 


A^  ADDRESS  TO  THE  WORKIXGMEX  OF  THE  EXITED 
STATES  OF  AMERICA.* 

Fellow  Citizens,  —  Society,  as  you  very  well  know,  is  divided  into 
two  classes,  —  those  who  do  something  for  their  living,  and  those  who  do 

*  Published  in  the  Workiugmcn's  Library,  1833. 


220  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

not.  Wc  are  told  on  the  very  liigliest  authority  that  in  the  sweat  of  his 
broAV  shall  man  eat  bread.  This  was  meant  for  the  general  rule,  and  as 
such  it  is  undoubtedly  true  to  the  letter  ;  but  like  all  other  general  rules, 
it  admits  of  exceptions.  Though  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  are 
fated  to  labor,  tug,  and  strive  for  the  pittance  upon  which  they  subsist, 
still, 

"  There  arc  a  numerous  tribe  who  creep 
Into  this  world  to  eat  and  sleep, 
And  know  no  reason  why  they're  born 
But  merely  to  consume  the  corn." 

Even  this  tribe,  however,  are  apt  to  feel  the  application  of  the  general 
law  after  awhile,  and  to  find  their  corn  growing  seriously  deficient  both 
in  quantity  and  quality,  unless  they  contribute  something  towards  raising 
it, — but  of  that  by  and  by. 

Society  has  done  much  for  every  one  of  us,  and  we  ought  in  return  to 
do  something  for  society.  If  you  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  a 
desert,  my  friend,  you  would  have  been  born  and  brought  up  a  savage. 
If  society  did  not  protect  you  in  the  fruits  of  your  labor,  every  thing  you 
gained  would  be  taken  from  you  :  if  society  did  not  protect  your  person, 
your  security  would  depend  only  upon  your  strength  and  cunning :  un- 
less the  common  consent  of  society  made  laws  and  gave  them  force,  laws 
could  not  afford  us  any  protection.  Without  the  protection  of  the  laws, 
there  could  be  no  civilization:  without  civilization  there  could  be  neither 
refinement,  nor  knowledge,  nor  comfort,  nor  safety :  we  should  be  like 
the  beasts  of  prey,  at  war ;  and  worse  than  the  beasts  of  prey,  at  war 
always  with  our  own  species.  It  is  society  then  that  enables  us  to  enjoy 
peaceably  all  that  v/e  have,  and  gratitude  and  duty  demand  of  us  to  do 
something  for  the  welfare  of  society.  This  is  plain  enough,  one  v/ould 
think,  yet  there  will  be  some  drones  as  well  as  bees  in  every  hive.  The 
bees  have  a  riglit  to  all  the  honey  which  they  make.  They  should  keep  a 
sharp  look  out  to  secure  and  enjoy  as  mucli  of  it  as  they  can,  and  keep 
the  drones  as  nearly  in  a  state  of  starvation  as  their  compassionate  feel- 
ings will  allow  them  to. 

Just  as  bees  are  divided  into  workers  and  drones,  so  men,  as  I  have 
told  you  before,  are  divided  into  the  do-somethings  and  the  do-nothings. 
Now  I  myself  am  a  do-something.  I  am  a  hard  working  man,  and  in 
that  character  I  wish  to  address  myself  to  my  fellow-citizens,  the  work- 
ingmen  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Not  the  slave  population  of 
the  South,  for  although  they  may  have  by  nature  the  same  rights  which 
I  wish  to  discuss,  yet  they  are  not  at  present  in  a  situation  to  enjoy  them, 
and  as  a  practical  man,  I  do  not  wish  to  indulge  in  impracticable  theories 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  221 

or  visionary  speculations,  but  to  offer  advice  which  may,  if  you  like  it. 
be  carried  into  action.  This  letter,  therefore,  is  intended  for  the  free, 
citizen  workingmen  of  the  republic;  and  I  hope  tlie  principles  it  con- 
tains, in  this  shape  or  in  some  other,  may  meet  the  eyes  and  the  appro- 
bation of  a  multitude  of  them.  It  is  important,  my  friends,  to  deter- 
mine the  limits  of  our  party,  and  I  acknowledge  all  those  to  be  working- 
men  who  do  something  for  a  living :  no  one  else  has  any  claim  to  that 
honorable  appellation.  The  pauper,  who  depends  for  his  subsistence  on 
the  charity  of  the  public,  the  idler,  who  saunters  about  till  he  has  wasted 
the  property  which  the  accident  of  birth  or  the  favor  of  fortune  threw 
into  his  hands,  and  then  relies  on  the  bounty  of  friends,  and  if  they 
cease  to  support  him,  must  become  a  pauper,  —  is  not  a  workingman, 
thougli  he  may  have  learned  a  trade,  and  may  profess  to  belong  to  some 
mechanic  occupation.  These  men's  plans  of  life  are  adverse  to  our  in- 
terests, and  therefore  they  must  not  be  admitted  into  our  party.  The 
swindler  who  by  knavery  accumulates  wealth  through  fraud  on  his 
neighbor,  though  he  may  work  harder  than  any  of  us,  is  not  a  genuine 
workingman,  within  our  definition  of  the  term,  since  he  does  nothing  for 
which  he  deserves  a  living ;  but  is  rather  a  ravenous  beast  who  makes 
honest  men  his  natural  prey,  and  whom,  therefore,  honest  men  ought  to 
unite  in  hunting  down.  The  gambler,  though  he  follows  an  anxious  and 
tedious  course  of  life  ;  one  that  requires  an  ingenuity,  a  skill,  and  a 
watchfulness  that  in  any  honest  pursuit  would  be  sufficient  to  accumulate 
a  fortune,  but  in  this,  only  keep  him  hovering  on  the  borders  of  beggary, 
while  his  strength,  mental,  moral,  and  physical,  is  exhausted  by  its 
fatigues,  and  at  last  he  sinks  into  that  wreck  of  blasted  hopes  which  ex- 
hibits so  impressive  a  warning  to  the  thoughtless  and  inexperienced, — is 
no  workingman  of  ours,  for  he  does  nothing  for  his  living.  In  all  con- 
tracts of  honorable  trade  there  is  intended  to  be  a  profit  on  both  sides  : 
but  the  gambler  gains  only  what  some  one  else  loses  ;  and  besides,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  morality  of  the  transaction,  we  could  prove,  if  it 
were  worth  our  while  to  spend  time  upon  it,  that  every  transfer  of  prop- 
erty for  which  there  is  no  equivalent  rendered  is  a  positive  injury  to 
society.  The  beggar,  who  does  nothing  for  his  living,  but  only  entreats 
others  to  be  kind  enough  to  earn  it  for  him,  though  he  works  hard  in- 
deed, is  not  one  of  our  workingmen.  The  spendthrift,  Avho  squanders 
his  inheritance  in  that  senseless  and  useless  profusion  which  neither 
gratifies  the  taste,  increases  the  comforts,  nor  ministers  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  those  around  him,  could  not  possess  for  one  hour  the  wealth  he  is 
wasting,  if  society  did  not  protect  him  in  the  possession  of  it,  and  for 
this  protection  he  renders  society  no  equivalent :  we  shall  not,  therefore, 
set  him  down  for  a  workingman.     The  vagabond  demagogue,  who  hurls 

19* 


222  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tiio  brands  of  discord  into  our  ranks,  who  wislies  to  make  large  confu- 
sion that  he  may  ride  the  whirlwind  of  his  own  raising,  who  disheartens 
our  friends,  because  his  vices  have  left  him  friendless,  and  who  disturbs 
our  labors  because  he  is  too  lazy  to  earn  an  honest  living  himself, — 
though  he  may  have  been  brought  up  a  mechanic  and  may  still  wish  to 
be  called  so,  lost  all  claim  to  membership  in  our  party  of  workingmen 
when  he  abandoned  the  trade  in  which  he  could  earn  his  living  by  being 
useful,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  making  mischief  among  the 
■wqW  disposed  part  of  society.  The  disorganizer,  who  disseminates 
Avicked  principles,  who  endeavors  to  fill  us  with  hatred  to  our  beneftxc- 
'tors,  who  urges  us  to  a  chimerical  warfare  against  the  eternal  laws  of 
nature,  the  tendency  of  wdiose  measures  is  to  weaken  and  break  in  pieces 
that  compact  and  frame  of  society  to  which  we  owe  every  thing,  if  he 
asks  bread  from  society,  deserves  nothing  but  stones  ;  and  has,  therefore, 
no  more  right  to  expect  that  we  should  call  him  a  ivorhijigmcm,  by  what- 
ever name  he  may  compliment  himself,  than  the  rioters  and  incendiaries 
of  the  corrupt  cities  of  the  old  v.'orld,  when  they  pull  down,  burn,  and 
delapidate  houses,  temples,  and  palaces,  deserve  to  be  called  carpenters, 
masons,  and  architects.  He  labors  to  destroy,  and  not  to  create :  his  in- 
terests are  all  opposite  to  our  interests  :  we  can  never,  on  any  account, 
allow  him  to  rank  as  a  brother  workinofman.  But  all  who  do  somethincf 
for  a  living,  who  furnish  to  society  some  equivalent  for  the  protection 
and  the  benefits  which  society  affords  them,  in  whatever  field  of  industry 
they  exert  their  strength  or  tlieir  talents,  or  employ  their  time  or  their 
capital,  by  whatever  title  the  world  may  designate  their  labors,  have 
common  interests  with  one  another,  and  belong  without  question  to  the 
party  of  genuine  workingmen.  lie  who  meditates  in  his  closet  how  he  may 
instruct  mankind,  and  he  who  puts  together  the  types  by  whose  impres- 
sion instruction  is  communicated,  —  he  who  wanders  over  the  face  of  the 
earth  exploring  nature's  mysteries  to  discover  and  turn  to  advantage 
some  unknown  modification  or  property  of  matter,  —  he  who  in  his  labora- 
tory examines  nature  and  puts  her  to  the  torture  till  she  reveals  her  se- 
crets to  him,  as  well  as  he  who  manufactures  the  raw  material,  or  per- 
forms the  chemical  operation  after  the  process  has  been  perfected  by  the 
inventor  and  dictated  to  the  artizan,  —  he  who  toils  day  and  night  to 
seize  and  apply  the  principle  by  which  he  can  make  the  motion  of  wind 
or  falling  water,  gravitation  in  some  other  form,  or  the  expansive  force 
of  vapor  do  something  which  before  the  human  hand  had  done,  as  well 
as  he  who  constructs  the  machinery,  and  he  who  watches  and  regulates 
its  movements,  is  undeniably  a  workingman.  He  who  forms,  fosters 
into  life,  and  quickens  with  an  effectual  impulse,  original  and  extensive 
plans  of  benevolence,  he  who  defends  his  country's  rights  in  the  hard 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  223 

fouglit  field  of  liot  debate,  who  guides  her  counsels  in  the  cabinet,  who 
represents  her  interests  and  maintains  her  dignity  abroad,  or  who  on  the 
bloody  battle  plain  avenges  and  vindicates  her  insulted  honor;  is  surely 
a  workingman,  as  much  as  he  who  creates  the  articles  of  value  which 
constitute  the  funds  for  the  operations  of  the  philanthropist,  he  who 
prints  the  speeches  of  the  orator,  he  who  navigates  the  ship  that  bears 
the  ambassador,  or  shoulders  the  musket  and  fights  under  the  banners 
of  the  patriot  warrior.  He  also  who  superintends  the  employment  of 
capital  which  diligence  and  prudence  have  enabled  him  to  acquire,  who 
sends  its  fertilizing  streams  through  the  community,  while  the  profits  of 
every  judicious  enterprise  increase  his  power  of  doing  good,  though  the 
envious  and  unreflecting  may  look  with  an  evil  eye  on  his  success  in  his 
laudable  industry,  is  really  and  truly  a  worthy  hard  workingman.  Is 
there  any  quibble  or  play  upon  icords  in  this  ?  No.  The  truth  lies 
deep  in  the  nature  of  things  and  in  the  nature  of  man.  He  who  does 
any  thing  whereby  any  part  of  his  species  is  made  wiser,  better,  healthier, 
or  happier,  belongs  to  our  party  and  we  will  welcome  him  as  a  brother. 
It  is  not  a  community  of  name  only,  it  is  one  of  interest  and  feeling. 
All  these  have  a  common  interest  that  honest  industry  should  be  re- 
spected and  rewarded,  —  that  services  rendered  to  society  should  be 
duh/  estimated  and  adequately  compensated :  and,  my  friends,  I  believe 
in  my  soul  that  all  our  party  who  understand  their  own  interests,  act 
upon  these  principles.  Some  of  the  most  indefatigable  of  the  illustrious 
benefactors  of  mankind  have  not  wrought  with  their  hands,  and  yet  have 
worked  to  some  purpose.  Cold  and  heartless  and  senseless  must  be  that 
system  which  should  class  these  as  unproducing  drones,  as  mere  idle 
consumers.  It  is  not  so.  Philosopliy  does  not  contradict  conmion 
sense.  John  Howard  and  Stephen  Girard  were  workingmen.  Bacon 
and  Xewton,  and  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  Franklin  and  Priestley  and 
Davy,  Fox  and  Mirabeau,  Washington  and  Lafayette,  were  v/orking- 
men,  as  well  as  Fulton  and  Perkins,  and  West  and  Alston,  and  Chantrey 
and  Canova :  their  great  souls  belong  to  our  party,  and  we  will  not  give 
them  up.  All  honest  men  belong  to  one  party,  because  they  have  all 
pure  intentions  and  a  common  object  —  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number.  That  party  is  ours,  and  every  true  workingman  does  some- 
thing, and  desires  to  do  more,  to  advance  the  common  cause.  For  this 
purpose  he  desires  to  understand  his  situation  in  the  great  and  growing 
host  of  the  active  friends  of  humanity,  to  know  what  lies  within  his 
power,  and  where  to  apply  his  strength  to  most  advantage.  Our  situa- 
tion has  its  rights,  its  dangers,  and  its  duties.  We  wish  to  understand 
our  rights,  that  we  may  preserve  and  enjoy  them ;  our  dangers,  that  by 
being  prepared  to  meet  them  we  may  avert  them  from  us  \  our  duties, 


224  MEMOmS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

that  we  may  recognize  and  discharge  them.  It  is  with  these  ends  in 
view  that  I  have  taken  up  the  pen :  should  this  essay  totally  fail  to  do 
justice  to  the  subject,  it  may  provoke  some  stronger  hand  to  perform 
what  I  have  attempted :  should  it  contribute  any  thing  towards  the  inter- 
ests the  writer  wishes  to  serve,  he  hopes  that  abler  aid  will  follow  in  the 
path  he  has  opened.  In  either  case  his  labor  will  not  be  thrown  away. 
The  present  letter  Vv'ill  treat  of  our  rights  as  ivorhingmen. 

I  have  already  laid  down  the  proposition,  that  society  has  done  much 
for  us,  and  we  ought  to  do  something  for  society.  It  is  equally  true  that 
we  are  under  no  obligation  to  labor  gratuitously  :  if  we  do  any  thing,  we 
have  a  f\iir  claim  to  a  return  :  whatever  we  possess,  if  we  devote  it  to 
the  service  of  society,  entitles  us  to  expect  an  equivalent.  This  is  the 
foundation  of  all  our  rights.     And  to  consider  them  a  little  in  detail, 

I.  We  have  a  right  to  all  our  faculties  of  whatever  name  or  nature 
—  hodily,  mental^  moral —  and  the  'products  of  their  exercise. 

First.  AYe  have  a  right  to  our  bodily  facidties,  and  one  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  employ  them  for  the  service  of  another,  without  receiving  full 
compensation  for  the  benefit  he  confers.  1.  Our  strength  is  our  own, 
and  to  be  used  for  our  own  best  advantage  :  no  one  is  to  dictate  to  us 
how  or  on  what  terms  we  are  to  lay  it  out.  It  is  our  capital,  and  we 
must  make  it  do  duty  for  us,  for  it  is  the  ultimate  source  of  all  other 
wealth.  Every  man  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  sixty  years,  who 
owns  a  pair  of  healthy,  well  formed  arms,  may  reckon  them  worth  three 
hundred  dollars  per  annum,  that  is  to  say,  they  represent  at  the  legal 
rate  of  interest  a  capital  of  five  thousand  dollars.  A  man,  therefore, 
who  has  a  pair  of  strong  arms,  with  good  health  and  no  other  property, 
is  just  half  as  rich  as  one  who  has  ten  thousand  dollars  at  interest,  but 
is  unable  to  work  :  if  he  employs  his  strength  with  shill^  and  does  not 
waste  his  earnings,  he  will  soon  be  a  great  deal  richer.  If  there  are 
four  millions  of  pairs  of  working  arms  in  these  United  States,  they  are 
worth  to  their  owners  the  sum  total  of  twenty  thousand  millions 
of  dollars.  This  is  merely  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view.  God  forbid 
that  flesh  and  blood  should  be  valued  in  dollars  and  cents  !  But  we  are 
only  considering  them  now  in  the  respects  which  they  are  available  pro- 
perty. And  the  first  item  in  the  inventory  of  our  wealth,  is  twenty 
thousand  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  personal  strength.  We  need  not 
go  any  further.  The  workingmen's  party  is  not  only  the  most  numerous, 
but  also  vastly  the  wealthiest  party  in  the  country.  This  wealth  is  all 
available,  and  we  have  a  right  to  all  the  profit  we  can  realize  from  it. 
If  a  man  had  five  thousand  dollars  in  specie,  and  should  bury  it  in  the 
ground,  and  let  it  stay  there  unproductive,  when  he  could  let  it  out  at 
six  per  cent,  on  the  best  security,  you  would  think  him  mad,  even  if  he 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  225 

was  working  hard  at  a  dollar  a  day  all  tlie  while ;  but  he  would 
not  be  half  so  mad  as  that  man  who  should  allow  his  i^ersonal 
strength  to  remain  unproductive  while  he  had  no  money  at  interest ;  and 
no  more  mad  than  the  man  who  should  support  his  body  in  idleness  be- 
cause he  had  five  thousand  dollars  estate  and  could  contrive  to  live  on 
the  income  it  yielded  him.  Not  only  is  he  inexcusable  who  does  not  ex- 
ercise his  personal  strength  (having  no  other  employment)  ;  but  he  who 
labors  uselessly  is  guilty  of  the  same  folly  that  he  would  be,  who  should 
lend  his  whole  capital  without  interest,  and  so  strip  himself  of  his  re- 
sources. We  have  a  right  to  the  most  projitahle,  unremitted  in-oduct'ive- 
ness  of  our  whole  capital  of  twenty  thousand  millions  in  jDcrsonal 
strength  ;  and  every  one  of  us  has  a  right  to  his  portion  of  it.  If  one 
man's  portion  of  strength  is  greater  than  another's,  he  is  under  no  obli- 
gation to  be  content  with  the  same  compensation.  If  he  can  accomplish 
proportionally  more,  he  will  receive  proportionally  more,  and  he  has  a 
right  to  turn  to  the  best  account  he  honestly  can,  his  natural  superiority. 
2.  Our  skill  is  our  own.  If  one  man  labors  on  blindly,  doing  merely 
what  he  is  set  to  do,  and  not  caring  how  he  gets  through  it,  provided  it 
is  done  ;  he  will  work  no  better  after  forty  years'  practice  than  when  he 
was  a  beginner.  If  another  watches  every  step  of  the  process  he  is  em- 
ployed in,  and  strives  with  assiduity  to  acquire  the  best  mode  of  per- 
forming it,  his  observations  will  infallibly  enable  him  to  improve,  his 
work  will  be  done  in  a  superior  manner,  and  a  greater  amount  fniished 
in  a  given  time.  As  he  j^roduces  more,  if  he  receives  an  equivalent  for 
his  production,  which  is  what  he  has  a  right  to  expect,  he  will  receive 
more.  In  some  departments  of  industry,  and  particularly  in-  the  fine 
arts,  and  in  what  are  called  the  liberal  j)i'ofessions,  care  and  diligence 
are  not  sufficient  of  themselves  to  give  every  one  the  high  degree  of 
skill  requisite  to  great  success  :  a  peculiarly  nice  organization,  an  adapt- 
ation of  the  physical  frame  to  the  particular  pursuit  is  essential.  If, 
while  men  in  general  can  make  a  certain  number  of  shoes  in  a  day,  an 
individual  can  be  found  who  can  with  ease  make  three  times  as  many,  of 
the  same  quality,  in  the  same  time,  we  may  with  propriety  say,  that 
man  has  a  genius  for  shoemaking.  This  kind  of  genius,  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, not  being  rare,  and  not  yielding  products  which  give  great  delight 
beyond  those  of  ordinarymen,  is  not  in  great  request.  But  let  a  man 
possess  an  ear  capable  of  discriminating  differences  of  sound  impercept- 
ible to  the  ordinary  sense,  and  of  appreciating  their  precise  effect  on  a 
cultivated  auditory,  together  with  that  complete  control  of  every  muscle 
of  the  fingers  which  gives  the  mind  of  Paganini  such  a  mastery  over 
the  strings  of  his  instrument,  or  with  a  sweetness,  compass,  and  flexibil- 
ity of  voice  competent  to  express  perfectly  all  that  he  feels,  and  then,  if 


226  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

he  lias  any  music  in  liis  soul,  lie  may  discourse  it  most  eloquently.  Or, 
let  a  man  be  gifted  with  strength  of  muscle  without  ungainliness  of 
form,  self-possession,  ease  and  dignity  of  manner,  which  are  qualities 
inherent  in  the  physical  constitution,  force  of  lungs  to  utter  the  full 
swell,  volume,  and  body  of  sound,  and  last  not  least,  that  indescribable 
power  of  face  to  which  Garrick,  Webster,  and  Kean  have  owed  half 
their  sway  over  men's  passions,  and  then  he  can  send  home  to  men's 
hearts  the  feeling  which  thrills  in  his  own  breast,  —  then  when  his  soul 
glows  through  his  eyes,  and  conviction  flashes  from  every  speaking  fea- 
ture, the  vivid  truth  with  which  he  personifies  the  creations  of  the  j^oet's 
fancy  will  enchant  and  electrify  the  breathless  thousands  who  hang  upon 
his  accents  ;  or  in  the  fury  of  debate,  his  strong  thoughts  condensed  in 
mighty  words  and  thundered  as  from  a  battery,  will  bear  down  all  be- 
fore him.  These  talents,  and  I  speak  merely  of  the  physical  structure, 
belong  only  to  few.  In  their  highest  degree,  and  combined  with  the 
highest  degree  of  intellectual  genius  of  the  kind  best  fitted  to  make  the 
most  advantageous  application  of  them,  they  are  exceedingly  rare,  and 
as  in  some  cases  they  render  the  most  important  services,  and  in  others 
furnish  the  choicest  gratifications  and  the  most  exquisite  delights,  their 
compensation  is  deservedly  estimated  at  high  rates.  The  general  prin- 
ciple, however,  applies  to  ordinary  occupations  as  well  as  to  extraordi- 
nary developments  of  genius.  Superior  skill  does  better  service,  and 
therefore  has  a  right  to  higher  compensation,  than  workmanship  of  the 
average  style  ;  and  this  advantage  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  any  one 
possessing  it  to  neglect  to  profit  by.  His  skill,  as  well  as  his  strength, 
is  part  of  his  stock  in  trade ;  he  has  a  right  to  turn  it  to  the  best  ac- 
count ;  and  one  might  as  well  ask  him  to  lend  half  his  capital  without 
interest,  or  to  work  every  other  day  without  pay,  as  to  leave  his  degree 
of  skill  unestimated  in  bargaining  for  the  price  of  his  services. 

Second.  We  have  a  right  to  our  Mental  Faculties.  They  also  are  a 
part  of  our  means  of  subsistence,  and  we  cannot  be  expected  to  squander 
them.  Yv'e  carry  them  into  the  fair  field  of  free  competition,  and  we 
cannot  be  expected  to  contract  to  employ  them  below  the  highest  market 
price.  The  mental  render  oftentimes  more  valuable  services  than  the 
bodily  faculties,  and  value  received  must  always  be  paid  for.  You  have 
a  pain  in  your  right  shoulder  :  your  nurse  tells  you  it  is  the  rheumatism, 
and  torments  the  part  with  blisters  and  cataplasms.  It  is  all  in  vain : 
the  pain  not  only  increases,  but  your  appetite  leaves  you,  and  you  are 
getting  sick  fast.  You  send  for  a  physician  :  his  keen  sagacity  detects 
at  once  the  source  of  the  distress  :  he  tells  you  that  your  liver  is  dis- 
eased, and  that  you  must  attack  the  enemy  in  his  head-quarters :  he 
writes  the  necessary  directions,  which  you  follow,  and  your  life  is  saved, 


227 

and  your  health,  happiness,  and  usefulness  are  restored.  The  benefit  he 
has  done  you  is  above  all  price,  and  I  will  not  insult  you  so  much  as  to 
believe  you  will  propose  for  the  amount  of  his  fee  the  sum  he  might  have 
earned  by  manual  labor  in  the  few  minutes  he  spent  in  feeling  your 
pulse,  inspecting  your  tongue,  asking  you  two  or  three  questions,  and 
writing  the  prescription.  His  time,  at  day's  Avages,  is  worth  to  him  two 
or  three  cents  :  the  benefit  he  has  done  you,  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view 
merely,  may  be  worth  thousands  of  dollars.  His  fee  must  be  fixed  some- 
where between  these  two  extremes,  according  to  the  proportion  between 
the  supply  of,  and  the  demand  for,  his  particular  species  of  talent.  You 
call  upon  a  lawyer  for  advice  :  you  state  your  case,  and  he  answers,  do 
thus,  and  you  will  secure  your  rights  :  at  present  you  are  taking  the 
wrong  course.  It  is  very  hard  forsooth  that  he  should  charge  five  dollars 
for  two  minutes'  conversation,  when  so  many  people  are  willing  to  talk 
without  pay,  and  can  get  nobody  to  listen  to  them  !  But  if  by  following 
his  advice  you  have  saved  fifty  dollars  which  you  would  otherwise  have 
lost,  is  it  not  reasonable  he  should  share  in  the  profit  he  has  enabled 
you  to  gain  ?  His  knowledge  and  his  wit  are  the  capital  he  trades  on, 
and  his  clients  have  no  right  to  complain  if  he  does  not  give  them  away. 
You  go  to  Doughty  or  to  Fisher  for  one  of  their  magnificent  landscapes  ; 
his  art  embodies  for  you  one  of  the  loveliest  conceptions  of  ideal  beauty  ; 
the  divine  creation  of  his  fancy  is  sent  home  to  decorate  your  parlor,  to 
beguile  your  leisure  moments,  and  to  charm  your  guests.  Would  you 
then  say  to  the  artist,  this  has  occupied  you  but  a  week,  and  is  therefore 
worth  six  dollars,  —  that  will  be  a  high  price,  for  my  neighbor  the  sign- 
painter  would  have  daubed  me  over  the  same  surface  of  canvas  in  half 
a  day,  with  brighter  colors  !  The  man  who  could  entertain  such  an  idea 
would  hardly  deserve  to  have  eyes,  since  it  is  clear  that  he  does  not 
know  how  to  enjoy  the  use  of  them.  Mental  superiority  without  doubt 
is  a  legitimate  source  of  profit  to  its  possessor.  He  has  a  perfect  right 
to  make  the  most  of  it,  and  would  be  unpardonable  if  he  should  neglect 
to  avail  himself  of  the  bounty  of  Providence. 

Some  ideas  which  might  properly  fall  under  this  head  have  been 
anticipated  in  speaking  of  bodily  skill.  Indeed  the  two  points  run  into 
each  other  so  naturally,  that  it  is  impossible  to  keep  them  distinct ;  and 
I  would  observe  here  once  for  all,  that  the  division  of  my  subject  is  not 
philosophically  accurate.  It  is  not  such  as  I  should  have  adopted  if  I 
had  undertaken  to  write  a  treatise  on  political  economy  for  scientific 
men  :  but  it  is  a  convenient  division  for  my  readers,  and  that  is  all  that 
is  necessary  to  my  present  purp'ose.  I  go  on  to  remark,  that  we  have  a 
right —  1.  to  our  Ingenuity.  If  two  overseers  have  the  supervision  of 
two  factories  of  the  same  kind,  and  belonging  to  the  same  owners,  —  if 


228  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

one  of  them  takes  excellent  care  that  every  thing  shall  go  on  regularly, 
and  according  to  the  most  approved  methods  that  have  been  taught  him, 
but  never  deviates  from  the  practice  as  established  when  he  entered  the 
factory;  while  the  other  does  all  this,  and  besides  suffers  not  a  month  to 
pass  without  making  some  alteration  in  the  machinery  or  improvement 
in  the  processes,  which  enables  him  to  turn  out  the  work  better  or  cheaper, 
and  increases  the  profits  of  the  owners  several  hundred  dollars  a  year,  it 
is  clear  not  only  that  they  can  afford  to  pay  him  a  higher  salary,  but  that 
he  has  a  ri^ht  to  demand  it,  a  riorht  which  their  interest  will  make  them 
respect,  because  if  they  do  not  he  will  carry  his  ingenuity  to  a  better 
market.  We  have  a  right  also  —  2.  To  our  Application.  If  we  devote 
our  whole  strength,  talents,  and  time  to  the  business  we  are  engaged  in, 
and  our  whole  thoughts  to  the  interest  of  our  employer,  we  shall  accom- 
plish much  more  than  if  we  go  about  it  in  a  careless,  dilatory  manner, 
and  with  intermitted  exertion.  If  it  is  generally  known  that  it  is  our 
constant  practice  to  do  whatever  our  hands  find  to  do  with  all  our  might, 
our  labor  will  be  sought  after,  and  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  obtain- 
ing that  increased  compensation  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect,  what- 
ever be  our  trade  or  profession. 

Third.  We  have  a  right  to  our  Moral  Faculties.  Whatever  advan- 
tage we  possess  over  otliers  by  the  superiority  of  our  moral  endowments, 
we  have  a  right,  and  we  may  confidently  calculate,  to  enjoy  correspond- 
ing advantages  in  our  intercourse  and  in  all  our  contracts  with  our  fellow 
men.  1.  As  to  Honesty.  If,  my  friend,  by  strict  adherence  under  all 
circumstances  to  the  rule  of  right,  you  have  established  a  character  for 
undeviating  integrity,  you  v/ill  be  trusted  in  offices  and  employed  about 
transactions  which  would  not  be  committed  to  the  hands  of  those  men 
who  have  not  been  tried,  or  who,  having  been  tried,  have  been  found 
wanting.  As  those  occasions  where  honesty  is  an  essential  requisite  in 
an  agent  are  often  of  great  importance,  you  will  have  a  right  to  expect 
that  the  responsibility  which  devolves  upon  you  shall  be  paid  for  as  well 
as  the  labor  you  actually  perform,  ajid  those  who  repose  confidence  in 
you  will  be  quite  as  ready  to  acknowledge  this  claim  as  the  other.  2. 
As  to  honor.  We  may  adhere  to  the  strict  principles  of  justice,  and  yet 
be  so  strenuous  in  exacting  all  that  justice  will  give  us,  and  so  obstinate 
in  refusing  to  do  any  thing  more  in  performance  of  our  obligations  than 
severe  justice  requires  of  us,  as  to  make  it  somewhat  unpleasant  to  deal 
with  us.  If  we  go  further  than  simple  honesty,  and  add  thereto  honor, 
in  the  most  liberal  acceptation  of  the  word,  those  who  transact  business 
with  us  will  not  consider  all  the  precaittions  to  be  necessary  as  to  the 
exact  terms  of  their  contract,  which  they  must  otherwise  take  :  neither 
will  they  feel  so  much  apprehension  for  the  consequences  of  any  inevi- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  229 

table  departure  from  the  letter  of  the  contract.  We  shall  of  course,  other 
things  being  equal,  find  them  more  disposed  to  deal  with  us,  and  on  more 
favorable  terms,  —  so  that  the  right  which  honor  has  to  be  estimated  in 
reckoning  the  worth  of  our  services  is  not  likelj  to  be  disregarded. 

Fourth.  We  have  a  right  to  the  products  of  the  exercise  of  all  our 
faculties.  Not  only  may  we  rightfully  receive  all  the  earnings  of  our 
bodily,  mental,  and  moral  faculties,  at  the  highest  price  we  can  fairly 
obtain  for  their  use,  but  those  earnings  are  ours  to  dispose  of  as  we  will, 
so  long  as  we  do  not  thereby  invade  the  rights  of  any  other  person.  If 
my  labor  yields  me  a  net  income  of  three  hundred  dollars  a  year,  I  have 
a  right  to  expend  this  whole  sum  in  innocent  gratifications,  such  as  I 
may  prefer.  I  say  this,  according  to  the  common  understanding,  for  I 
am  not  going  to  discuss  any  nice  question  of  morals,  —  how  far  it  is  an 
imperative  duty  to  reserve  something  for  future  contingencies.  If  I 
spend  my  whole  income,  as  I  began  the  first  year,  so  I  shall  begin  the 
second,  so  the  third,  and  every  succeeding  year,  till  sickness,  old  age,  or 
death  overtake  me.  I  have  a  right  so  to  do :  it  is  my  own  concern  ; 
and  no  one  else  has  any  right  to  interfere.  If  on  the  other  hand  I 
choose  to  deny  myself  many  present  indulgences,  innocent  in  themselves, 
for  the  sake  of  greater  security  against  future  distress,  or  to  enjoy  the 
same  indulgences  in  greater  ease  and  abundance  by  and  by,  I  have  air 
least  an  equal  right  so  to  do :  this  also  is  my  own  concern,  and  no  one 
can  complain  when  I  reap  the  benefit  of  my  forecast.  Suppose  of  my 
three  hundred  dollars  I  spend  one  hundred  only,  and  lay  up  the  other 
two  ;  may  I  not  justly  derive  what  advantage  I  can  from  this  reserved 
capital  ?  It  is  mine,  —  it  is  the  labor  of  my  hands  or  my  brain,  in 
another  shape,  and  I  have  a  right  either  to  consume  and  enjoy  it  now, 
or  to  retain  it  for  future  use  and  employ  it  as  profitably  as  I  can.  I 
may  eat,  drink,  and  dissipate  it ;  I  may  devote  it  to  display  or  to  com- 
fort; I  may  put  it  out  at  interest;  I  may  speculate  with  it;  I  may  buy 
more  stock  to  work  for  myself  to  better  advantage,  or  I  may  hire  others 
to  work  for  me  and  realize  as  much  profit  as  I  can,  without  fraud  upon 
them,  out  of  the  profits  of  their  labor.  All  these  positions  will  be 
readidy  admitted,  except,  perhaps,  the  last.  It  may  be  said,  for  envy 
sometimes  gives  currency  and  a  plausible  form  to  very  stupid  prejudices, 
what  right  has  one  man  to  grow  rich  by  the?  labor  of  another  ?  The 
answer  is  a  plain  and  conclusive  one,  and  we  ought  all  to  understand  it ; 
because  we  do  not  wish  to  be  tyrannized  over,  nor,  even  when  we  have 
an  opportunity  to  tyrannize  over  others,  neither  do  we  wish  to  be  im- 
posed upon  by  those  who  have  an  interest  in  misrepresenting  our  rights. 
It  is  this :  he  who  employs  the  labor  of  others  profitably,  grows  rich 
from  the  results  of  his  own  labor,  which  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  con- 

20 


230  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

sume  at  once  as  soon  as  they  took  tlie  shape  of  available  funds,  or  to 
hold  and  employ  in  the  best  way.  By  hiring  another  he  not  only  does 
him  no  injury,  but  a  benefit,  since  he  enables  him  to  use  his  faculties  ;  and 
also  benefits  other  workingmen  in  the  same  class  by  increasing  the  de- 
mand for  labor,  and  thereby  helping  to  raise  the  rate  of  wages.  Supj^ose 
ten  young  men,  without  capital,  set  out  in  life  together.  They  have 
learned  a  good  trade,  and  therefore  earn  the  wages  both  of  strength  and 
skill,  say  five  hundred  dollars  a  year,  working  as  journeymen.  Suppose 
A  lives  on  a  hundred  a  year,  and  saves  four  hundred  :  B  spends  three 
hundred  a  year,  and  saves  two  hundred :  the  other  eight  spend  all  they 
receive :  the  master  workman  who  employs  them  clears  a  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year  from  the  proceeds  of  the  labor  of  each  of  his  journeymen. 
At  the  end  of  their  first  year  A  has  four  hundred  dollars,  B  two  hundred, 
the  other  eight  nothing.  A  commences  business  for  himself,  his  capital 
being  sufficient  to  furnish  him  stock  and  tools.  He  earns  the  same 
wages  as  before,  and  also  clears  the  profit  his  employer  made  on  his 
production :  this  year  therefore  he  makes  six  hundred,  of  which  he 
saves  five  hundred  dollars.  B  saves  two  hundred  as  before  ;  the  rest 
nothing.  At  the  end  of  the  second  year  they  stand  thus :  A  nine 
hundred,  B  four  hundred;  the  other  eight  nothing.  Next  year,  A 
hires  a  hand  to  assist  him,  and  at  the  same  rate  makes  seven  hundred 
dollars,  —  saves  six  hundred.  B  sets  up  for  himself;  makes  six  hundred, 
saves  three  hundred  dollars.  At  the  end  of  the  third  year  their  capital 
stands,  A  fifteen  hundred,  B  seven  hundred,  other  eight  nothing.  Next 
year  A  hires  another  hand,  and  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  year  they 
stand,  A  $2200,  B  $1000.  Now  B  can  hire  a  hand  and  A  hires  four ; 
and  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  year  their  capitals  will  be,  A  $3100,  B  $1400. 
And  so,  if  each  takes  another  hand  as  often  as  he  adds  four  hundred 
dollars  to  his  capital,  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  year,  A  $4200,  B  $1900. 
End  of  seventh  year,  A  $5600,  B  $2500.  Eighth  year,  A  $7400,  B 
$3300.  Ninth  year,  A  $9600,  B  4000.  Tenth  year,  A  $12,400,  B 
$5200.  Every  year,  as  the  accumulation  goes  on,  the  disparity  between 
rigid  economy  and  moderate  prudence  will  be  greater  and  greater.  It 
would  be  very  unreasonable  to  expect  that  these  two  fortunate  econo- 
mists would  restrict  their  exj^enses  to  precisely  the  same  amount,  after 
they  find  themselves  possessed  of  these  handsome  little  fortunes,  which 
we  allowed  them  on  their  entrance  into  active  life  empty-handed ;  but 
the  greater  facility  and  advantage  with  which  their  business  operations 
will  go  on,  after  they  trade  on  a  convenient  capital,  will  quite  counter- 
balance the  gradual  increase  of  their  expenses,  so  that,  on  the  whole, 
our  calculation  may  fairly  be  continued  on  the  same  principles  that  have 
governed  us  thus  far.     At  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  year  then,  A  will 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  231 

have  $40,900,  and  B  $17,300.  At  the  end  of  the  twentieth  year,  A 
will  have  a  capital  of  $127,700,  and  B  of  $53,800.  It  is  needless  to 
carry  the  comparison  further.  At  the  age  of  forty-one  years,  if  they 
choose  so  to  do,  these  two  workingmen  may  retire  from  labor  with  a 
splendid  opulence,  live  according  to  their  hking  on  a  part  of  their  income, 
and  perceive  their  fortune  growing  as  they  advance  in  years  from  the 
addition  of  the  remainder.  If  they  choose  to  continue  their  career  of 
industry  and  frugahty  for  twenty  years  more,  they  may  amass,  A  $4,000,- 
000,  or  even,  (for  if  we  include  the  fractions  we  have  all  along  thrown 
out  of  our  reckoning  it  w^ill  make  that  difference,)  $5,000,000,  and  B 
somewhere  between  $1,750,000  and  $2,000,000,  according  as  w^e  include 
or  reject  the  small  fractional  excesses  each  year.  This  immense  dif- 
ference between  the  two  totals  arises  from  the  small  difference  in  their 
savings  of  $200  annually.  At  the  end  of  the  twenty  or  the  forty  years 
their  eight  companions  in  labor  have  equally  nothing,  and  those  of  them 
who  survive,  if  sickness  has  overtaken  them,  must  be  looked  for  in  the 
poor-house.  Now  by  employing  capital  to  such  vast  amount  profitably 
to  themselves,  both  A  and  B  have  done  a  benefit  to  society,  for  they 
have  produced  something  which  society  wanted,  at  a  fair  price,  or  else 
society  would  not  have  bought  it  and  paid  them  for  it.  They  have 
benefited  the  whole  laboring  class,  for,  by  taking  the  labor  of  several 
thousand  men  out  of  the  market,  they  have  left  the  demand  for  labor 
bearing  a  greater  proportion  to  the  supply  of  it,  than  would  have  been 
the  case  if  they  had  saved  nothing  and  hired  nobody,  and  consequently 
they  have  raised  the  rate  of  wages.  They  have  benefited  those  whom 
they  employed;  for  they  have  given  permanent  occupation,  at  wages 
higher  than  the  market  price  would  otherwise  have  been,  to  several 
thousand  men  who  might  otherwise  have  been  part  of  their  time  at  least 
without  employment.  All  that  they  have  belongs  to  them  rightfully ; 
for  they  have  not  received  a  dollar  for  which  they  did  not  return  an 
equivalent,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  what  was  worth  more  than  a 
dollar  to  the  person  with  whom  they  made  the  exchange.  To  whom 
then  have  they  done  any  conceivable  wrong  or  injury  ?  To  no  one.  On 
the  contrary  they  have  dispensed  blessings  with  a  liberal  hand,  and, 
while  they  have  been  reaping  this  harvest  of  wealth  and  plenty  them- 
selves, have  scattered  wealth  and  plenty  abundantly  around  them.  Let 
it  be  said,  "  No  one  has  a  right  to  hoard  :  they  should  have  circulated 
their  money."  This  is  precisely  what  they  have  done.  Every  dollar 
which  they  saved  they  have  caused  to  circulate  many  times  over,  always 
stimulating  new  production ;  whereas  had  they  squandered  it  as  soon  as 
earned,  they  could  have  circulated  it  but  once.  Where  the  spenthrift 
"  circulates"  hundreds  of  dollars,  the  miser,  if  he  takes  the  most  effectual 


232  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

road  to  acquisition,  "  circulates  "  Imndreds  of  thousands.  Grant,  if  you 
insist  on  it,  that  he  can  take  no  pleasure  in  his  accumulating  treasures  :* 
he  will  deny  it ;  but  suppose  it  to  be  so,  the  worst  that  you  can  then 
affirm  of  him  is,  that  he  has  made  himself  a  victim  for  the  general  good 
of  the  community.  The  cases  I  have  supposed  are  however  extreme 
cases.  Few  Avill  be  disposed  to  make  themselves  victims  to  increase 
the  amount  of  business  done  in  the  world,  because  it  is  a  kind  of  self- 
devotion  that  meets  with  but  few  to  applaud  it.  Seldom,  too,  will  it 
happen  that  a  branch  of  business  admitting  of  almost  indefinite  enlarge- 
ment, an  uninterrupted  run  of  good  fortune  in  that  business,  an  oppor- 
tunity to  begin  at  an  early  age,  and  a  long  life  without  intervals  of  sick- 
ness will  combine  to  favor  a  man  possessing  the  self-denial  and  perse- 
verance with  the  talents  for  managing  large  establishments  necessary 
to  realize  the  suppositions  I  have  made.  So  far  as  these  requisites 
concur,  in  the  same  proportion  these  results  will  follow;  and  where  the 
appropriate  character  is  found,  in  a  certain  degree  they  almost  inevitably 
follow ;  so  much  so  indeed  that  it  has  well  been  said,  "the  way  to  wealth 
is  as  plain  as  the  road  to  market,"  and  the  wages  of  well-earned  capital 
may  not  unfitly  be  termed  the  wages  of  perseverance  and  self-denial. 
Though  few  may  enjoy  the  opportunities  of  Peel  the  manufacturer  of 
Manchester,  or  Gerard  the  merchant  of  Philadelphia,  the  lesson  of  their 
success  need  not  be  lost  on  any  who  aspire  to  control  large  masses 
of  property,  and  direct  the  industry  of  multitudes  in  the  most  profitable 
channels.  The  examination  I  have  gone  through,  though  plain  enough 
for  the  capacities  of  children,  shows  conclusively  that  we  have  a  right 
not  only  to  the  direct  wages  of  all  our  faculties,  but  also  to  the  best  use 
we  can  make  of  those  wages ;  and  a  little  reflection  will  show  us  that 
we  need  not  be  ashamed  to  exercise  that  vight.  There  is  nothing  dis- 
honorable in  foresight  and  prudence.  There  is  nothing  honorable, 
magnanimous,  or  generous  in  preparing  ourselves  to  live  miserably,  and 
to  abandon  our  families  to  beggary  and  wretchedness  when  we  leave 
them.  No !  let  us  make  the  best  use  of  all  our  faculties  and  all  their 
products  always  —  for, 

II.      We  have  a  perfect  kigiit  to  our  time. 

The  manner  in  which  we  divide  our  time  is,  ip  other  words,  the  por- 
tions in  which  we  dispose  of  our  faculties  ;  and  as  we  have  a  right  to 
these  last,  we  have  a  right  to  dispose   of  their  services  in  longer  or 

*  Sec  the  character  of  "  Paul "  in  Miss  Martincau's  beautiful  tale  of  the  Hill  and 
the  Valley  —  No.  2  of  her  "  Illustrations  of  Political  Economy/'  —  little  books  of  in- 
trinsic excellence.  She  has  given  intense  interest  to  a  very  dry  subject.  TJiese  stories 
arc  as  instructive  as  they  are  fascinating.  Tlicir  sterling  merit  sliould  recommend 
thcni  to  a  place  in  every  library. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  333 

shorter  portions,  to  give  them  away,  or  to  keep  them  to  ourselves.  Our 
time,  then,  is  our  own,  to  devote  to  the  service  of  others,  in  such  portions 
as  we  please,  with  or  Vvdthout  an  equivalent,  or  directly  to  our  own  con- 
venience, comfort,  or  improvement.  We  have  a  right  to  make  the  best 
bargain  for  it  with  those  who  employ  us.  We  have  a  right  to  make  the 
best  bargain  for  it  with  those  whom  we  employ.  If  we  ask  miore  than 
the  highest  market  price  for  it,  when  we  have  it  to  sell,  we  must  not  be 
surprised  if  nobody  is  willing  to  buy.  If  we  offer  less  than  the  lowest 
market  price  for  it,  when  we  wish  to  procure  it,  we  must  not  be  surprised 
if  no  one  will  furnish  it  to  us.  No  one  has  any  authority  to  dictate  the 
price  to  the  buyer  or  the  seller,  it  must  be  settled  by  agreement  between 
them  ;  and  the  competition  between  the  buyers  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
sellers  on  the  other  will  induce  them  to  fix  it  at  a  point  where  both 
parties  can  profit  by  the  bargain.  We  have  a  right  to  sell  our  time  for 
ten  hours  every  day,  for  twelve,  for  fifteen,  for  more  or  for  less,  to  any- 
body that  will  buy  it.  But  if  v/e  offer  to  contract  to  labor  ten  hours  a 
day  and  nobody  wants  less  than  twelve,  we  must  not  wonder  that  nobody 
accepts  our  offer.  We  have  carried  into  the  market  a  commodity  that 
is  not  saleable,  and  we  cannot  force  people  to  buy  it.  Still  less  can  we 
complain  if  those  who  are  willing  to  buy  ten  hours,  refuse  to  give  us  the 
price  of  twelve.  An  hour's  labor  is  a  marketable  article,  bearing  certain 
prices  according  to  quality,  and  we  might  as  well  find  fault  with  the 
broker,  because  when  we  carry  him  ten  doubloons  we  cannot  obtain  for 
them  the  value  of  twelve.  If  v/e  have  no  other  estate  than  our  faculties 
and  our  time,  we  must  be  willing  to  sell  time  enough  to  support  our 
families,  and  to  be  laying  by  something  against  a  wet  day  ;  for  he  who 
does  not  provide  for  his  household  hath  denied  the  faith  of  all  honest 
workingmen,  and  is  not  only  as  bad  as,  but,  as  St.  Paul  says,  a  good  deal 
worse,  than  an  infidel.  What  time  is  left  after  this  provision,  you  have 
a  right  to  devote  either  to  increase  your  earnings,  to  present  enjoyment, 
or  to  improve  your  education.  And  now  I  anticipate  a  difficulty  which 
is  arising  in  the  minds  of  many  of  my  friends.  How  can  we  improve 
our  education,  you  say,  when  we  have  no  time  left,  after  providing  for 
our  families  ?  You  are  mistaken,  my  friends.  Benjamin  Franklin  found 
time  enough.  Be  frugal  of  your  time,  and  you  have  enough  for  all  uses. 
After  deducting  the  time  necessary  for  sleep,  for  meals,  and  recreation, 
you  may  have  sixteen  hours  left  to  dispose  of.  You  may  labor  at  your 
trade  the  whole  of  this  time,  but  will  your  constitution  hold  out  at  this 
rate  many  years  ?  Can  you  do  as  much  in  every  hour  of  the  sixteen, 
as  you  could  in  every  hour  of  twelve  hours  a  day  ?  And  above  all,  could 
you  not,  in  one  year,  laboring  twelve  hours,  and  devoting  four  hours  a 
day  to  studying  the  principles  and  rules  of  your  trade,  inquiring  into  the 

20* 


234  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

most  approved  modes  of  practice,  and  informing  yourself  of  other  matters 
connected  with  your  pursuits,  so  improve  your  judgment  and  skill,  that 
twelve  hours  of  your  labor  will  be  worth  more,  and  so  yield  you  more 
than  sixteen  hours  now  ?  These  questions  deserve  your  serious  consid- 
eration, for  you  are  to  decide  them  for  yourself,  and  the  character  of 
your  future  life  will  very  much  depend  on  the  decision.  If  I  may  not 
venture  to  advise  how  much  time  you  should  spare  for  these  purposes,  I 
will  at  least  suggest  the  wisdom  of  appropriating  enough  to  make  per- 
ceptible progress  in  your  improvement,  whether  it  be  a  half  hour,  an 
hour,  two  hours,  or  four.  If  your  circumstances  are  such  that  you  think 
you  can  spare  but  half  an  hour  a  day,  so  much  the  more  important  is  it 
that  you  make  a  proper  choice  of  your  books,  and  other  means  of  im- 
provement. Half  an  hour's  reading  of  the  best  of  books  will  do  you 
more  good  than  twelve  hours'  reading  of  books  taken  at  random.  Get 
some  intelligent  friend  to  assist  you  in  the  selection  ;  adhere  steadily  to 
your  plan  whatever  it  be  ;  and  even  if  you  allot  but  half  an  hour  on 
working  days  to  study,  yet  if  this  is  well  managed,  and  if  you  make  a 
good  use  of  your  Sundays,  you  will  be  astonished  at  the  end  of  the  year 
when  you  look  back  and  measure  your  intellectual  and  moral  advance- 
ment. It  is  the  prerogative  of  man  to  be  continually  rising  higher  and 
higher  in  the  scale  of  being ;  and  you  have  a  right  to  share  in  the  per- 
fectibility which  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  your  species.  Set 
apart  to  yourself  therefore  so  much  of  your  time  that  you  may  every  day 
grow  wiser  and  better.  Let  the  reservation  though  small  be  sacred,  and 
you  will  not  only  accomplish  the  objects  directly  aimed  at,  to  a  greater 
extent  than  you  would  have  supposed  possible,  but  you  will  be  none  the 
poorer  for  it  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and  after  a  few  years  you  will  find 
yourself  manifold  richer.  As  time  is  money,  you  have  a  right  to  turn 
every  moment  to  account.  No  one  can  ask  you  to  give  it  away  ;  it  is 
improvident  folly  to  throw  it  away.  If  it  is  all  you  have  now,  make  the 
most  of  it,  and  in  a  very  few  years  you  will  not  want  for  capital  in  any 
other  shape  you  may  prefer. 

III.  We  have  a  right  to  wages,  at  the  Jnghest  rate,  and  they  should 
he  steady  and  remunerating. 

First.  We  have  a  right  to  wages,  at  the  highest  rate,  for  our  strength, 
talents,  fidelity,  capital,  and  time.  This  I  have  shown  at  length,  in  speaking 
of  the  right  we  have  to  use  our  own  faculties,  and  I  shall  only  remark 
further,  in  this  place,  that  all  combinations  forcibly  to  raise  or  to  lower 
the  rate  of  the  wages  accruing  under  either  of  these  denominations,  are 
direct  and  inexcusable  infringements  of  this  right.  This  may  at  first 
sight  seem  paradoxical,  but  upon  a  closer  inspection  it  will  cease  to  ap- 
pear so,  since  it  will  be  evident  that  a  forcible  raising  of  one  kind  of 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  235 

wages  is  in  everj  instance  a  forcible  depression  of  some  other  kinl. 
Where  several  men  cooperate  in  different  ways  to  produce  an  article  of 
value,  the  price  of  this  article  will  be  fixed  by  the  proportion  between 
the  supply  and  the  demand  in  the  market.  This  price  is  the  sum  that  is 
to  be  distributed  among  the  producers,  and  the  question  is  in  v/hat  pro- 
portions shall  it  be  divided  ?  It  is  manifest  that  if  one  man's  share  is 
increased,  the  funds  out  of  which  the  others  arc  to  take  their  shares  is 
diminished,  and  if  this  is  done  forcibly,  it  is  done  wrongfully,  for  their 
rights  are  invaded.  If  the  strength  which  performs  the  manual  labor 
takes  mow  than  its  share  of  wages,  the  talents  which  direct  the  opera- 
tion, the  capital  which  furnishes  the  material  must  get  less  than  theirs. 
If  talents  claim  more  than  their  due  allowance,  the  wages  of  labor  or  of 
capital  must  be  stinted.  If  capital  arrogates  more  than  a  just  compen- 
sation, both  labor  and  talents  must  feel  the  deficiency.  I  do  not  mean 
that  any  such  derangement  of  the  just  proportion  between  the  different 
kinds  of  wages  can  be  permanent.  It  certainly  cannot,  because  it  will 
work  its  own  cure.  The  party  whose  rights  are  invaded  w^ill  v/ithdraw 
from  the  business,  and  then  those  that  remain  will  find  it  impossible  to 
go  on.  If  the  master  screws  dowai  the  rate  of  wages  for  his  journey- 
men below  the  average  price  of  labor  in  similar  trades,  they  will  abandon 
his  service  on  the  first  opportunity  they  can  get  to  enter  a  better.  Of 
course,  he  must  raise  his  prices  or  stop  his  works.  If  talents  are  not 
paid  in  one  pursuit,  they  Avill  withdraw^  from  it,  and  attempt  another. 
Business  which  was  lucrative  before  their  withdrawal  will  become  a 
losing  concern  after  it,  and  must  soon  run  to  a  catastrophe  and  conclu- 
sion. Of  course,  both  the  capitalist  and  the  laborer  will  be  glad  to  call 
them  back  again  and  compensate  their  services  at  nearer  their  true  value. 
If  a  combination  has  raised  the  wages  of  labor  and  talent  so  high  as  to 
reduce  the  wages  of  capital  below  the  average  rate  of  interest,  the  capi- 
talist must  wind  up  the  concern  and  look  out  for  a  more  profitable  in- 
vestment. Of  course  the  operatives,  both  manual  and  talented,  are 
thrown  out  of  employment,  and  left  without  it  until  they  discover  their 
mistake,  and  return  to  the  just  price  of  their  services.  It  makes  no 
difference  to  the  argument,  whether  the  original  undertaker  winds  up 
the  concern  at  once,  or  whether  he  sells  out,  at  a  loss,  to  a  second  owner, 
who  sells  again  at  a  loss,  to  a  third,  and  so  on.  The  result  is  the  same  ; 
if  the  operatives  adhere  to  their  combination,  the  concern  must  be 
wound  up.  In  the  one  case  this  happens  suddenly  ;  in  the  other  through 
several  intermediate  stages  of  decay.  Not  only  therefore  has  every 
class  of  producers  a  right  to  the  highest  wages  it  can  earn,  but  it  is  im- 
portant to  each  class  that  the  right  of  every  other  should  be  equally  re- 
spected with  its  own. 


236  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

Second.  We  liave  a  right  to  wages  that  shall  be  steady  and  not  preca- 
rious. Those  who  are  willing  to  work  always,  deserve  to  find  constant  em- 
ployment, —  steady  in  duration,  —  with  compensation  steady  in  amount. 
"We  shall  find  this  an  essential  condition  to  our  prosperity.  If  we  suffer 
intervals  of  labor  to  be  interrupted  by  intervals  of  idleness,  we  not  only 
lose  the  time  which  is  unused  and  which  in  fact  is  so  much  money,  but 
we  are  in  danger  of  forming  habits  detrimental  to  our  future  industry. 
Besides,  it  is  not  in  our  nature  to  do  nothing,  and  when  beneficial  activ- 
ity is  suspended,  harmful  activity  will  begin.  When  we  are  not  earn- 
ing Ave  shall  be  spending,  and  weeks  of  unproductive  time  will  dissij^ate 
the  accumulations  of  months  of  the  hardest  and  best  directed  diligence. 
When  we  have  time  to  kill,  it  dies  hard,  and  we  are  apt  to  spend  all  our 
ammunition  before  we  think  of  counting  the  shot  left  in  the  locker. 
Many  a  man  has  gone  to  work  with  zeal  and  prudence  and  fair  pros- 
pects ;  but  an  unlucky  interval  has  come  over  him,  and  made  an  end  of 
his  little  beginnings  of  capital.  Again  he  has  commenced  with  a  store 
of  good  resolutions,  and  in  an  evil  hour,  being  left  with  time  on  his 
hands,  has  miscarried  again.  If  wages  vary  often  in  their  amount,  the 
consequences  will  be  the  same  in  kind  though  less  fatal  in  degree.  We 
shall  be  apt  to  reckon  our  expenses  and  base  all  our  other  calculations 
upon  the  expectation  of  larger  receipts  than  we  shall  ever  realize.  Be- 
sides, no  sooner  are  our  plans  formed,  than  a  change  unsettles  them,  so 
that  we  can  never  persevere  in  any  one  course  :  and  as  idleness  is  the 
original  sin  and  the  fruitful  mother  of  all  iniquities  and  backsliding^,  so 
perseverance,  to  a  man  who  means  to  rise  in  the  Avorld,  is  the  golden 
virtue,  and  the  blessed  parent  of  all  excellence  and  hope.  Better  then 
is  it  on  all  accounts,  to  enjoy  the  certainty  of  even  moderate  wages  at  a 
rate  not  liable  to  fluctuation,  than  to  venture  in  the  lottery  of  an  un- 
stable business  for  high  wages,  liable  at  any  moment  to  fall,  and  preca- 
rious also  in  duration.  Our  right  then  to  wages  steady  and  permanent  is 
not  like  the  themes  of  demagogues,  something  to  be  declaimed  about  in 
public,  and  jested  about  in  private,  but  a  right  to  be  prized,  defended, 
and  improved  ;  and  all  laws  intended  to  force  capital,  or  talent,  or  labor, 
out  of  one  pursuit  into  another,  thereby  producing  ruinous  fluctuations  ; 
and  all  combinations  to  raise  violently  one  kind  of  wages,  thereby  pro- 
ducing a  corresponding  diminution  in  other  kinds,  are  highhanded  viola- 
tions of  this  our  undeniable  right. 

Third.  We  have  a  right  to  remunerating  wages.  Excuse  me  if  I  some- 
times repeat  ideas  :  my  division  of  the  subject  is  not  a  philosophical,  but 
a  popular  one.  We  who  produce  every  thing  have  a  right  to  secure  all 
that  we  honestly  can.  Every  one  who  concurs  in  production  owns  a 
portion  of  the  product;  and  should  not  give  up  his  lien  —  his  hold  upon 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  237 

it  —  till  he  has  received  an  equivalent.  This  rule  of  itself  would  be 
sufficient  to  govern  the  distribution  of  v/ealth,  though  many  cases  under 
it  would  be  extremely  complicated,  especially  the  cases  of  immaterial 
products,  such  as  health,  contentment,  happiness,  intelligence,  virtue. 
Those  who  contribute  to  produce  these,  can  seldom  be  fully  compensated 
by  money,  because  the  nature  of  their  services  is  such  that  in  some  re- 
spects they  cannot  be  measured  by  any  pecuniary  standard,  but  they 
have  intellectual  and  moral  compensations  corresponding  to  the  nature 
of  the  services,  and  which  make  up  for  this  deficiency.  Where  the 
service  can  be  measured  in  dollars  and  cents,  it  is  easy  to  estimate  the 
just  compensation.  The  value  of  your  work  to  your  employer,  being 
careful  not  to  overlook  the  claims  of  any  of  your  fellow  joint  producers, 
is  the  amount  of  compensation  you  have  a  right  to  expect.  Either  there 
is  something  radically  wrong  in  the  constitution  of  society,  or  this  com- 
pensation will  be  sufficient  to  enable  every  producer,  with  proper  care 
and  pains,  to  irai)rove  his  situation  in  life :  for  those  who  create  all 
wealth,  have  certainly  a  right  to  a  share  of  it,  —  a  right  to  be  forfeited 
only  through  their  own  misconduct.  In  those  countries  where  the  whole 
system  of  things  is  artificial,  where  injudicious  and  mischievous  laws 
force  enterprise  and  industry  from  the  most  productive  occupations  to 
those  which  are  less  so,  the  producers  are  obliged  to  maintain  great 
standing  armies  to  secure  their  own  slavery,  and  a  most  complicated,  un- 
natural, and  costly  machinery  of  government  to  prevent  the  will  of  the 
working  classes  from  being  effectually  promulgated.  There,  from  the 
weight  of  taxes  necessary  to  sustain  the  fabric  of  magnificent  misery, 
from  the  checks  and  trammels  which  their  innumerable  regulations  im- 
pose upon  the  exertion  of  the  faculties,  production  of  every  kind  is  first 
impeded,  and  then  imperfectly  rewarded.  Every  contributor  to  produc- 
tion feels  the  pressure.  The  interest  of  capital  is  reduced  to  the  lowest 
rate.  Though  extraordinary  talent,  in  a  few  fortunate  instances,  may 
meet  with  extraordinary  success,  yet  talent  in  general  is  poorly  paid. 
Labor,  the  most  important  interest  of  all,  because  it  concerns  the  great- 
est number,  is  poorest  })aid  of  all.  In  the  general  struggle,  while  every 
class  of  cooperating  producers  strives  to  keep  its  own  vrages  as  nearly 
up  to  the  standard  of  remuneration  as  possible,  and  to  throw  the  inevi- 
table burden  from  their  own  shoulders  upon  others,  those  will  suffer 
most  who  are  least  able  to  defend  themselves,  and  in  the  countries  of 
which  I  speak,  the  laborers,  from  their  general  ignorance  and  improvi- 
dence, have  hitherto  composed  this  class.  Tens  of  thousands  work  hard 
and  long  for  a  pittance  just  sufficient  to  keep  soul  and  body  together; 
and  a  scanty  harvest,  a  glut  of  the  market,  or  any  other  derangement  of 
their  artificial  system  consigns  them  in  countless  multitudes  to  pauper- 


238  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES   AND   WEITINGS 

ism  or  beggary,  perhaps  to  starvation.  The  laws  which  produced,  and 
which  perpetuate  this  state  of  things  are  infringements  of  their  natural 
rights,  and,  so  soon  as  education  shall  give  them  the  power  of  knowledge^ 
they  will  cast  off  the  shackles  which  have  so  long  restricted  their 
energies.  Here,  however,  and  let  us  be  grateful  for  the  blessing,  the 
rights  of  all  classes  of  producers  stand  on  an  equal  footing,  and  he  that 
begins  in  one,  may  easily,  if  nature  has  fitted  him  for  it,  transfer  his  ser- 
vices to  either  of  the  others.  The  wages  of  labor  are  high  enough 
among  us  to  allow  the  laborer  time  for  the  acquisition  of  skill  and  infor- 
mation. The  wages  of  labor  and  skill  when  he  earns  both,  will  enable 
him  to  accumulate  capital  with  considerable  rapidity  ;  and  the  wages  of 
labor,  skill,  and  capital  combined,  being  all  at  high  rates  among  us,  will 
soon,  if  he  has  a  tolerable  degree  of  economy  and  prudence,  place  him 
in  an  independent  affluence,  and  leave  him  at  liberty  to  choose  his  sub- 
sequent pursuits  according  to  his  fancy.  Not  only,  therefore,  have  we  a 
right  to  remunerating  wages,  but  it  is  a  right  of  which  we  enjoy  at  pres- 
ent the  full  and  undisturbed  possession. 

IV.  We  have  a  right  to  that  education  which  will  best  qualify  us  to 
discharge  all  our  duties  to  ourselves  and  to  society.  The  full  considera- 
tion of  this  subject  I  defer  to  a  future  letter,  and  at  present  I  will  only 
offer  a  few  remarks  on  the  definition,  importance,  source,  and  means  of 
such  an  education. 

First.  The  defnition.  By  education  I  mean  not  merely  the  instruction 
or  the  training  which  a  child  receives  while  at  school,  or  while  under  the 
immediate  care  of  its  parents,  but  the  combined  effect  of  all  the  circum- 
stances to  whose  infiuence  he  is  subjected  through  life.  All  that  goes 
to  form  the  man,  to  develop  or  to  modify  his  original  character,  to  work 
any  change  whatever  in  the  natural,  innate  disposition  and  force  of  his 
faculties  and  temper,  makes  part  of  his  education.  The  modification  of 
the  character  by  the  circumstances  which  act  on  it  is  of  three  sorts  — 
intellectual,  moral,  and  physical.  1.  The  intellectual  character  is  modi- 
fied not  only  by  the  greater  or  less  amount  of  information  received,  but 
by  the  discipline  which  the  mind  itself  undergoes,  and  the  habits  of 
thought  and  action  it  thereby  acquires.  So  great  is  the  effect  of  disci- 
pline, that  opposite  courses  of  management  will  make,  of  the  same  ma- 
terials, dolts,  but  little  removed  from  idiocy,  or  poets,  orators,  statesmen, 
and  philosophers.  Society  has  the  power  greatly  to  increase  the  favor- 
able, and  to  diminish  the  unfavorable  influences  which  operate  on  the 
intellect  of  its  members,  and  those  who  labor  for  society  have  a  right  to 
expect  that  this  power  will  be  exerted  to  the  utmost  in  behalf  of  them- 
selves and  their  families.  2.  The  moral  character  is  modified  by  the 
tastes  and  habits  of  feeling,  imbibed  from  the  situation  in  which  one  is 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  239 

placed,  contracted  from  the  examples  set  before  him,  countenanced  by 
public  opinion  about  him,  or  deliberately  adopted  and  fostered  from  a 
just  conviction  of  his  own  true  interests.  So  great  is  the  eifect  of  moral 
culture,  that  on  this  it  mainly  depends  whether  your  sons  shall  be  ten- 
ants of  an  almshouse  or  a  prison,  and  candidates  for  the  gallows,  or  be 
ornaments  of  the  walks  of  life  in  w^hicli  they  move,  fortunate  and  happy 
themselves,  and  benefactors  and  favorites  of  their  associates.  Every 
man  w^ho  does  his  duty  to  the  community  has  a  right  to  demand  that  so 
far  as  society  can  prevent  it,  no  deleterious  influence  shall  be  suffered  to 
approach  him  or  those  dependent  on  him,  that  virtue  shall  be  counte- 
nanced and  had  in  honor,  vice  discouraged  and  despised ;  in  other  words, 
that  he  and  his  family  shall  receive  from  society  the  best  possible  moral 
education.  3.  The  physical  character  is  modified  by  the  care  we  take  of 
our  health,  and  the  degree  and  variety  of  exercise  we  give  our  limbs 
and  organs.  The  effect  of  training  in  this  respect  is  wonderful,  is  in- 
deed almost  inconceivable.  Compare  the  movements  of  a  bloated  and 
tottering  victim  of  debauchery  with  those  of  an  accomplished  rider  at 
the  circus,  ballancer,  or  rope-dancer,  —  a  dray-horse  and  a  racer  are  not 
so  unlike,  —  a  lap-dog  and  a  hound  are  scarcely  more  dissiniilar,  —  you 
w^ould  hardly  believe  they  belonged  to  the  same  species.  We  have  a 
right,  every  one  of  us,  to  that  degree  of  physical  education  which  will 
most  effectually  aid  us  in  the  grand  object,  —  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness. 

Seco7id.  The  importance  of  education  is  apparent  from  the  remarks 
just  made  explanatory  of  the  definition.  It  cannot  be  overrated,  for  it 
is  essential.  I  do  not  say  the  degree,  but  the  excellence  of  a  man's  edu- 
cation determines  his  capacity  for  happiness  and  for  usefulness.  Man 
without  education  is  the  Hottentot  or  the  New  Hollander.  Educate 
him,  and  you  produce  the  Demosthenes,  the  Chatham,  the  Plato,  the 
Channing,  the  Scott,  the  Napoleon,  the  Thorwaldsen,  beings  capable  of 
conceiving  in  their  own  bosoms  and  of  exciting  in  others  all  that  can  en- 
noble, dignify,  delight,  persuade,  or  convince  their  fellow-creatures. 
These  master  spirits  have  undoubtedly  native  energies  superior  to  the 
ordinary  level  of  intellect,  but  it  is  education  that  decides  wdiether  they 
shall  be  exerted  for  good  or  for  evil,  that  can  change  the  ferocity  of  the 
savage  into  the  benevolent  zeal  of  the  philanthropist,  that  characterizes 
mental  power  as  the  talent  of  an  angel  or  the  capacity  of  a  fiend.  Edu- 
cation, therefore,  since  it  is  to  make  a  man  wdiatever  he  is  through  time 
and  through  eternity,  cannot  engross  too  large  a  share  of  the  public 
attention. 

Third.  The  source  from  whence  must  proceed  the  means  of  defray- 
ing the  expense  of  that  education  to  which  all  industrious  citizens  have 


240  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

an  equal  rigiit,  must  be  the  public  treasury.  The  main  object  of  govern- 
ment is  the  protection  of  persons  and  property,  and  this  object  will  be 
more  effectually  secured  by  the  general  education  of  the  people,  than  by 
any  penal  code,  however  rigidly  enforced.  Again,  the  people  cannot  be 
intelligent  and  moral  unless  they  are  educated,  and  free  institutions  can- 
not sustain  themselves,  except  where  the  people  are  intelligent  and 
moral ;  a  system  of  free  education,  therefore,  is  an  indispensable  auxili- 
ary to  free  intitutions.  The  common  good  requires  that  we  should  all 
be  educated  ;  some  of  us  have  not  the  means  to  educate  ourselves  ;  we 
have  a  right  therefore  to  be  educated  at  the  expense  of  the  public. 
Perhaps  the  ingenuity  of  man  cannot  devise  a  surer  and  safer  way  of 
doing  this,  than  that  of  empowering  the  little  democratic  corporations  — 
the  towns  —  to  tax  themselves  to  support  free  schools  ;  not  that  these 
schools  are  at  present  all  that  we  ought  to  make  them,  —  but  of  that  by 
and  by,  when  I  come  to  speak  of  our  duties.  So  much  education,  as 
for  the  general  purposes  of  society,  it  is  essential  that  every  one  of  its 
members  should  possess,  we  have  each  of  us  a  right  to  be  furnished  with 
the  means  of  obtaining,  at  the  public  expense.  And  what  are  those 
means  ? 

Fourth.  The  means  of  obtaining  an  education  are  exceedingly  vari- 
ous. People  talk  about  a  self-educated  man  as  if  he  vfcre  a  miracle, 
but  what  man  that  is  educated  at  all  is  not  self-educated  ?  It  is  only  our 
own  application  that  can  make  any  means  effectual,  and  persevering  ap- 
plication will  make  almost  any  means  answer  a  good  end.  A  man  does 
not  imbibe  learning  by  passing  through  a  college,  just  as  a  sponge  sucks 
up  the  fluid  into  wdiich  you  dip  it.  If  you  were  carried  into  a  gymna- 
sium and  laid  on  a  cushion  an  hour  every  day,  that  would  not  make  you 
a  formidable  wrestler.  The  faculties,  whether  of  the  body  or  mind,  are 
strengthened  by  exercise,  and  what  we  want  can  be  no  more  than  this, 
instruction  in  the  first  rudiments  of  knowledge,  opportunities  to  use 
these  rudiments  in  acquiring  further  information,  occasions  to  excite  us 
to  the  exercise  of  our  faculties,  and  materials  on  which  to  employ  them. 
These  means  the  public  must  furnish ;  the  work  we  must  do  for  our- 
selves. The  rudiments  of  knowledge,  and  some  facility  in  carrying  on 
investigations  by  means  of  them,  we  may  learn  at  school;  and  if  we  could 
be  taught  there  the  habit  of  inquiry  and  research,  the  school  would  have 
done  as  much  as  can  be  expected  from  it.  The  Lyceum  will  afford  op- 
portunities of  strengthening  our  faculties  by  easy  and  frequent  trials 
of  their  pow^er  in  friendly  contests,  and  to  acquire  general  views  and 
connected  details  respecting  the  subjects  lectured  on,  and  to  form  habits 
of  systematical  examination  and  methodical  arrangement,  if  we  are 
willing  to  take  our  turn  in  the  useful,  no  less  than  laborious  task  of  pre- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  241 

paring  lectures.  The  Lyceum  has  strong  claims  to  be  supported  at  the 
common  expense,  but  as  it  is  not  wise  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the  govern- 
ment to  do  what  can  be  done  better,  and  cheaper,  and  a  great  deal  more 
to  our  liking  without  it,  we  support  it  by  the  contributions  of  those  who 
voluntarily  associate  themselves  with  it ;  an  equitable  mode,  and  one 
which  gives  each  member  a  direct  interest  in  the  management  of  the  in- 
stitution, different  from  that  he  would  feel  if  it  were  supported  by  any 
expedient  of  indirect  taxation.  As  you  will  find  it  necessary  to  employ 
some  professional  men,  encourage  those  to  reside  among  you  who  being- 
well  educated  and  public  spirited,  will  exert  a  good  influence,  and  be 
likely  to  raise  the  standard  of  education  among  you.  We  have  a  perfect 
right  to  distribute  our  patronage  where  it  will  be  most  for  our  advantage 
to  bestow  it ;  and  if  by  so  doing  we  can  secure  voluntary  services  in 
addition  to  those  we  bargain  for,  we  have  a  right,  and  we  do  wisely  to 
take  that  circumstance  into  consideration.  We  have  a  right  to  partici- 
pate also  in  the  unexampled  facilities  for  gaining  information  which  the 
unprecedented  productiveness  of  the  press  at  the  present  day  offers  to 
our  improvement.  The  cheapest  plan  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  harvest 
of  knowledge  is  by  uniting  to  establish  social  libraries ;  and  to  derive 
the  greatest  possible  benefit  from  them,  we  must  be  careful  to  intrust  the 
selection  of  books  to  the  most  judicious  hands.  It  is  not  a  question 
whether  a  small  sum  of  money  shall  be  expended  profitably  or  other- 
wise, but  whether  that  part  of  our  time  which  we  set  apart  for  our  own 
improvement  shall  be  so  spent  as  to  advance  us  in  wisdom  and  virtue,  or 
to  carry  us  backward  further  from  perfection.  Some  few  hooks  it  will 
be  convenient  to  have  always  by  us.  In  choosing  these  we  should  be 
doubly  careful.  For  not  only  is  one  good  volume  worth  more  than  all 
bad  ones,  but  worth  much  more  than  a  thousand  which  are  merely  indif- 
ferent, and  which,  doing  no  good,  do  little  other  injury  than  consuming 
much  valuable  time,  which  we  have  a  right  to  use  as  is  most  for  our  in- 
terest, but  which  it  would  be  very  wrong  to  throw  away.  Newspapers, 
too,  afford  a  cheap  and  easy  medium  of  information,  of  the  present  state 
of  the  world,  and  the  events  that  are  taking  place  in  foreign  nations. 
They  should  not  be  neglected :  but  it  will  not  do  to  place  too  much  reli- 
ance on  their  highly  colored  statements  of  matters  in  controversy  be- 
tween different  parties,  or  to  devote  oneself  too  exclusively  to  this  kind 
of  reading  :  in  conjunction  with  others  it  may  be  of  very  great  service. 
The  company  which  you  keep  has  a  very  important  influence  on  your 
character.  Evil  communications  will  corrupt :  the  society  of  virtue  will 
purify.  By  making  a  proper  choice  of  your  companions,  your  moments 
of  relaxation,  and  your  very  amusements,  will  conduce  more  to  your 
moral  and  intellectual  advancement  than  the  hardest  study  if  ill  directed. 

21 


242  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

Look  well  to  this  point,  for  it  concerns  the  health  of  your  body  and 
soul,  as  well  as  your  estate  and  reputation.  The  formation  of  habits  is 
a  critical  process  of  education,  the  more  so,  as  when  once  confirmed  they 
can  scarcely  be  eradicated.  Be  careful,  then,  what  habits  you  form,  and 
resist  wrong  tendencies  in  their  beginnings,  —  before  they  harden  into 
irresistible  obduracy  and  mould  forever  the  whole  cast  of  your  moral 
character.  The  sapling  may  be  trained  to  grow  as  you  would  have  it, 
but  the  gnarled  and  knotted  oak,  though  the  lightning  of  heaven  may 
tear  and  rend  it,  cannot  be  bent  or  swayed  by  human  force.  Especially 
be  careful  of  the  habits  of  your  children.  A  colt  may  be  broken  into  per- 
fect docility  by  a  short  discipline  ;  but  for  a  vicious  horse,  few  will  take  the 
trouble  :  he  is  doomed  to  bear  the  spurs  and  goads,  scourgings  and  buf- 
fetings  which  irritate  rather  than  mend  his  savage  temper,  and  to  wage 
an  unavailing  war  against  fate  and  nature.  Look  to  this  in  season  :  a 
little  contrivance  will  often  prevent  a  great  deal  of  trouble  :  a  little  fore- 
cast may  save  you  much  untimely  repentance  and  unprofitable  sorrow. , 
The  choice  of  an  employment  for  yourself,  and  more  particularly  for 
your  children,  is  not  a  question  to  be  lightly  determined.  That  in  which 
your  talents  can  be  turned  to  best  account,  and  in  which  you  will  have 
most  opportunities  for  improving  them,  is  most  eligible.  If  you  are  for- 
tunate enough  to  select  such  a  one  in  the  outset,  you  may  easily  in  a  few 
years  secure  the  means  of  gratifying  all  your  reasonable  desires  ;  while 
if  chance  has  thrown  you  into  a  situation  for  which  your  peculiar  talents 
are  not  suited,  you  may  labor  harder  and  longer,  and  yet  end  at  last 
where  you  began.  The  choice  of  a  residence  also  is  a  matter  by  no 
means  indifi^erent.  Access  to  good  schools,  good  lyceums,  the  beneficial 
influence  of  well  educated  and  high-minded  men  in  or  out  of  the  learned 
professions,  well  selected  libraries,  public  and  private,  an  easy  supply  of 
the  best  new  books,  good  newspapers,  worthy  companions,  circumstances 
and  examples  favoring  the  formation  of  good  habits,  profitable  and  con- 
stant employment  in  your  calling,  with  room  to  enlarge  your  dealings  or 
business  as  your  means  will  allow,  —  all  these  advantages  you  may  find 
in  one  place,  it  may  be  difficult  or  impossible  to  obtain  them  in  another, 
and  you  may  be  subjected  to  influences  of  a  contrary  nature  in  a  third, 
liecollect  that  a  man  is  born  a  Pagan  in  Bengal,  a  Mussulman  in  Turkey, 
a  Catholic  in  Spain,  a  Protestant  in  Massachusetts,  a  savage  in  the 
deserts  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  a  barbarian  in  Central  Africa,  an  heir 
of  civilization  and  its  blessings  in  France,  England,  and  America, — 
recollect  that  however  exclusive  you  may  be  in  the  choice  of  associates 
for  yourself  or  your  children,  still  every  neighborhood  has  its  appropriate 
cast  of  character,  and  you  will  infallibly  be  somewhat  tinged  with  the  moral 
complexion  of  those  that  surround  you,  —  recollect  all  this,  and  that  you 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  243 

are  responsible  not  only  for  your  own  interests,  but  for  those  of  all  who 
do  or  may  depend  upon  you,  and  you  will  recognize  the  inestimable 
importance  of  a  correct  decision  of  the  question,  Where  shall  I  fix  my 
residence  ? 

These,  among  the  innumerable  particulars  which  affect  education,  T 
have  enumerated  barely,  and  not  enlarged  upon,  because  of  the  too  great 
length  to  which  this  letter  has  already  extended.  We  have  a  right  to 
the  best  use  Ave  can  make  of  all  these  auxiliaries,  as  well  as  to  all  others 
which  have  not  been  mentioned.  We  have  a  right  to  have  the  career 
kept  fairly  open  to  talent,  and  to  be  brought  equally  and  together  up  to 
the  starting  point  at  the  public  expense  ;  after  that  Ave  must  shift  for 
ourselves.  If  we  separate  on  the  road,  because  Providence  has  favored 
some  more  than  others,  we  are  not  to  find  fault  with  Providence  ;  if  be- 
cause some  employ  their  talents  and  others -abuse  theirs,  we  may  find 
fault  with  ourselves,  but  not  with  those  who  have  done  their  duty  ;  if 
because  wrong  is  sometimes  prosperous  and  right  sometimes  unfortunate, 
let  us  recollect  that  for  any  long  period  of  time  this  happens  very  seldom 
indeed,  and  wdien  it  does  happen,  that  honor  undeserved  yields  no  satis- 
fiiction,  and  ill-gotten  wealth  brings  with  it  no  happiness.  Having  settled 
that  lue  have  a  rigid  to  the  best  education,  the  next  point  is  to  improve 
that  right,  —  to  set  to  work  in  earnest  and  get  it. 

V.  We  have  a  right  to  all  the  restect  ivhich  ice  deserve,  and  to  no 
more.  Let  me  first  explain  what  I  mean  by  the  respect  to  which  we 
are  entitled,  and  then  consider  what  are  the  causes  by  wdiich  it  is  pro- 
duced, its  value,  the  kinds  of  respect  we  may  claim,  and  the  effects  we 
may  expect  to  result  from  it. 

First.  The  definition.  The  opinion  which  is  entertained  of  a  man's 
character  by  others,  and  the  manner  in  which  this  oi)inion  is  indicated 
in  their  intercourse  with  him,  we  call  respect  felt  for  him,  and  manifested 
towards  him,  provided  the  opinion  is  a  favorable  one,  and  the  indications 
complimentary.  If  our  behavior  in  the  several  relations  of  life  is  such 
as  it  should  be,  if  we  treat  others  with  courtesy  and  urbanity,  Ave  have  a 
right  to  the  same  treatment  from  them,  —  a  right  to  all  the  respect  Avhich 
is  manifested  by  gentlemen  Avho  knoAv  each  other's  Avorth  in  their  con- 
duct tOAvards  each  other.  If  Ave  exhibit  patterns  of  correct  deportment, 
Avhether  our  station  be  high  or  Ioav,  illustrious  or  obscure,  Ave  have  a 
right  to  all  that  respect,  felt  as  Avell  as  manifested,  Avhich  the  spectacle 
of  moral  excellence  is  calculated  to  inspire. 

Second.  The  cause  of  respect  is  the  conduct  and  the  character,  and 
not  any  adventitious  circumstances  of  birth,  fortune,  or  situation.  A  man 
is  not  to  be  respected  because  his  father  deserved  to  be  so.  If  he  has 
imitated  his  father's  virtues,  for  so  doing  let  him  be  praised  and  respected  ; 


244  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

but  if  he  has  reversed  his  father's  example,  so  much  the  more  contempt 
should  fall  upon  him,  as  that  example  is  more  resplendent.  A  man  is 
not  to  be  respected  because  he  is  rich.  If  he  obtained  his  wealth  honest- 
ly, his  industry  and  skill,  his  prudence  and  economy  deserve  respect :  if 
he  employs  his  wealth  honorably,  his  judgment  and  enterprise,  his  liber- 
ality and  usefulness  deserve  respect ;  and  these  qualities  will  always 
command  it.  But  if  he  has  obtained  his  wealth  by  knavery  or  mean- 
ness, —  every  thing  base  is  always  to  be  despised,  and  not  the  less  so 
because  it  happens  to  be  successful.  If  he  wastes  it  in  low  gratifica- 
tions, —  sensuality  is  always  to  be  desj^ised,  not  less  so  when  it  dwells 
in  gilded  halls,  than  when  it  grovels  in  the  sordid  haunts  of  improvident 
poverty.  If  the  suffrages  of  the  people  have  raised  a  man  to  an  elevated 
station  in  the  commonwealth,  if  his  virtues  have  won  those  suffrages,  for 
his  virtues  let  him  be  honored:  but  if  he  has  bought  the  venal  breath  of 
temporary  popularity  by  vilely  prostituting  himself  to  every  faction,  and 
fanning  every  prejudice,  the  more  talent  he  has  shown  in  doing  this,  the 
more  capacity  for  good  he  has  devoted  to  evil,  —  the  more  let  him  be 
despised.  In  short,  it  matters  not  what  may  be  a  person's  rank,  station, 
circumstances,  or  occupation,  if  his  services  to  society  or  to  individuals 
entitle  him  to  their  gratitude,  —  he  has  a  right  to  their  respect.  If  his 
conduct  displays  qualities  which  deserve  esteem,  this  gives  him  a  right 
to  respect.  It  is  not  the  particular  walk  of  life  in  which  his  path  of  duty 
lies,  but  the  manner  in  which  he  discharges  every  duty  that  devolves 
upon  him,  that  makes  a  man  respectable.  He,  holding  high  office  and 
incurring  great  responsibilities,  who  slights  or  neglects  them,  deserves 
censure  proportioned  to  their  magnitude :  he  who  performs  his  whole 
duty  well,  though  he  labors  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  vineyard,  will 
be  accepted  of  his  master,  and  has  a  right  to  the  respect  of  his  fellow 
laborers. 

Third.  The  value  of  respect  is  so  great  and  so  universally  admitted, 
that  it  is  one  of  the  most  general  and  most  powerful  motives  of  action 
which  mankind  can  feel.  Ambition,  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  is 
but  another  name  for  the  desire  of  commanding  the  respect  of  multitudes, 
of  different  nations  and  of  succeeding  generations.  In  a  more  limited 
form,  the  same  passion  exists  in  every  breast ;  as  an  anxious  tenderness 
to  every  thing  that  would  wound  the  reputation,  as  a  jealous  love  of 
honor,  it  is  one  of  the  most  effectual  safeguards  of  virtue.  The  respect 
of  others  comforts  us,  because  it  confirms  us  in  our  good  opinion  of  our- 
selves, and  strengthens  in  us  the  most  gratifying  of  all  the  sentiments, 
our  self-respect.  It  enables  us  in  all  our  dealings  with  others  to  go  on 
openly  and  without  suspicion  of  unfairness,  and  consequently  to  manage 
many  transactions  with  much  more  ease  and  profit  than  we  could  with 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  245 

those  who  had  no  confidence  in  us.  It  gives  weight  to  our  opinions,  and 
influence  to  our  advice,  and  upon  this  must  depend  the  degree  in  which 
our  wishes,  and  persuasions,  and  even,  for  the  most  part,  our  arguments, 
shall  affect  the  conduct  of  others.  If  then  you  wish  to  enjoy  solitude, 
or  society,  to  be  satisfied  with  yourself,  or  to  be  unsuspected  and 
unwatched  by  your  neighbors,  to  thrive  in  your  private  dealings,  or  to 
make  your  talents  felt  in  some  public  sphere  of  action,  acquire  and 
j)reserve  respect :  not  by  humoring  all  the  whims,  and  veering  to  meet 
all  the  changing  opinions  of  the  hour,  but  by  adhering  wdth  strict  in- 
tegrity to  those  rules  of  honesty  and  honor,  which  the  common  sense  of 
all  men  recognize  as  infallible  and  of  universal  application. 

Fourth.  The  l:inds  of  respect  we  may  claim,  the  effects  we  may  ex- 
pect to  result  from  it,  are  either  of  a  public  or  a  private  nature.  1 . 
Private.  The  respect  which  is  shown  in  social  intercourse  is  grateful  to 
him  that  receives  it,  and  the  denial  of  it,  where  it  is  expected,  is  some- 
times exceedingly  galling.  We  have  a  right  to  associate  with  those 
whose  company  is  agreeable  to  us.  Others  have  also  the  same  right  to 
associate  only  with  such  company  as  is  agreeable  to  them.  Upon  the 
principle  of  equal  rights,  therefore,  no  association  should  take  j^lace 
which  is  not  perfectly  agreeable  to  both  parties :  and  this  rule  being 
admitted  and  acted  on,  this  difficult  and  sometimes  embarrassing  subject 
will  easily  regulate  itself  I  may  be  as  good  and  as  wise  and  as  polite 
w^ithal,  as  another  man,  yet  if  my  company  is  unpleasant  to  him,  it  does 
not  become  me  to  trust  myself  upon  him.  His  time  and  presence 
are  his  own,  not  to  be  intruded  on  by  any  man,  just  as  my  time  and 
presence  are  my  own,  and  sacred  from  all  intrusion.  It  is  not  the 
amount  of  intelligence  or  the  degree  of  worth  that  leads  particular  sets 
of  persons  into  each  other's  society :  it  is  identity  of  pursuits  or  simi- 
larity of  tastes,  feelings,  and  manners,  that  naturally  draws  them 
together.  If  an  artist  seeks  the  company  of  a  brother  artist,  he  does 
not  intend  thereby  any  thing  derogatory  to  the  parson  of  the  parish.  If 
a  broker  fills  into  conversation  with  a  broker,  it  is  not  because  he  has 
less  respect  for  the  opinions  of  the  laAvyer,  but  because  two  persons  of 
the  same  calling  can  find  topics  at  once  in  wdiich  they  feel  a  common 
interest.  If  students  resort  to  each  other's  company,  it  is  not  that 
they  mean  to  reflect  upon  the  merchant,  but  because  so  many  of  his  in- 
terests are  unintelligible  to  them,  and  so  many  of  their  notions  are  Greek 
to  him.  Forced  association  is  any  thing  rather  than  pleasant  or  profita- 
ble. If  you  should  take  a  grave  and  recluse  divine  from  his  meditations 
in  his  study,  and  transport  him  into  the  midst  of  a  crew  of  obstreperous 
bacchanalians  carousing  in  a  victualling  cellar  in  one  of  our  cities,  the 
sights,  and  sounds,  and  smells  that  would  greet  his  senses  there,  though 

*21 


246  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

they  may  be  all  of  a  nature  to  add  to  the  jollity  of  the  naturalized' 
inmates,  could  not  but  affect  him  painfully.  He  can  find  nothing  in 
them  congenial  to  his  own  feelings,  but  every  thing  the  reverse.  Now 
make  another  experiment.  Take  the  most  jovial  of  the  disciples  of 
sensual  pleasures,  who  is  spending  all  his  substance  in  riotous  living,  take 
him  from  the  midst  of  his  cups,  his  dainties,  and  his  short-livetl  mirth, 
and  set  him  down  alone  in  a  great  library,  with  the  student's  fare  of 
bread  and  water.  What  would  have  afforded  the  recluse  the  highest 
happiness,  only  serves  to  make  him  miserable.  The  elements  of  his 
enjoyment  are  not  there :  he  cannot  hold  sweet  converse  with  the 
mighty  dead :  his  soul  longs  for  the  flesh-pots  again.  These  extreme  in- 
stances sufficiently  illustrate  the  general  principle,  that  it  is  congeniality 
,  of  tastes  and  feelings  by  which  association  must  be  regulated  :  they  show 
also  that  this  principle  exists  in  human  nature,  and  is  not  an  artificial 
arrangement  of  society  as  some  have  supposed :  that  it  is  therefore 
unalterable,  and  need  not  be  a  subject  of  regret  or  complaint  any  more 
than  the  law  of  gravitation.  Mistakes  no  doubt  will  occur  in  the  appli- 
cation of  this  principle,  but  of  all  weak  and  puerile  repinings,  the  weak- 
est and  most  childish  for  a  man  to  indulge  would  seem  to  be  mortification 
and  grief  because  we  are  not  invited  into  this  or  that  set.  If  our  tastes, 
feelings,  and  manners  are  congenial  to  theirs,  so  soon  as  that  fact  is  dis- 
covered no  doubt  we  shall  be ;  if  they  are  not  thus  congenial,  it  is  more 
for  our  comfort,  as  well  as  theirs,  that  vCe  should  not  be.  Wniether  we 
are  or  are  not,  should  be  of  little  moment.  There  are  more  sets  than 
one  in  the  world,  in  which  intelligent  and  honest  people  are  to  be  met 
with,  and  we  shall  feel  much  more  at  our  ease  where  our  presence  is 
esteemed  as  a  favor,  than  where  the  propriety  of  our  company  is 
looked  upon-  as  in  the  least  degree  equivocal.  It  is  no  great  hardship, 
I  say,  and  every  sensible  man  will  admit  it,  not  to  be  invited  into  a  new 
set  quite  so  soon  as  we  think  our  accomplishments  deserve,  but  if,  by  the 
power  of  public  opinion,  the  force  of  ridicule,  or  by  any  other  means, 
a  new  set  attempt  to  thrust  themselves  into  our  society,  our  right  of 
•choosing  our  own  associates  is  impudently  invaded,  and  then  indeed  we 
have  serious  ground  of  complaint.  But  though  we  have  a  right  to 
choose  our  own  associates,  and  are  therefore  bound  in  duty  not  to  intrude 
on  others,  yet  whenever  business  or  accident  brings  us  into  intercourse 
with  others,  we  have  a  right  to  be  treated  with  all  the  deference  which  it 
/ybecomes  equ^s^'  to  show  each  other.  Not  only  our  interests  but  our 
feelings  should  be  respected,  and  the  best  way  to  secure  the  respect  we 
deserve,  is  invariably  to  show  to  others  all  the  respect  which  they 
deserve.  We  have  a  right  also  to  all  the  influence  which  our  virtues 
.and  talents  will  enable  us  to  exercise.     This  our  just  share  of  influence 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  247 

we  should  be  careful  to  preserve  by  making  a  wise  use  of  it,  tlie  neglect 
of  this  precaution  being  the  fault  by  which  our  brethren  in  other 
countries  have  lost  it,  as  often  as  fortunate  circumstances  have  put  them 
in  possession  of  it.  We  should  jealously  guard  this  right,  and  suffer 
neither  wealth  nor  poverty  to  have  any  more  than  their  due  and  natural 
share  of  influence.  An  aristocracy  of  wealth  is  impossible  in  a  country 
where  the  property  of  an  intestate  father  is  divided  equally  among  his 
children.  An  aristocracy  of  poverty  is  quite  as  impossible,  and  equally 
undesirable.  In  Catholic  countries  voluntary  poverty  has  sometimes 
been  held  in  honor,  and  its  professors  have  arrived  at  great  influence  in 
the  State.  A  workingmen's  party  regard  poverty  as  an  evil  to  be 
avoided,  and  though  when  involuntary,  it  implies  no  disgrace,  for  no 
man  can  be  blamed  for  what  he  cannot  help,  yet  when  voluntary  it  is 
always  disgraceful.  This  being  the  case,  if  wealth  alone  is  no  recom- 
mendation, so  neither  is  poverty;  and  if  poverty  alone  should  not 
diminish  the  respect  paid  to  honor,  virtue,  and  talents,  so  neither  should 
wealth.  The  envy  therefore  which  makes  a  mean  spirit  hate  another's 
success,  even  though  allied  to  shining  merit,  is  as  unbecoming  as  the 
servile  self-abasement  which  worships  at  the  altar  of  Mammon.  Let  us 
banish  from  our  minds  both  these  ignoble  prejudices,  and  bestow  respect 
wherever  we  recognize  merit.  Let  us  pay  most  deference  where  we 
meet  most  desert,  and  allow  most  influence  to  those  who  use  it  best. 

2.  We  have  an  equal  right,  all  of  us,  in  proportion  as  we  deserve 
them,  to  share  the  tokens  of  public  respect.  Offices  of  honor,  trust, 
and  profit,  are  created  not  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  hold  them,  but 
for  the  service  of  the  people.  The  people  will  delegate  these  offices 
to  those  whom  they  consider  best  qualified  to  discharge  their  duties. 
We  have  a  right  to  qualify  ourselves  as  well  as  we  can,  to  have  our 
qualifications  fairly  brought  before  the  public  and  to  be  judged  accord- 
ing to  them.  We  are  eligible  to  all  offices,  from  the  lowest  to  the  high- 
est, and  to  such  as  the  public  judge  us  fit  for,  we  may  be  elected.  We 
have  a  right  to  accept  whatever  the  public  may  offer  us,  but  before  we 
do  so,  let  us  stop  and  consider  whether  it  is  expedient  to  exercise  this 
right.  There  are  several  previous  questions  to  be  settled  before  this 
can  be  determined.  Ask  yourself,  am  I  fitted  for  the  station  to  which 
the  partiality  of  my  fellow-citizens  has  called  me  ?  Shall  I  not  by  ac- 
cepting it,  keep  out  a  person  whom  I  know  to  be  better  qualified,  and, 
whose  election  my  influence  might  be  sufficient  to  insure  ?  If  it  is  an 
office  of  honor,  can  I  afford  to  spare  the  time  and  the  expense,  which  I 
must  incur  in  it,  and  which  will  probably  exceed  any  calculation  I  may 
make  at  the  outset  ?  If  it  is  an  office  of  trust,  why  should  I  bear  all 
this  responsibility,  —  are  there  not  others  who  can  bear  it  as  well  as  I  ? 


248  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

If  it  is  an  office  of  projit,  so  called,  will  it  not  prove  too  unjirofitable  for 
me,  bj  taking  me  from  mj  regular  business,  and  after  imposing  upon  me^ 
extraordinary  care  and  anxiety,  paying  me  less  than  half  what  I  should 
have  earned  in  the  employment  I  must  relinquish  for  it  ?  Or  even  if 
the  emolument  is  sufficient  for  the  time,  have  I  any  certainty  how  long 
I  shall  hold  it,  —  and  when  I  am  obliged  to  give  it  up,  can  I  return  to 
my  present  occupation  with  the  same  advantages  I  have  in  it  now  ?  If 
all  these  questions  can  be  answered  satisfactorily  in  favor  of  such  a 
course,  it  may  be  your  duty  to  accept  office,  even  at  the  sacrifice  of  ease 
and  comfort.  But  if  you  have  any  doubts  in  your  mind,  weigh  them 
Avell,  before  you  exchange  the  independence  of  a  private  citizen,  for  the 
endless  toils  and  thankless  drudgery  of  a  public  servant.  Our  rights, 
you  will  say,  must  be  represented  and  taken  care  of.  True,  but  it  is 
not  necessary  a  man  should  be  of  my  trade  to  understand  such  of  my 
interests  as  the  law  affects.  In  making  the  laws,  or  executing  them,  or 
adjudicating  under  them,  the  knowledge  necessary  is  a  technical  acquain- 
tance with  the  routine  of  the  particular  office,  and  enlarged  and  compre- 
hensive views  of  the  various  conflicting  interests  concerned.  These  are 
not  learned  in  one  trade  or  in  another,  but  are  to  be  gained  by  long  ob- 
servation and  |)rofound  reflection.  Let  your  rights  be  represented  and 
defended  by  those  you  can  trust,  and  if  one  of  your  agents  deceives 
you,  trust  him  not  again.  Above  all,  fill  all  offices  in  which  there  is  any 
thing  to  be  done  with  hard-working  men.  It  is  no  matter  what  trade 
they  have  worked  at,  for  one  trade  is  as  good  as  another ;  but  they 
should  be  men  who  will  always  understand"  what  they  are  about,  and 
work  hard  at  it.  If  you  have  occasion  to  compliment  a  do-nothing,  put 
him  into  an  office  where  there  is  nothing  to  do,  and  then  he  will  be  in 
his  element ;  but  by  the  way,  the  fewer  of  such  offices  you  have  the 
better,  and  the  honor  should  always  be  considered  fair  pay  for  the  bur- 
den of  holding  them.  Under  this  head  there  is  no  dispute  about  our 
rights  :  the  only  question  is  in  what  manner  it  is  expedient  to  exercise 
them. 

yi.  We  have  a  right  to  advancement  in  life.  There  is  a  peculiarity 
implanted  by  its  Maker  in  the  human  mind,  —  never  to  rest  satisfied 
with  its  present  condition.  How  high  soever  its  present  attainments,  it 
presses  on  with  an  undiminished  ardor  for  something  higher  and  better : 
it  forgets  the  things  which  are  behind,  and  looks  forward  with  immortal 
aspirations  to  those  which  are  before.  For  the  wisest  ends,  God  has 
given  this  desire  to  every  human  soul,  and  has  made  it  unremitting  and 
inextinguishable.  Prosperity  does  not  satiate  it ;  disappointment  does 
not  damp  it ;  through  successes,  through  reverses,  it  still  burns  on,  warm- 
ing with  its  healthy  glow  the  heart  that  is  chilled  by  adversity  :  urging 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  249 

to  more  vigorous  action  the  enginery  of  the  intellect  that  has  already 
surjmssed  competition.  The  cant  of  all  ages,  the  cant  of  philosophy,  as 
well  as  the  cant  of  superstition,  has  always  been  levelled  against  this 
noblest  of  our  instincts,  but  the  united  hostility  of  sophistry  and  fanati- 
cism has  always  been  unavailing.  You  might  as  well  by  your  reasoning 
persuade  man  that  he  was  made  to  grovel  on  four  limbs,  prone,  like  the 
beasts,  instead  of  lifting  his  head  proudly  like  the  lord  of  the  lower 
world,  as  to  reduce  him  to  the  sordid  contentment  of  the  brutes,  who 
know  nothing  of  the  future,  from  that  sublime  and  celestial  impulse  to 
ameliorate  and  to  exalt  his  condition,  to  purify  and  to  perfect  his  nature, 
which  he  was  created  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  to  entertain  and  to 
enjoy.  You  might  as  well  think  to  blot  out  the  sun  from  the  heavens,  as 
to  quench  the  fire  which  the  All-wise  has  kindled  in  the  human  breast. 
Through  the  whole  species  it  is  pervading  as  the  breath  of  life,  all-grasp- 
ing as  the  intellect,  undying  as  hope.  The  desire  of  bettering  our  con- 
dition has  been  arraigned  as  a  criminal  opposition  to  the  ordinations  of 
Providence.  The  infallible  monitor  within  us  answers,  no :  it  is 
prompted  by  Providence.  In  vain  has  contentment  —  absolute  content- 
ment—  been  inculcated  as  the  highest  earthly  duty,  from  the  pulpit  and 
the  press,  by  the  orator,  the  poet,  and  the  moralist.  We  cannot  be  con- 
tented ;  and  it  is  well  for  us  that  we  cannot.  It  has  been  written,  said, 
and  sung,  in  a  thousand  plausible  ways,  that  ignorance  is  better  than 
knowledge,  poverty  better  than  wealth,  listless  apathy  better  than  intense 
interest,  inert  idleness  than  industrious  activity,  —  and  that  therefore  it 
is  foolish  to  endeavor  to  improve  our  condition,  since  all  these  negative 
blessings  can  be  enjoyed  without  effort.  The  love  of  paradox  has  given 
some  currency  to  this  mischievous  theory ;  but  in  practice,  men's  instincts 
have  generally  proved  too  strong  to  be  stifled  by  errors  of  speculation. 
To  a  philosopher  who  should  labor  to  propagate  any  such  doctrine,  the 
reply  of  a  plain  workingman  would  be,  Sir,  your  conduct  gives  the  lie  to 
your  professions.  If  you  really  feel  that  indifference  and  supine  inac- 
tion constitute  the  only  true  felicity,  why  trouble  "yourself  about  your 
arguments  and  your  systems,  and  take  so  much  pains  to  convince  others 
of  their  soundness  ?  Sir,  you  have  got  together  a  great  deal  of  learn- 
ing to  prove  to  me  that  ignorance  is  bliss,  and  you  work  very  hard  to 
satisfy  me  that  you  prefer  idleness  to  activity.  The  only  position  you 
establish  thereby,  is  that  your  own  mind  loves  to  be  in  motion,  —  that 
your  nature  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  at  rest,  in  spite  of  your  theory  to 
the  contrary ;  but  that,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  you  seek  enjoy- 
ment by  the  exercise  of  your  faculties. 

If  the  desire  of  improving  our  condition  —  the  instinct  of  loerfectihil- 
ity  —  cannot  be  suppressed,  is  it  desirable  that  it  should  be  confined  to 


250  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND   WRITINGS 

the  narrowest  possible  limits,  or  should  it  be  encouraged  to  enlarge  it- 
self, and  take  the  widest  scope  opportunity  offers  ?  Most  decidedly  the 
latter.  It  is  this  instinct  which  rouses  us  to  action,  which  urging  us  on 
to  benefit  ourselves,  impels  us  into  courses  which  benefit  others,  and  to 
which  is  to  be  attributed  the  progressively  accelerated  career  of  social, 
moral,  and  intellectual  improvement.  Is  the  instinct  of  perfectibility  to 
be  less  cultivated  among  workingmen,  than  among  others  ?  Decidedly 
the  contrary.  It  is  this  that  makes  us  workingmen.  A  man  never  acts 
"without  a  motive  ;  and  this  motive  is  always,  in  some  form  or  other,  the 
desire  of  increasing  his  happiness.  Now  let  a  man  set  about  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  systematically,  and  follow  it  up  perseveringly,  and  he  becomes 
at  once  a  genuine  workingman.  And  shall  those  whose  plan  of  life  is  to 
subserve  their  own  best  interests  by  promoting  the  best  interests  of  society, 
be  postponed  to  those  who  drift  down  the  current  of  time,  without  chart, 
compass,  or  attempt  at  a  reckoning  ?  It  not  only  must  not  be,  but  cannot 
be.  It  is  not  only  unjust,  but  impossible.  We  are  travelling  onward  towards 
perfection,  and  nothing  can  retard  our  progress  but  our  own  wickedness  or 
our  own  folly.  In  whatever  respects  circumstances  ought  to  be  different 
from  what  they  are,  let  us  recollect  that  it  is  we,  for  the  most  part,  who 
make  circumstances.  Whatever  change  is  requisite  in  the  institutions 
of  society,  or  in  the  laws  of  the  State,  —  we  mould  the  institutions,  we 
enact  the  laws.  The  power  is  in  our  hands  to  use  it  for  our  common 
good.  The  high  places  of  the  republic  are  ours,  to  dispose  of  them  as 
we  will.  Wealth  and  honor,  respect  and  influence,  the  delight  of  ad- 
vancing steadily  from  good  to  better,  the  glory  of  having  done  well,  the 
proud  consciousness  of  having  deserved  well,  the  solid  satisfaction  of 
success  earned  by  merit,  these  are  the  rewards  in  prospect  before  us. 
In  no  time  since  the  creation,  in  no  nation  under  the  sun,  have  working- 
men  beheld  that  open  path  before  them,  in  which  we  are  invited  to  walk. 
There  are  no  obstacles  in  the  way  to  deter  us  from  entering  it,  but  only 
such  as  operate  as  incentives  to  the  resolute.  Advancement  in  life 
courts  us  to  accept  it,  and  nothing  can  snatch  it  from  our  grasp  but  some 
unpardonable  vice  inherent  in  our  own  character. 


The  fault,  dear  Brutus,  is  not  in  our  stars, 
But  in  ourselves,  if  we  arc  undcrlin<2;s. 


On,  then,  brethren  of  the  honorable  fraternity  of  the  workingmen  of 
these  United  States  of  America.  Let  us  speed  our  course  in  the  strait 
way.  Let  no  man  deceive  us.  Let  no  man  control  us.  Let  us  pursue 
steadfastly  our  best  interests,  and  hold,  with  an  iron  gripe,  these  our  in- 
valuable rights. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  351 


OPiATIOK  AT   SC  ITU  ATE.* 

The  annual  celebration  of  the  commencement  of  our  national  exist- 
ence is  a  custom  that  deserves  to  be  approved  and  perpetuated.  If 
those  who  live  under  governments  in  which  the  subjects  have  no  share, 
can  feel  a  patriotic  interest  in  the  commemoration  of  the  victories  that 
have  illuminated  their  annals,  much  more  may  we,  a  self-governing, 
sovereign  people,  exult  in  our  joint  inheritance  of  joy  and  pride.  If  the 
battles  in  which  the  selfish  ambition  of  rivjds  for  power,  has  deluged 
every  corner  of  the  earth  in  fraternal  blood,  are  held  in  everlasting  re- 
membrance by  the  posterity  of  the  victors,  to  keep  alive  the  national 
spirit,  and  to  nourish  that  enthusiasm,  which,  blind  and  preposterous  as 
it  may  sometimes  be,  is  yet  the  strongest  safeguard  of  a  nation's  honor, 
union,  and  independence,  how  much  rather  should  we  embalm  in  our 
hearts  an  act  of  self-sacrificing  devotion  unsullied  w^ith  any  mixture  of 
sordid  interest,  —  an  act  which  stands,  and  must  forever  stand,  alone,  in 
its  original,  unapproachable  sublimity.  The  blasts  which  have  rung 
loudest  and  most  frequent  from  the  trumpet  of  fame,  have  ever  pealed 
in  honor  of  mere  vulgar  slaughters,  an  unavaih'ng  and  a  lavish  waste  of 
life,  over  which  pure  philanthropy  could  only  weep.  How  delightful  is 
the  contrast  of  our  American  jubilee,  when  our  grateful  anthems  ascend 
in  devout  thanksgiving  to  Him  who  inspired  the  founders  of  our  inde- 
pendence to  erect  for  themselves  that  ever-during  monument,  —  a  work 
which,  as  it  had  no  model,  though  it  may  be  often  imitated,  will  have  no 
equal, — forever  peerless  in  its  sohtary  grandeur. 

If  there  be  any  event  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  any  nation  is 
called  upon  to  celebrate  by  an  annual  festival,  the  birth-day  of  a  free 
and  mighty  empire  presents  the  strongest  claim  to  this  distinction.  On 
such  an  occasion  it  is  natural  to  revert  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
our  social  compact,  to  investigate  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  to  discuss 
our  duties  and  our  prospects,  as  well  as  to  kindle  the  fire  of  patriotism. 
Indeed,  were  it  not  for  the  vast  variety  of  topics  which  a  subject  so  rich 
in  interesting  reflections  as  the  declaration  of  American  independence 
necessarily  suggests  to  the  mind,  one  might  almost  despair  of  gilding 
with  the  charm  of  novelty  a  theme  which  has  been  so  often  exhibited  by 
your  poets  and  your  orators.  But  such  a  subject  is  a  mine  of  inexhaust- 
ible wealth.     As  far  as  you  explore  its   diverging  veins,  new  treasures 


*  DeUvcred  on  the  4di  of  July,  1836. 


252  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

will  still  reward  your  search  as  bright  as  those  that  blushed  at  the  first 
opening  of  the  soil. 

The  4th  of  July,  1776,  was  the  date  of  our  political  separation  from 
Great  Britain.  The  separation  left  the  colonies  independent  States. 
But  political  independence  was  only  a  single  step  towards  freedom  from 
foreign  influence.  Much  remained  to  be  done  —  alas!  much  yet  re- 
mains to  be  done  —  before  these  United  States  can  be  pronounced  to  be 
completely  and  in  the  broadest  sense  independent  of  Great  Britain.  The 
British  spirit  is  still  largely  felt ;  it  still  in  a  great  measure  predominates 
over  our  literature,  our  manners  and  customs,  through  the  whole  tone  of 
our  society,  in  the  whole  tenor  and  spirit  of  our  laws,  and  in  far  too 
much  of  our  domestic  and  foreign  policy.  It  was  natural  that  this 
should  have  been  so  ;  it  is  inexcusable  that  it  should  remain  so.  It  is 
high  time  that  we  were  independent,  not  only  politically,  but  intellect- 
ually, morally,  and  without  qualification. 

The  founders  of  our  States  were  British  emigrants.  They  brought 
with  them  the  spirit  of  liberty,  but  it  was  the  spirit  of  British  liberty,  as 
modified  by  British  institutions,  and  as  qualified  by  British  prejudices. 
They  were  firm,  consistent,  and  loyal  friends  of  the  British  Constitution, 
and  they  were  disposed  to  yield  a  hearty  obedience  to  the  British  gov- 
ernment, within  the  limits  of  the  British  Constitution.  The  British  gov- 
ernment undertook  to  impose  upon  them  burdens  which  the  British  Con- 
stitution did  not  warrant,  and  like  true  Englishmen  they  resisted.  They 
vindicated  for  themselves  the  rights  and  privileges  of  Englishmen. 
This  brought  on  alienation,  war,  secession,  and  those  who  at  first  meant 
only  to  hold  fast  their  birth-right  as  British  subjects,  ended  by  casting 
off  their  allegiance  to  the  British  crown. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  revolution,  our  fathers  were,  generally 
speaking,  whigs  :  that  is  to  say,  they  were  warmly  attached  to  the 
British  Constitution  as  it  then  existed.  They  were  attached,  and  adhered 
with  a  loyal  fervor,  to  hereditary  monarchy  in  the  Protestant  succession, 
to  a  hereditary  peerage,  and  to  that  elective  aristocracy,  the  House  of 
Commons,  which  by  a  legal  fiction  was  said  to  represent  the  peo2)le  of 
Great  Britain.  They  were  thoroughly  imbued  with  British  principles, 
—  with  whig  principles,  but  in  the  course  of  a  seven  years'  war  most  of 
them  got  gradually,  though  effectually,  rid  of  these  principles,  —  they 
ceased  to  be  British  whigs,  and  became  American  democrats. 

The  mere  act,  however,  of  severing  the  political  connection  between 
ourselves  and  the  mother  country  did  not,  of  itself,  necessarily  and  im- 
mediately, alter  the  whole  complexion  of  every  article  in  the  political 
creed  of  every  American.  Some,  no  doubt,  who  were  most  bigoted  in 
their  attachment  to  British  principles,  continued  in  the  faith  in  which 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  253 

they  were  brought  up,  —  continued  to  be  whigs.  It  lias  even  been  said, 
that,  long  after  the  war  was  over,  there  were  distinguished  men  who  still 
held  fast  to  the  whig  system.  It  was  said  that  Alexander  Hamilton 
declared  that  the  British  Constitution,  with  all  its  faults,  and  with  all  its 
corruptions,  was  the  most  admirable  constitution  upon  the  face  of  the 
globe,  and  that  without  its  corruptions  it  would  be  altogether  imprac- 
ticable. If  this  W'ere  so,  this  great  man  must  have  been  a  thorough 
whig  after  the  federal  Constitution  had  been  some  years  in  operation. 
Wliether  the  tradition  be  correct  or  not,  and  our  authority  for  it  is  the 
word  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  there  were  those  who 
entertained,  if  they  did  not  avow,  the  sentiment  attributed  to  Hamilton. 
Such  sentiments,  under  various  disguises,  have  survived  to  the  present 
day.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  genuine  whigs  may  yet  be  found 
in  New  England,  the  part  of  the  country  which  most  nearly  resembles 
Old  England,  still  cherishing,  through  good  report  and  evil  report,  the 
political  faith  which  they  inherit  from  ante-revolutionary  times  ;  like 
Bourbons,  forgetting  nothing,  learning  nothing,  —  unchangeable  through 
sixty  years  of  hard  experience.  These  whigs,  however,  must  be  an- 
tiquities and  curiosities,  —  few  and  far  between,  contrasting  oddly  enough 
wdth  rational  American  democrats. 

The  majority  of  the  people,  however,  are  not,  and  never' again  can  be, 
whigs.  They  desire,  and  have  long  desired,  to  cast  off  that  British  influ- 
ence, which  weighs  so  heavily  upon  us,  from  education  and  habit,  but 
wdiich  is  so  repugnant  to  our  institutions,  condition,  and  character.  It  is 
therefore  an  interesting  inquiry  to  ascertain,  as  nearly  as  may  be  by  a 
general  and  cursory  examination,  by  wliat  steps,  and  how  far,  we  have 
discarded  the  unwholesome  control  of  notions  derived  from  our  colonial 
dependence  ;  and  by  what  measures,  and  to  what  extent,  it  is  expedient 
that  we  should  endeavor  to  eradicate  the  leaven  that  remains,  and  to  make 
ourselves  in  very  deed  and  truth,  as  our  fathers  declared  that  we  are,  and 
of  right  ought  to  be,  Free  and  Independent  States. 

The  power  to  tax  the  colonics  without  their  consent  was  never  con- 
stitutionally possessed  by  Great  Britain.  The  attempt  to  exercise  this 
power  brought  on  resistance,  and  a  w^ar,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  issued  and  maintained.  The  successful 
issue  of  that  contest,  under  the  auspices  of  AYashington,  forever  freed  our 
necks  from  the  yoke  of  foreign  political  supremacy.  After  the  peace, 
the  incompetency  of  the  confederation,  and  the  evident  tendency  towards 
anarchy  in  the  several  States,  produced  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  British 
system,  which,  while  the  war  was  raging,  had  fallen  into  disrepute.  The 
British  Constitution  w^as  held  up  as  the  only  model,  and  the  perfect 
model,  of  a  free  government.     A  leading  whig  of  those  times,  a  more 

22 


254 

consistent,  not  to  say  more  honest  whig  than  any  of  the  present  day, 
proposed  an  executive  for  life,  to  liave  the  power  of  nominating  the 
governors  of  the  different  States,  with  a  senate  during  good  behavior,  in 
effect  for  hfe,  as  conservative  institutions  to  counterbahmce  the  democratic 
force  of  the  popular  impulses  that  make  themselves  felt  in  our  govern- 
ment. The  democracy,  however,  was  then  so  strong,  that  not  all  the  genius 
of  Hamilton,  with  the  authority  of  the  genuine  whigs  associated  with 
him,  mighty  names  some  of  them,  could  impose  upon  the  people  a  scheme 
bearing  these  aristocratic  features.  Under  the  mediation  of  Washington 
a  compromise  was  effected.  A  government  too  strong  for  the  fears  of 
Patrick  Henry  and  of  Jefferson,  and  many  other  sagacious,  patriotic,  and 
eminent  statesmen,  but  not  strong  enough  to  answer  the  views  of  Hamil- 
ton and  the  other  admirers  of  the  British  Constitution,  was  recommended 
by  the  convention,  and  adopted  by  the  popular  suffrages.  The  crisis  was 
safely  j^assed,  and  the  father  of  American  freedom  was  a  second  time  the 
savior  of  his  country. 

Washington  not  only  burst  asunder  the  British  chain,  but  his  wisdom 
and  his  weight  of  character  introduced  that  expedient,  I  mean  our  exist- 
ing Constitution,  which  averted  the  natural  and  the  threatening  revulsion 
of  British  principles  ;  a  revulsion  which  would  have  been  absolutely 
irresistible  after  a  few  years  of  suffering  and  anarchy. 

The  Constitution,  I  say,  was  an  expedient  which  saved  us  on  the  one 
hand  from  anarchy  and  its  miseries,  on  the  other  hand  from  that  reaction 
in  favor  of  the  high-toned  and  aristocratic  doctrines  of  the  whigs,  which 
must  have  followed  anarchy.  It  was  admirably  adapted,  —  it  was 
almost  miraculously  adapted  to  its  objects,  considering  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  originated.  It  soon  became  apparent,  however,  that  the 
federal  government  was  not  to  be  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  principles 
which  regulate  the  action  of  ambitious  men,  placed  in  situations  to  stim- 
ulate their  ambition.  Power  is  to  ambition  what  wealth  is  to  avarice. 
Instead  of  satisfying  the  desire,  it  creates  an  insatiable  craving  for  more. 
The  disposition  of  power  to  arrogate  to  itself  more  power  was  exemplified 
in  the  federal  government,  as  it  has  been  hi  every  other  since  the  world 
began.  This  became  its  guiding  and  its  governing  principle  ;  opposi- 
tion to  this  was  the  criterion  and  the  substance  of  democracy.  In  its 
course  it  swelled  and  grew  like  a  snowball,  till  it  accumulated  to  the 
magnitude  and  moved  with  the  ponderous  momentum  of  an  avalanche. 

Tiie  fundamental  article  of  the  democratic  creed  is  this,  that  the  gen- 
eral government  ought  to  be  strictly  confined  within  its  proper  sphere. 
In  the  words  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  taken  from  an  official  opinion  drawn 
up  by  him  while  secretary  of  State,  they  "  consider  the  foundation  of 
the  Constitution  as  laid  on  this  ground,  that  all  powers  not  delegated  to 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  255 

the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States, 
are  reserved  to  the  States,  or  to  the  people.  To  take  a  single  step 
beyond  the  boundaries  thus  drawn  around  the  powers  of  Congress,  is  to 
take  possession  of  a  boundless  field  of  power,  no  longer  susceptible  of 
any  definition." 

Congress  overstepped  these  boundaries  in  1791,  by  the  charter  of  the 
bank,  in  spite  of  the  strenuous  opposition  of  the  republicans  of  that  day, 
with  Jefferson  and  Madison  at  their  head.  Hamilton,  the  most  ardent 
admirer  of  the  British  Constitution,  then  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
aimed  to  place  that  department  "  in  such  an  attitude  as  to  command  the 
whole  action  of  the  government."  He  believed  that  mankind  could  be 
governed  only  in  two  ways,  by  force,  or  by  corruption.  Force  was  out 
of  the  question  here,  of  course  corruption  was  the  only  alternative.  Sir 
Robert  Wal[)ole,  the  most  distinguished  whig  minister  of  Great  Britain, 
while  first  lord  of  the  treasury  and  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  has  the 
credit  of  having  originally  introduced  this  system  of  government,  which 
has  been  characteristic  of  the  whig  party  ever  since,  wherever  it  has 
been  in  power,  W'ith  means  at  its  disposal.  "  For  self-defence,  where 
argument  failed,"  says  his  biographer,  "  he  had  recourse  to  the  more 
powerful  influence  of  corruption  ;  and  this  latter  mode  of  conviction, 
which  he  not  only  practised  from  necessity,  but  systematically  vindicated 
and  recommended,  gave  a  distinguishing  character  to  his  administration, 
and  entailed  reproach  on  his  memory."  It  must  be  allowed  that  the 
bank  party  in  the  United  States  are  richly  entitled  to  be  considered 
legitimate  followers  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  whose  maxim  was  that 
"  every  man  has  his  price,"  and  so  far  at  least  they  have  a  right  to  the 
appellation  of  wliigs,  —  being  not  only  admirers  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion in  theory,  but  admirers  and  imitators  of  its  practical  operation,  under 
the  most  celebrated  of  whig  administrations. 

Having  once  overstepped  the  boundaries  of  the  Constitution  in  the 
creation  of  a  bank,  the  government  by  degrees  went  on  to  take  posses- 
sion of  that  boundless  field  of  power,  no  longer  susceptible  of  any  defi- 
nition, which  was  thus  opened  to  them.  The  obstinate  resistance  of  the 
democratic  party  could  not  prevent  such  legislative  constructions  of  the 
Constitution,  as  made  it  a  very  different  tiling  from  what  the  people 
thought  they  had  submitted  to.  Those  sweeping  powers  which  Hamil- 
ton and  his  friends  had  sought  in  vain  to  incorporate  into  the  Constitu- 
tion, w^ere  extorted  from  it  by  virtue  of  the  doctrine  of  implication.  It 
w^as  tortured  into  any  shape  that  might  suit  their  purposes.  "  Legisla- 
tive explanations,"  says  Jefferson,  "  were  given  to  the  Constitution,  and 
all  the  administrative  laws  were  shaped  on  the  model  of  England,  and 


256  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

so  passed."  The  alien  and  sedition  laws,  the  muzzling  of  the  press,  the 
unrelenting  proscription  for  opinion's  sake,  made  that  period  emphati- 
cally the  reign  of  terror. 

The  bone  and  muscle  of  the  nation,  the  hope  and  strength  of  the  peo- 
ple were  roused  at  last,  and  took  the  power  into  their  own  hands.  They 
perceived  that  it  was  their  own  quarrel  which  was  to  be  fought  out 
against  the  lovers  of  power  and  wealth,  who  were  fast  monopolizing 
both,  to  the  imminent  danger  of  the  general  freedom.  They  rallied, 
therefore,  under  the  early  and  inflexible  champions  of  the  democracy; 
truth  and  reason  were  the  weapons  they  employed;  union  gave  them 
strength,  and  the  aristocracy  was  prostrated  before  them.  The  immor- 
tal Jefferson  was  seated  at  the  helm  of.State,  and  at  once  "restored  the 
government  to  the  republican  track." 

Mr.  Jefferson  disallowed  the  binding  force  of  British  precedents,  and 
undertook  to  conduct  the  government  upon  American  principles.  His 
untiring  efforts  through  the  eight  years  of  his  presidency  did  much 
towards  carrying  back  the  administration  to  its  original,  constitutional 
simplicity,  and  to  accommodate  our  institutions,  which  had  begun  to  be 
warped  after  a  foreign  model,  to  our  own  situation,  character,  and  cir- 
cumstances. It  was  impossible  for  him  to  return  to  the  primitive  purity 
of  our  system,  however,  so  strongly  had  the  British  virus  impregnated 
the  whole  body.  He  did  what  could  be  done,  but  to  complete  the  work 
was  reserved  for  his  more  fortunate  successor.  The  Constitution  had 
been  deeply  violated,  but  the  violation  could  not  at  that  time  be  re- 
dressed. Mr.  Jefferson  had  given  his  written  opinion  on  the  fifteenth  of 
February,  1791,  that  "the  incorporation  of  a  bank,  and  the  powers 
assumed  by  this  bill,  have  not,  in  my  opinion,  been  delegated  to  the 
United  States  by  the  Constitution."  He  might  have  stated  this  as  a 
fact,  for  while  the  bank  bill  was  under  discussion,  Judge  Wilson  was  re- 
minded by  Mr.  Baldwin,  of  the  following  occurrences  in  the  grand  con- 
vention. Among  the  powers  enumerated,  in  the  draft  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, was  that  to  erect  corporations.  On  debate,  it  was  stricken  out. 
Particular  powers  were  then  proposed ;  among  others,  that  to  establish 
a  national  bank.  This  was  opposed  and  rejected.  Judge  W^ilson  ad- 
mitted the  correctness  of  this  statement,  which  is  now  well  known  from 
other  sources. 

The  late  lamented  Mr.  Madison  concluded  his  speech  against  the 
l)ank,  in  1791,  by  remarking,  that  the  power,  exercised  by  the  bill  then 
pending,  was 

"  Condemned  by  the  silence  of  the  Constitution. 

"  Condemned  by  the  rule  of  interpretation  arising  out  of  the  Con- 
stitution. 


257 

"  Condemned  by  its  tendency  to  destroy  the  main  characteristic  of  the 
Constitution. 

"  Condemned  by  the  expositions  of  the  friends  of  the  Constitution, 
whilst  depending  before  the  public. 

"  Condemned  by  the  apparent  intention  of  the  parties  which  ratified 
the  Constitution. 

"  Condemned  by  the  explanatory  amendments  proposed  by  Congress 
themselves  to  the  Constitution." 

That  such  a  power,  loaded  with  such  condemnation,  should,  notwith- 
standing, have  been  usurped  and  exercised,  was  enough  to  introduce  a 
rooted  and  general  corruption  which  could  not  be  removed  until  the 
cause  w^as  eradicated.  Mr.  Randolph,  in  1824,  after  speaking  of  the 
"  vagrant  power  "  to  charter  the  bank,  "seeking  through  the  different 
clauses  of  the  Constitution  where  to  fix  itself,"  and  the  vagrant  power 
of  internal  improvements,  "  after  being  whipt  from  parish  to  parish,  at 
last  seeking  a  settlement  under  the  war-making  power"  —  in  the  same 
speech  in  which  he  asserted  that  a  new  sect  had  arisen,  who,  in  their 
latitudinarian  constructions  of  the  Constitution,  as  far  transcended  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  and  his  disciples,  as  they  transcended  Thomas  Jefferson, 
James  Madison,  and  John  Taylor  of  Carolina,  —  attributed  all  those 
loose  interpretations  of  the  Constitution  which  favor  consolidation,  to  the 
establishment  of  the  banking  power,  as  their  original  source.  "  Sir," 
said  he,  "  when  I  consider  this  war-making  power,  and  this  money-mak- 
ing power,  and  suffer  myself  to  reflect  on  the  length  to  which  they  go,  I 
feel  ready  to  acknowledge  that  in  yielding  these,  the  States  have  yielded 
everything.  The  last  words  of  Patrick  Henry  on  this  subject,  although 
uttered  five  and  twenty  years  ago,  are  now  ringing  in  my  ears.  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  all  the  difficulties  under  which  we  have  labored,  and 
now  labor,  on  this  subject,  have  grovv^n  out  of  a  fatal  admission,  by  one 
of  the  late  presidents  of  the  United  States,  which  gave  a  sanction  to  the 
principle,  that  this  goverimient  had  the  power  to  charter  the  present 
colossal  bank  of  the  United  States." 

The  unconstitutional,  anti-American,  and  strictly  British  character 
of  such  an  institution  was  attested,  as  long  ago  as  eighteen  hundred  and 
eleven,  by  Henry  Clay,  whom  we  may  fairly  offer  as  an  unexceptionable 
witness  against  the  consolidationists, the  British,  or  whig  party.  "When 
gentlemen  attempt  to  carry  this  measure  on  the  ground  of  acquiescence 
or  precedent,"  said  Mr.  Clay,  in  his  speech  against  the  re-charter 
of  the  old  bank,  "  do  they  forget  that  we  are  not  in  Westminster 
Hall  ? 

"  To  legislate  upon  the  ground  merely  that  our  predecessors  thought 

22* 


258  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

themselves  authorized,  under  similar  circumstances  to  legislate,  is  to 
sanctify  error  and  perpetuate  usurpation. 

"  The  great  advantage  of  our  system  of  government  over  all  others  is, 
that  Ave  have  a  written  Constitution  defining  its  limits,  and  prescribing 
its  authorities,  and  that,  however  for  a  time,  faction  may  convulse  the 
nation,  and  passion  and  party  prejudice  sway  its  functionaries,  the  season 
of  reflection  will  recur,  when  calmly  retracing  their  deeds,  all  aberra- 
tions from  fundamental  principles  will  be  corrected.  But  once  s.ubsti- 
tute  practice  for  principle,  the  exposition  of  the  Constitution  for  the  text 
of  the  Constitution,  and  in  vain  shall  we  look  for  the  instrument  in  the 
instrument  itself!  It  will  be  as  diffused  and  intangible  as  the  pretended 
Constitution  of  England. 

"  What  would  be  our  condition  if  we  were  to  take  the  interpretations 
given  to  that  sacred  book,  which  is  or  ought  to  be  the  criterion  of  our 
faith,  for  the  book  itself?  We  should  find  the  Holy  Bible  buried  beneath 
the  interpretations,  glossaries,  and  comments  of  councils,  synods,  and 
learned  divines,  which  have  produced  swarms  of  intolerant  and  furious 
sects,  partaking  less  of  the  mildness  and  meekness  of  their  origin,  than 
of  a  vindictive  spirit  of  hostility  towards  each  other.  They  ought  to 
afford  us  a  solemn  warning  to  make  that  Constitution  which  we  have 
sworn  to  support  our  inv^ariable  guide.  I  conceive  then,  Sir,  that  we 
are  not  empowered  by  the  Constitution,  nor  bound  by  any  practice  under 
it,  to  renew  the  charter  of  this  bank." 

Mr.  Clay  believed  the  bank  to  be,  not  only  British  in  principle,  but 
identified  with  British  interests. 

"  May  not  the  time  arrive,"  he  asks,  "  when  the  concentration  of  such 
a  vast  portion  of  the  circulating  medium  of  the  country  in  the  hands  of 
any  corporation,  will  be  dangerous  to  our  liberties  ?  By  whom  is  this 
immense  power  wielded?  By  a  body  who,  in  derogation  of  the  great 
principle  of  all  our  institutions,  responsibility  to  the  people,  is  amenable 
to  a  few  stockholders,  and  they  chiefly  foreigners.  Suppose  an  attempt 
to  subvert  this  government,  would  not  the  traitor  first  aim,  by  force  or 
corruption,  to  acquire  the  treasure  of  this  company  ?  Look  at  it  in 
another  aspect.  Seven  tenths  of  its  capital  are  in  the  hands  of  foreign- 
ers, chiefly  English  subjects.  We  are  possibly  on  the  eve  of  a  rupture 
with  that  nation.  Should  such  an  event  occur,  do  you  apprehend  that 
the  English  premier  would  experience  any  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  en- 
tire control  of  this  institution  ? 

"  Go  to  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  see  what  has  been  achieved 
for  us  there,  by  Englishmen,  holding  seven  tenths  of  the  capital  of  this 
bank.     Has  it  released  from  galling  and  ignominious  bondage,  one  soli- 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  259 

tar  J  American  seaman,  bleeding  under  British  oppression?  Did  it  pre- 
vent the  unmanly  attack  upon  the  Chesapeake? 

"  Are  we  quite  sure  that  on  this  side  of  the  water,  it  has  had  no 
effect  favorable  to  British  interests  ?  It  has  often  been  stated,  and 
although  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  susceptible  of  strict  proof,  I  believe  it 
to  be  a  fact,  that  this  bank  exercised  its  influence  in  support  of  Jay's 
treaty,  and  may  it  not  have  contributed  to  blunt  the  public  sentiment,  or 
paralyze  the  efforts  of  this  nation  against  British  aggression  ? 

"The  Duke  of  Northumberland  is  said  to  be  the  most  considerable 
stockholder  in  the  bank  of  the  United  States,"  etc. 

Mr.  Clay,  of  course,  considered  it  to  be  his  imperative  duty  to  oppose 
with  his  whole  powers  the  perpetuation  of  such  an  usurpation.  He  did 
not  forget  that  he  was  not  in  Westminster  Hall.  "  I  felt  myself  bound," 
said  he,  "to  obey  the  paramount  duties  I  owe  my  country  and  its  Con- 
stitution ;  to  make  one  effort,  however  feeble,  to  avert  the  passage  of 
what  appears  to  me  a  most  unjustifiable  law. 

"  The  })0\ver  to  charter  companies  is  not  specified  in  the  grant,  and  I 
contend,  is  of  a  nature  not  transferable  by  mere  implication.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  exalted  attributes  of  sovereignty.  In  the  exercise  of  this 
gigantic  power,  we  have  seen  an  East  India  Company  created,  which 
has  carried  dismay,  desolation,  and  death,  throughout  one  of  the  largest 
portions  of  the  habitable  world. 

"  Is  it  to  be  imagined  that  a  power  so  vast  would  have  been  left  by 
the  wisdom  of  the  Constitution  to  doubtful  inference  ? 

"  Where  is  the  limitation  upon  this  power  to  set  up  corporations  ? 
You  establish  one  in  the  heart  of  a  State,  the  basis  of  whose  capital  is 
money.  You  may  erect  others  whose  capital  is  land,  slaves,  and  personal 
estate,  and  thus  the  whole  propei'ty  within  the  jurisdiction  of  a  State 
might  be  absorbed  by  these  political  bodies. 

"  The  question  is,  shall  we  stretch  the  instrument  to  embrace  cases 
not  fairly  within  its  scope." 

The  instrument  having  been  thus  perverted  in  1791,  it  was  impossible 
for  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  those  with  whom  he  acted,  to  restore  it  in  1801 ; 
for  had  they  undertaken  to  revoke  the  charter  of  the  bank,  Mr.  Clay 
has  told  us  what  would  have  been  the  consequence.  "  The  judiciary 
would  have  been  appealed  to,  and  from  the  known  opinions  and  predi- 
lections of  the  judges  then  composing  it,  they  would  have  pronounced 
the  act  of  incorj^oration,  as  in  the  nature  of  a  contract,  beyond  the 
repealing  power  of  any  succeeding  legislature." 

Although  the  bank  expired  at  the  expiration  of  its  charter,  in  1811  ; 
yet  it  revived,  with  augmented  power  in  181 G;  and  it  was  left  for 
Andrew  Jackson  to  fight  the  great   battle   for  the   Constitution,  and 


260  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

decisively  to  vindicate  its  supremacy.  He  settled  the  question  of  the 
bank  charter  upon  American  principles,  by  his  veto  message  of  July  10, 
1832.  In  that  immortal  document,  which  prostrated  the  moneyed  power, 
our  children,  and  our  children's  children,  will  read  the  fundamental 
maxims  of  a  genuine  repubhcan  policy.  It  contributed  much  towards 
the  consummation  of  our  independence,  that  statesmanship,  such  as  that 
paper  displays,  should  grapple  with  a  death-grasp  the  first,  the  last,  the 
greatest  and  the  worst  of  those  innovations,  of  foreign  origin  and  uncon- 
genial to  our  institutions,  which  had  fastened  them.selves,  with  pernicious 
influence,  upon  the  beautiful  simplicity  of  our  government.  Let  us 
recur  to  the  closing  paragraphs,  for  they  may  be  read  here  very  appro- 
priately, after  the  declaration  of  independence. 

"  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  rich  and  powerful  too  often  bend  the 
acts  of  government  to  their  selfish  purposes.  Distinctions  in  society  will 
always  exist  under  every  just  government.  Equality  of  talents,  of  edu- 
cation, or  of  wealth,  cannot  be  produced  by  human  institutions.  In  the 
full  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  of  Heaven,  and  the  fruits  of  superior  industry, 
economy,  and  virtue,  every  man  is  equally  entitled  to  protection  by  law. 
But  when  the  laws  undertake  to  add  to  these  natural  and  just  advan- 
tages, artificial  distinctions  to  grant  titles,  gratuities,  and  exclusive 
privileges,  to  make  the  rich  richer,  and  the  potent  more  powerful,  the 
humble  members  of  society,  the  farmers,  mechanics,  and  laborers,  who 
have  neither  the  time  nor  the  means  of  securing  like  favors  to  tliem- 
selves,  have  a  right  to  complain  of  the  injustice  of  their  government. 

"  There  are  no  necessary  evils  in  government.  Its  evils  exist  only 
in  its  abuses.  If  it  would  confine  itself  to  equal  protection,  and,  as 
Heaven  does  its  rains,  shower  its  favors  alike  on  the  high  and  the  low, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  it  would  be  an  unqualified  blessing.  In  the  act 
before  me,  there  seems  to  me  a  wide  and  unnecessary  departure  from 
these  just  principles.  Nor  is  our  government  to  be  maintained,  or  our 
Union  preserved,  by  invasions  of  the  rights  and  powers  of  the  several 
States.  In  thus  attempting  to  make  our  general  government  strong,  we 
make  it  weak.  Its  true  strength  consists  in  leaving  individuals  and 
States  as  much  as  possible  to  themselves,  —  in  making  itself  felt  not  in 
its  power  but  in  its  beneficence,  not  in  its  control  but  in  its  protection, 
not  in  binding  the  States  more  closely  to  the  centre,  but  leaving  each 
to  move  unobstructed  in  its  proper  orbit. 

"  Experience  should  teach  us  wisdom.  Most  of  tlie  difficulties  our 
government  now  encounters,  and  most  of  the  dangers  which  impend 
over  our  Union,  have  sprung  from  an  abandonment  of  the  legitimate 
objects  of  government,  by  our  national  legislation,  and  the  adoption  of 
such  principles  as  are  embodied  in  this  act.     Many  of  our  rich  men  have 


OF   EGBERT  RxiNTOUL,  JR.  261 

not  been  content  with  equal  protection  and  equal  benefits,  but  have 
besought  us  to  make  them  richer  by  acts  of  Congress.  By  attempt- 
ing to  gratify  their  desires,  \ve  have  in  the  results  of  our  legislation,  ar- 
rayed section  against  section,  interest  against  interest,  and  man  against 
man,  in  a  fearful  commotion,  which  threatens  to  shake  the  foundations  of 
our  Union.  If  we  cannot  at  once  in  justice  to  interests  vested  under 
improvident  legislation,  make  our  government  what  it  ought  to  be,  we 
can  at  least  take  a  stand  against  all  new  grants  of  monopolies,  and  ex- 
clusive privileges,  against  any  prostitution  of  our  government,  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  and  in  favor  of  com- 
promise and- gradual  reform  in  our  code  of  laws  and  system  of  political 
economy." 

By  doctrines  such  as  these,  our  illustrious  president,  while  protecting 
the  independence  of  his  country  from  foreign  influence  and  foreign  ex- 
ample, naturally  earned  for  himself  the  hatred  of  our  British,  or  whig 
party,  who  still  answer  to  the  description  given  of  them  in  their  principal 
organ  in  the  old  world,  the  Edinburgh  Review,  "  the  strength  of  the 
whigs  lay  in  the  great  aristocracy,  in  the  corporations,  and  in  the  trading 
or  moneyed  interests."  But  how  could  they  expect  to  bend  from  his 
purpose,  by  exhibitions  of  their  futile  wrath,  the  man  who  discomfited 
their  allies  at  New  Orleans.  They  should  have  remembered  that  the 
"quick  discernment,  prompt  decision,  and  energetic  execution  which 
characterize  a  man  fitted  to  command  an  army,"  make  him  competent 
also  "  to  discern  and  adopt  the  measures  calculated  to  promote  the 
welfare  of  his  country  in  his  civil  administration."  *  That  "  a  strong 
mind  will  soon  grasp  a  new  subject  to  which  it  turns  its  attention  ;"  and 
that  the  first  subject  to  which  the  attention  of  a  democratic  president 
must  be  turned  was  no  otlier  than  the  British  bank.  They  should  have 
remembered  the  assurance  given  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  "  Andrew  Jack- 
son is  a  clear-headed,  strong-minded  man,  and  has  more  of  the  Roman 
in  him  than  any  other  man  now  living."  They  should  have  remembered 
that  it  was  to  him  alone  that  Jefferson  looked  to  finish  this  very  work 
which  he  had  begun,  the  restoration  to  the  States  and  people,  of  powers 
not  granted  to  the  federal  government  by  the  Constitution.  "  It  is  fortu- 
nate," said  the  patriarcli  of  democracy,  —  "  it  is  fortunate  for  the  country, 
that  General  Jackson  is  likely  to  be  fit  for  public  life  at  the  end  of  the 
present  four  years  (from  1825)  ;  for  in  him  is  the  only  hope  left  of 
avoiding  the  dangers  manifestly  about  to  arise  out  of  the  broad  construc- 
tion now  again  given  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which 
effaces  all  limitations  of  power,  and  leaves  the  general  government,  by 


=^  Timothv  Pickering's  letter  to  riiilip  Van  Cortland,  April  18th,  1828. 


262  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

theory,  altogether  unrestrained."  They  should  have  remembered  the 
character  ascribed  to  him  by  James  Monroe,  "a  man  fit  for  any 
emergency ;  a  statesman,  cool  and  dispassionate ;  a  soldier,  terrible  in 
battle,  and  mild  in  victory ;  a  patriot  whose  bosom  swelled  with  the  love 
of  country ;  in  fine,  a  man  whose  like  we  shall  scarce  look  upon  again." 
They  should  have  remembered  that  from  the  path  of  duty,  he  never 
turned  aside ;  for  this  they  knew,  not  only  from  his  history,  but  from 
the  testimony  of  our  Massachusetts  statesman,  John  Quincy  Adams. 
"  General  Jackson  justly  enjoys  in  an  eminent  degree  the  public  favor," 
said  the  late  president ;  "  and  of  his  worth,  talents,  and  services,  no  one 
entertains  a  higher  or  more  respectable  opinion  than  myself.  An  officer 
whose  services  entitle  him  to  the  highest  rewards,  and  whose  whole 
career  has  been  signalized  by  the  purest  intentions,  and  most  elevated 
purposes."  They  should  have  remembered  that  so  unquestionable  were 
these  virtues  as  to  extort  from  an  envious  rival,  Henry  Clay,  professions 
of  admiration.  "  Towards  that  distinguished  captain,  who  has  shed  so 
much  glory  on  our  country,  whose  renown  constitutes  so  great  a  portion 
of  its  moral  property,  I  never  had,"  said  the  w^estern  orator,  "I  never 
can  have,  any  other  feelings  than  those  of  profound  respect,  and  of  the 
utmost  kindness."  They  should  have  remembered,  that,  at  the  age  of 
thirty,  a 'senator  in  Congress,  when  the  latitudinarian  expositions  of  the 
federalists  were  breaking  down  the  landmarks  of  the  Constitution,  and 
consolidating  the  States  into  one  sovereignty,  Andrew  Jackson  was  found 
on  the  side  of  those  republican  principles  peculiar  to  America,  and 
essential  to  her  liberty ;  and  that  ever  since  that  time  he  has  been  a 
firm,  consistent,  and  unwavering  democrat ;  and  then  they  could  never 
have  doubted  that  the  anticipations  of  Mr.  Jefferson  would  be  realized, 
that  the  fate  of  the  bank  was  sealed  by  his  election,  and  that  the  reno- 
vation of  the  Constitution  was  to  be  the  last  Herculean  task  of  Andrew 
Jackson.     The  task  was  his,  and  he  was  equal  to  its  accomplishment. 

This  brave  and  wise  old  man,  Avhom  king-loathed  Columbia  has  so 
long  delighted  to  honor,  is  approaching  the  goal  at  which  his  patriotic 
labors  are  to  terminate.  Having  filled  full  the  measure  of  his  country's 
glory,  covered  with  the  laurels  of  martial  and  of  civic  triumph,  rich  in  the 
gratitude  of  millions  redeemed  from  the  scourge  of  monopoly,  and 
cheered  by  the  hope  that  the  blessings  he  has  won  for  his  country  may 
be  perpetual  as  the  love  of  freedom  in  the  hearts  of  Americans,  there  is 
still  in  store  for  him  a  higher  and  purer  enjoyment  than  any  of  these. 
When  his  long  career  of  public  duty  shall  have  been  finished,  and  he 
shall  seek  the  peaceful  Hermitage,  to  dedicate  to  needed  and  wished-for 
repose  the  evening  of  his  days,  wnth  what  tranquil  satisfaction  M'ill  he 
look  back  upon  the  many,  the  weighty,  and  the  lasting  services,  which  a 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  263 

benignant  Providence  has  made  him  the  chosen  instrument  to  render  to 
this  heaven-protected  nation  !  With  what  dehghtful  consciousness  may- 
he  then  reflect  upon  the  faithful  performance  of  the  vast  obhgations  de- 
volving on  such  a  man,  upon  the  good  use  which  he  has  made  of  the 
many  talents  wherewith  God  has  gifted  him,  upon  the  large  part  allotted 
to  him,  in  the  wide  sphere  of  action  in  which  he  has  moved,  done  —  all 
done  —  and  well  done  !  Fortunate  soldier,  statesman,  patriot,  and  phi- 
lanthropist ! 

You  have  defended  our  soil  from  invasion,  restored  our  violated  Con- 
stitution, disarmed  and  prostrated  the  most  dangerous  foe  of  our  liber- 
ties, brought  a  wdiole  great  people  by  your  judicious  policy  into  a  palmy 
state  of  prosperity  never  known  before,  and  by  the  successful  issue  of 
an  honest  and  straight  forward  course  of  plaindealing,  have  demon- 
strated to  mankind  that  the  same  principles  of  morality  and  honor  may 
govern,  and  ought  to  govern,  the  intercourse  of  nations,  which  regulate 
and  dictate  our  conduct  in  our  individual  relations.  The  bright  ex- 
ample of  the  republic  over  which  you  preside,  has  penetrated  the  dark- 
ness that  so  long  has  brooded  over  the  Old  World.  It  towers  and  glows, 
refulgent  and  beautiful,  a  beacon  light  to  the  tempest-tost  pilgrims  of 
liberty,  kindled  late  but  shining  far  through  the  pervading  gloom  of 
transatlantic  tyranny,  reviving  dying  hope  even  in  the  bosom  of  despair. 
Self-government  is  no  longer  a  visionary  dream.  Republics  no  longer 
tend  irresistibly  to  <^onsolidation  and  despotism.  A  truly  Roman  energy 
has  thwarted  and  turned  back  that  tendency,  and  has  reinstated  tlie  Con- 
stitution in  its  primitive  purity,  with  its  original  vigor,  but  without  the 
superadded  and  unnatural  impetus  which  would  have  drawn  every  thing 
into  its  vortex,  or  else  have  torn  it  asunder  by  the  increasing  violence  of 
its  own  motions. 

Through  what  a  series  of  toils,  and  perils,  and  vicissitudes  have  you 
reached  the  crowning  period  of  your  life,  when  your  opposers  looked  up 
to  you,  with  the  same  confidence  as  your  friends,  to  vindicate,  as  you 
always  have  vindicated,  and  ahvays  will  vindicate,  our  insulted  honor. 
The  country  knew  that  its  honor  was  safe,  for  it  remembered  your  de- 
claration, "  the  honor  of  my  country  shall  never  be  tarnished  in  my 
hands  ; "  and  it  had  the  sure  guaranty  of  your  life  and  character,  be- 
fore that  emphatic  sentence  was  uttered.  Tlie  almost  unanimous  elec- 
tion which  placed  you  for  a  second  term  in  the  Presidential  chair,  has 
been  followed  by  an  approbation  of  your  administration  approaching 
still  more  nearly  to  unanimity  ;  and  in  your  retirement  from  office,  you 
will  be  followed  by  that  universal  respect  and  affection,  of  which  the 
world  has  seen  but  one  illustrious  instance,  in  the  person  of  your  earhest 
predecessor. 


264  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

From  tlie  level  of  humble  poverty,  by  honest  industry  and  prudence 
in  every  station  he  was  called  to  fill,  Andrew  Jackson  has  reached  an 
easy  affluence.  From  a  friendless  obscurity,  by  the  exercise  of  those 
heroic  virtues  which  in  all  ages  have  commanded  the  admiration  of  man- 
kind, he  has  raised  himself  to  that  splendid  eminence  beyond  which 
there  is  no  higher  pinnacle  of  fame.  lie  has  occupied  with  signal  merit 
the  most  honorable  office  in  the  world,  the  elective  chief  magistracy  of 
an  independent  nation  of  freemen. 

Fortunate  to  have  run  this  unexampled,  this  wonderful  career  !  Be- 
yond the  eight  hundred  millions  of  your  contemporaries  most  fortunate  ! 
Fortunate  beyond  comparison  in  the  varied  annals  of  history  !  Beyond 
comparison  save  one,  for  between  Jackson  and  AYashington  how  close  is 
the  parallel. 

There  are  three  great  names  which  mark  three  distinct  epochs  in  our 
progress  towards  a  complete  independence  :  Washington  who  threw  ofl" 
the  yoke  of  British  power  :  Jefferson  who  broke  the  charm  of  British 
precedents,  and  British  authority :  Jackson  who  cancelled  what  remained 
of  British  institutions,  and  British  policy.  There  are  numerous  points 
of  resemblance  between  the  three,  but  more  especially  between  the  first 
and  last. 

To  the  heroes  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  war  of  independence,  it 
was  equally  objected,  that  their  early  education  had  been  in  some  de- 
gree defective.  As  if  every  man  of  genius  did  not  educate  himself,  in 
maturer  life,  for  whatever  of  duty  devolved  upon  him  ;  as  if  Marl- 
borough were  any  the  less  a  general  or  a  statesman  unrivalled  in  his 
day,  because,  as  Lord  Chesterfield  tells  us,  in  terms  not  applicable  to 
Washington  or  Jackson,  "  He  was  extremely  illiterate,  wrote  bad  English 
and  spelled  it  worse  ; "  as  if  both  were  not  well  versed  in  practical  poli- 
tics, familiar  with  public  affairs  as  with  the  air  they  breathed  ;  and  as  if 
that  were  not  a  well  known  truth  which  the  elder  Adams  remarked  in 
his  defence  of  the  American  Constitution,  "  Knowledge  is  by  no  means 
necessarily  connected  with  wisdom  or  virtue."  It  was  also  urged  against 
both  by  their  enemies,  that  they  were  military  chieftains.  As  if  the 
qualities  that  fit  a  man  for  bold  and  judicious  conduct  in  war,  were  not 
the  requisites  of  bold  and  judicious  conduct  in  the  cabinet  ;  as  if  it  did 
not  need  as  firm  a  hand  to  grasp  steadily  the  helm  of  State,  as  to  direct 
the  columns,  or  marshal  the  ranks  for  a  battle  ;  as  if  Julius  Ca'sar, 
Cromwell,  Napoleon,  and  Wellington,  were  inferior,  as  practical  states- 
men, to  Cicero,  Charles  the  First,  Louis  the  Sixteenth,  or  Canning.  But 
these  charges  had  little  weight  with  the  sober  sense  of  the  American 
people,  who  formed  a  correct  estimate  of  the  genius  of  each,  notwith- 
standing; the  efforts  of  their  revilers. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  265 

That  Washington  was  what  is  called  a  self-made  man,  is  well  known 
to  us  all,  yet  Washington  was  pronounced  by  Patrick  Henry,  on  his  re- 
turn from  Congress  in  1774,  to  be  the  greatest  man  for  information  and 
judgment  in  that  body.  That  Jackson  has  been  emphatically  the  artifi- 
cer of  his  own  fortunes  is  equally  undeniable.  He  has  built  up  his  en- 
viable and  surpassing  fame,  not  by  the  aid  of  family  connections,  heredi- 
tary wealth,  or  favorable  opportunities ;  but  in  despite  of  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, and  inveterate  opposition.  The  man  in  abuse  of  whom  the 
powers  of  language  have  been  daily  exhausted,  for  some  years  ;  on 
whom  has  been  lavished,  without  stint,  the  whole  vocabulary  of  envy, 
wrath,  malice,  and  all  uncharitableness,  having  been  honored  with  the 
confidence  of  every  j^resident,  from  Washington  down  to  his  own  im- 
mediate predecessor,  has  three  titnes  received  far  the  largest  number  of 
votes  for  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  people  ;  and  has  twice  been 
called,  by  an  overwhelming  majority  of  suffrages,  to  fill  the  presidential 
chair,  thereby  evincing  that  he  possessed  "  the  unbounded  confidence 
and  expectation  of  the  nation,"  of  which  the  ballot-box  is  the  only  sure 
test. 

By  his  own  unaided  merit  has  he  risen  to  that  proud  eminence.  Hav- 
ing seen  his  only  brother  perish  by  the  cruelty  of  the  enemy,  in  tlie  war 
of  the  revolution,  and  his  broken-hearted  mother  follow  her  son  to  the 
grave,  he  went  alone,  friendless  and  pennyless,  from  his  native  State  to 
Tennessee,  where  he  had  not  a  single  blood  relation,  and  when  scarcely 
more  than  a  boy,  we  find  him  selected  to  assist  in  framing  a  Constitution 
for  that  State,  a  member  of  the  first  legislature  of  Tennessee  ;  selected 
by  Washington,  endowed  like  himself  with  a  wonderful  sagacity  in  the 
discrimination  of  character,  for  the  responsible  office  of  district  attor- 
ney ;  soon  after  delegated  among  the  first  representatives  in  congress  from 
the  State  of  Tennessee,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  constitutionally  eligible, 
being  only  thirty  years  of  age,  he  was  placed  in  the  senate  of  the  United 
States.  This  post  he  soon  after  resigned,  but  he  could  not  be  suffered  to 
remain  in  retirement,  and  he  Avas  almost  immediately  appointed  judge 
of  the  supreme  court  of  that  State. 

In  this  early  and  rapid  promotion  of  a  friendless  stranger,  we  may  see 
the  evidence  of  talents  for  civil  service,  for  he  was  not  yet  a  military 
chieftain  ;  and  it  was  the  ability  evinced  in  these  situations,  which  led, 
no  doubt,  to  his  military  appointment  during  this  period  as  major-general, 
commanding  the  militia»of  Tennessee,  and  afterwards  to  be  major-general 
in  the  United  States  service. 

In  times  of  extreme  difficulty  and  imminent  danger,  if  there  be  among 
the  citizens  a  spirit  cast  in  nature's  noblest  mould,  and  fully  equal  to  the 
exigency,  the  country  turns  her  eyes  at  once  to  him.     History  has  re- 

23 


266  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

corded  how  Washington  was  summoned  by  the  spontaneous  voice  of  the 
people  to  conduct  to  an  honorable  close  the  war  of  the  revolution.  His 
accomplishment  of  the  trust  justified  their  confidence,  and  crowned  his 
fame  with  laurels  which  time  cannot  wither.  So  it  was,  within  our 
memory,  with  our  own  Jackson. 

The  youth  who  had  discharged  with  honor  the  important  trusts  enu- 
merated, was  destined  to  be  recalled  from  the  retirement  which  he  loved, 
and  which  he  had  sought,  to  perform  for  his  country  services  both  civil 
and  military,  which  were  essential  to  her  salvation,  and  which  perhaps 
no  other  man  in  the  nation  could  have  performed.  Governor  Brooks,  a 
staunch  federalist  as  he  was,  but  a  soldier  and  a  man  of  honor,  whatever 
might  be  his  impressions  of  the  commencement  of  the  war,  surrendering 
party  bigotry  to  honest  national  pride,  frankly  acknowledged  that  "  it 
terminated  gloriously."  Both  branches  of  the  legislature  of  Massachu- 
setts —  aye,  federal  Massachusetts  —  voted  the  thanks  of  the  common- 
wealth to  the  successful  general,  a  testimony  no  less  creditable  to 
themselves  than  to  him. 

A  vast  plan  of  invasion  sketched  by  military  genius,  and  begun  to  be 
executed  with  a  boldness  that  did  not  dream  of  defeat,  by  solid  cohuims 
of  picked  men,  from  the  veterans  of  more  than  twenty  years'  warfare  ; 
officered  by  the  flower  of  British  chivalry ;  led  by  generals  of  undoubted 
talent,  tried  valor,  and  consummate  skill ;  trained  to  conquer,  and  exult- 
ing in  their  anticipated  success,  on  the  eighth  of  January,  eighteen  hun- 
dred and  fifteen,  received  from  Andrew  Jackson's  arm  its  fatal  check,  its 
final  wreck,  and  total  overthrow.  "  Never,"  said  the  Essex  Register,  a 
democratic  paper  at  that  time  published  in  Salem,  "  never  were  greater 
expectations  formed,  and  never  were  anticipations  more  exceeded  than 
in  this  event.  We  attributed  every  thing  to  the  discipline  and  compre- 
hension of  the  general,  and  we  had  been  taught  to  expect  every  thing 
from  the  courage,  the  strength,  and  the  perseverance  of  the  western 
troops.  We  have  been  surprised  by  the  glory  which  surrounds  our  arms. 
We  can  now  unite  to  the  greatest  success  over  the  hostile  savages,  the 
more  surprising  defeat  of  the  best  troops  from  a  European  enemy.  The 
same  man  who  has  prevented  any  future  danger  from  savages  on  this 
side  of  the  Mississippi,  has  been  able  to  teach  the  civilized  world  that, 
in  the  career  of  ambition,  the  sons  of  freedom  can  defend  their  soil 
against  the  best  troops  that  can  be  sent  to  disinherit  them.  *  *  *  * 
The  news  of  General  Jackson's  victory  was  recei^ved  in  Salem  with  every 
expression  of  public  joy.  The  circumstances  were  so  extraordinary,  that 
the  public  astonishment,  over-raised  by  the  great  success  of  this  hero, 
would  have  been  equal  to  the  highest  praise  our  country  has  ever  be- 
stowed, by  a  less  glorious  action.     The  greatness  of  the  victory  was  not 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  •  267 

incredible,  from  the  unhounded  confidence  and  expectation  of  the  nation. 
But  even  what  at  first  might  seem  exaggerated  praise,  was  found,  from 
the  dispassionate  history  of  the  conqueror,  far  short  of  the  unrivalled 
glory  of  the  event.  The  hero  is  immortal,  and  our  country  has  the 
blessinff." 

But  however  striking  may  be  the  resemblance  in  the  character  and 
history  of  the  heroes  of  the  two  wars,  the  brilliant  consummation  of  the 
last  arduous  contest  more  naturally  suggests  to  our  minds  our  own  Mas- 
sachusetts battle,  with  which  the  first  struggle  opened  after  the  prelude 
at  Lexington  and  Concord.  The  commencement  of  the  first  war  with 
Great  Britain  made  our  independence  inevitable,  even  before  the  decla- 
ration was  published  ;  the  conclusion  of  the  last  war  with  Great  Britain 
secured  it  forever.  These  two  events  are  the  pivots  on  which  our 
history  turns  ;  let  them,  therefore,  be  indissolubly  connected  in  our 
memories. 

Ask  a  Yankee  when  absent  from  his  native  land,  what  thrice  holy 
spot  of  all  New  England's  hallowed  soil  rises  readiest  to  his  recollection, 
if  ever  the  foreigner  tells  him  tauntingly  that  the  American  continent  is 
barren  of  historical  monumental  scenes.  With  a  swelling  heart  and  a 
beaming  eye,  he  will  answer,  Bunlcer  Hill.  Put  the  same  question  to 
the  hunter  of  the  West,  or  to  the  quick  and  fiery  Southron,  and  you 
know  his  answer  well :  it  is  J^eiv  Orleans. 

It  is  fortunate  for  us,  gentlemen,  that  the  two  great  battles  in  our  his- 
tory happened  in  opposite  extremities,  almost,  of  our  Union.  The  North 
cannot  reproach  the  South,  neither  can  the  South  vaunt  it  over  the 
North.  Each  possesses  one  imperishable  glory,  before  which  the  lustre 
of  the  brightest  victories,  won  in  battles  between  contending  tyrants, 
turns  pale  ;  but  neither  can  assert,  and  neither  attempts  to  arrogate 
peculiar  and  exclusive  possession  of  either  portion  of  the  splendid  inher- 
itance. Both  claim  a  common  property  in  the  trophies  of  these  two 
memorable  days,  tlie  seventeenth  of  June  and  the  eighth  of  January ; 
the  first  of  which  cut  out  work  for  the  fourth  of  July,  and  the  last  com- 
pleted it.  Both  walk  together  in  the  light  of  these  two  glowing  beacon 
fires,  kindled  on  that  stormy  coast  where  liberty  has  taken  up  her  eternal 
abode,  to  illuminate,  with  the  cheering  radiance  of  hope,  her  benighted 
pilgrims,  who  can  look  nowhere  else  for  hope  but  to  this  Western  World. 

Yes,  my  friends,  Warren  falling  in  his  prime,  in  a  sad  and  sanguinary 
defeat,  —  sad,  yet  more  glorious  than  any  victory  the  muse  of  history 
had  ever  yet  recorded,  —  Jackson,  balancing  at  New  Orleans  the  account 
that  was  opened  at  Bunker  Hill,  — closing  the  last  act  of  the  bloody 
drama  of  our  strife  with  the  mother  country,  wdth  a  fitting  catastrophe 
for  so  sublime  a  tragedy, —  Jackson,  achieving  a  victory  doubly  dis- 


268  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

astrous  to  the  invaders,  more  than  satisfying  the  highest  expecta- 
tions of  a  confiding  country,  putting  to  silence  for  awhile  the  clamorous 
tongue  of  envy,  and  extorting  sincere  and  heartfelt  praise  from  the 
vanquished  brave,  —  these  are  names  that  are,  and  ever  must  be, 
dear  to  the  whole  people  of  the  republic.  No  sectional  jealousy  shall 
be  suffered  to  monopolize  them ;  no  party  madness  shall  shut  our  eyes 
against  their  lustre.  Their  fair  fame  is  the  nation's  common  property  ; 
priceless,  for  gold  could  not  buy  it ;  secure,  for  no  reverse  of  fortune  can 
tear  it  from  us.  So  long  as  language  shall  be  faithful  to  its  trust ;  so 
long  as  tradition  shall  preserve  the  outline,  after  history  has  forgotten 
the  detail ;  so  long  as  one  generous  emotion  shall  warm  the  human  heart ; 
after  the  monument  shall  have  crumbled,  but  while  Bunker  Hill  shall 
stand ;  after  New  Orleans  shall  have  sunk  in  the  dust,  but  while  the 
Mississippi  shall  flow,  Warren  and  Jackson  shall  be  watchwords  in  the 
armies  of  liberty,  —  the  memory  of  our  two  great  battles  shall  eternally 
be  renewed  to  cheer  the  fainting  courage  of  desponding  patriotism,  to 
revive  and  invigorate  hope  when  almost  extinguished  in  the  breast  of 
the  despairing  lover  of  his  kind,  and  to  restore  and  reanimate  his  con- 
fidence in  God. 

To  return  to  our  parallel.  Our  two  great  commanders  had  not  only 
the  same  success  in  bringing  the  respective  wars  triumphantly  to  a  close, 
but  their  success  was  mainly  owing  to  the  same  cause  :  they  had  both 
learned  the  same  wisdom  in  the  same  school  of  suffering,  the  school  of 
Indian  warfare.  It  was  in  this  that  they  were  trained  to  arms,  and 
taught  that  ever-watchful  circumspection,  prudence  in  council  wdth 
energy  in  action,  which  they  both  exhibited  throughout  their  whole  career, 
and  which  occasioned  "  the  unbounded  confidence  and  expectation  of  the 
nation  "  to  concentrate  itself  upon  them.  So  implicit  was  the  reliance 
on  the  western  hero,  that  its  influence  extended  even  to  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  When  Gouldbourn,  the  British  commissioner  at  Ghent, 
remarked,  "  by  this  time  New  Orleans  is  ours,"  Henry  Clay  could  boldly 
answer,  for  he  knew  the  man,  "  No  :  New  Orleans  is  safe  :  Andrew 
Jackson  is  iherer 

The  two  military  chieftains  dismissed  from  the  toils  of  war  longed 
eagerly  for  retirement  and  repose :  to  neither  could  it  be  permitted. 
Their  country  still  had  claims  upon  them,  claims  which  none  but  they 
could  satisfy. 

A  dissolution  of  the  bonds  which  held  together  the  sister  States,  has 
twice  since  our  separation  from  the  mother  country  seemed  to  be  almost 
inevitable.  Twice  we  have  been  rescued  from  the  danger,  by  these  two 
patriot  heroes,  both  strong  in  the  unbounded  confidence  of  the  people, 
both  enjoying  that  confidence  from  the  same  causes,  both  using  it  in  the 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  269 

same  way  and  for  tlie  same  ends,  both  eclipsing  the  histre  of  their  mili- 
tary glory,  by  the  brighter  splendor  of  their  civic  fame,  and  both  em- 
balming the  memory  of  their  greatness  in  the  applause,  the  gratitude 
and  devotion  of  their  contemporaries,  who  witnessed  the  salvation  of 
their  country,  and  of  all  posterity  who  shall  inherit  the  legacy 
of  the  free  institutions  which  their  hands  established  and  perpet- 
uated. 

At  the  outset  of  our  career  of  self-government  the  experiment  of  a 
confederation  was  tried,  and  resulted,  as  every  experiment  of  that  kind 
always  had  resulted,  in  a  total  failure.  Incompetent  to  govern,  and  too 
weak  to  preserve  its  own  existence,  it  seemed  about  to  tumble  into  ruins, 
and  anarchy,  from  which  there  is  a  natural  progression  to  tyranny,  stared 
lis  full  in  the  face.  The  impossibility  of  propping  up  the  rotten  fabric 
was  apparent,  yet  the  jealous  patriotism  of  the  people  could  hardly  en- 
dure the  organization  of  a  government  strong  enough  to  sustain  itself 
amidst  the  collisions  of  sectional  interests,  and  to  maintain  order  at 
home,  the  dignity  of  the  nation  and  the  security  of  its  property  and  its 
citizens  abroad,  and  to  preserve  peace  with  all  the  world. 

There  would  have  been  just  cause  for  jealousy  and  alarm,  had  not 
Providence  preserved  for  this  great  occasion  the  savior  of  this  country, 
George  Washington,  the  first  military  chieftain  in  the  annals  of  the 
world,  whose  unapproachable  purity  was  perfectly  proof  against  all  the 
seductions  of  ambition.  The  whole  people  as  one  man,  called  upon  him 
to  direct  the  new  and  national  government,  while  it  should  develop  its 
untried,  its  necessary,  yet  much  dreaded  energies.  He  promptly  under- 
took the  arduous  oihce,  though  in  his  address,  at  his  inauguration  as 
president  of  the  United  States,  on  the  thirtieth  of  April,  1789,  he  tells 
us  with  characteristic  modesty,  that  "  the  magnitude  and  difficulty  of  the 
trust  to  which  the  voice  of  his  country  called  him,  being  sufficient  to 
awaken  in  the  wisest  and  most  experienced  of  her  citizens,  a  distrustful 
scrutiny  into  his  qualifications,  could  not  but  overwhelm  with  despon- 
dence, one,  who,  inheriting  inferior  endowments  from  nature,  and  un- 
practised in  the  duties  of  civil  administration,  ought  to  be  peculiarly  con- 
scious of  his  own  deficiencies."  In  their  answer  to  this  address  the 
senate  tell  him  truly  and  emphatically,  "  We  rejoice,  and  with  us  all 
America,  that  in  obedience  to  the  call  of  our  common  country,  you  have 
returned  once  more  to  public  life.  In  you  all  parties  confide  ;  in  you  all 
interests  unite ;  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  your  past  services,  great  as 
they  have  been,  will  be  equalled  by  your  future  exertions ;  and  that 
your  prudence  and  sagacity  as  a  statesman  will  tend  to  avert  the  dan- 
gers to  which  we  were  exposed,  to  give  stability  to  the  present  govern- 
ment, and  dignity,  and  splendor  to  that  country  which  your  skill  and 

23* 


270  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

valor  as  a  soldier  so  eminently  contributed  to  raise  to  independence  and 
to  empire."  Their  expectations  were  fulfilled  and  exceeded.  Washing- 
ton performed  more  than  he  had  promised.  The  pledges  given  at  the 
opening  of  the  first  congress  were  amply  redeemed,  "  that  the  founda- 
tions of  our  national  policy  should  be  laid  in  the  pure  and  immutable 
principles  of  private  morality,  and  the  preeminence  of  a  free  govern- 
ment be  exemplified  by  all  the  attributes  which  can  win  the  affections  of 
its  citizens,  and  command  the  respect  of  the  world,  —  since  there  is  no 
truth  more  thoroughly  established  than  that  there  exists,  in  the  economy 
and  course  of  nature,  an  indissoluble  union  between  virtue  and  happi- 
ness,—  between  duty  and  advantage, —  between  the  genuine  maxims  of 
an  honest  and  magnanimous  policy,  and  the  solid  rewards  of  public  pros- 
perity and  felicity, —  since  we  ought  to  be  no  less  persuaded  that  the 
propitious  smiles  of  heaven  can  never  be  expected  on  a  nation  that  dis- 
regards the  eternal  rules  of  order  and  right,  which  heaven  itself  has  or- 
dained, and  since  the  preservation  of  the  sacred  fire  of  liberty,  and  the 
destiny  of  the  republican  model  of  government,  are  justly  considered  as 
dee[)ly,  perhaps  as  finally  staked,  on  the  experiment  intrusted  to  the 
hands  of  the  American  people."  The  government  being  conducted 
u2)on  these  principles,  the  tongue  of  discord  was  hushed,  the  apprehen- 
sion of  danger  was  forgotten,  a  period  of  universal  prosperity  followed, 
and  so  long  as  George  Washington  continued  at  the  head  of  the  admin- 
istration, "the  propitious  smiles  of  heaven"  continued  to  bless  his  "hon- 
est and  magnanimous  policy." 

Since  that  time,  however,  witii  the  exception  of  a  particular  interval, 
the  action  of  the  general  government  has  been  constantly  and  irresisti- 
bly enlarging  itself.  The  ominous  progress  of  this  series  of  encroach- 
ments upon  our  liberties,  becoming  every  day  more  rapid,  could  only  be 
arrested  by  .i  man  possessing  a  personal  popularity  second  to  none  since 
Washington,  and  disposed  to  use  the  power  which  his  hold  on  the  hearts 
of"  his  fellow-citizens  gave  him,  to  reform  the  corruptions  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  restore  it  to  its  original  purity. 

Fortunately  for  us,  the  times  which  required,  as  before,  produced  that 
man.  Respected  for  his  talents  and  energy  of  character,  and  trusted 
for  his  integrity  and  the  soundness  of  his  political  views  ;  illustrious  for 
the  crowning  victory  of  the  last  war,  which  obliterated  the  memory  of 
many  defeats,  and  outshone  our  other  numerous  victories  ;  having  on  a 
former  occasion  received  a  plurality  of  electoral  votes,  he  was  at  last 
called  by  an  overwhelming  majority  of  suffrages  to  fill  the  presidential 
chair.  Unappalled  by  the  difficulty  of  the  task,  he  proceeded  steadily 
to  his  great  purpose,  and  obstacles  seemingly  insurmountable  gave  way 
before  him.     The  growth  of  deep-rooted  abuses  was  stayed  at  once,  and 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  271 

he  exerted  all  his  sagacity  and  decision  to  eradicate  them  from  our  sys- 
tem. His  reforms  in  office  reduced  to  practice  the  great  truth,  that 
place-men  are  not  possessors  of  office  for  their  own  emolument,  but 
holders  of  a  trust  to  be  administered  for  the  benefit  of  the  people ; 
and  in  every  department,  method,  order,  punctuality,  and  economy 
superseded  negligence,  carelessness,  procrastination,  and  prodigality. 

In  his  intercourse  with  foreign  nations,  he  built  upon  the  foundation  of 
national  policy  laid  by  Washington,  "  the  immutable  principles  of  private 
morality,"  —  proclaiming  it  at  the  outset  as  a  fundamental  rule  of  liis 
conduct  "to  ask  nothing  but  what  was  clearly  right,  and  to  submit  to 
nothing  that  was  wrong."  To  this  golden  rule  he  has  unalterably  ad- 
hered, and  "  the  smiles  of  heaven  have  abundantly  approved  his  honest 
and  magnanimous  policy."  His  frank  and  manly  advances  to  other 
governments  have  met  a  ready  and  a  cordial  reception,  and  ob- 
tained for  his  country  advantages  which  the  tortuous  diplomacy 
of  former  administrations  either  dared  not  attempt,  or  attempted  in 
vain. 

Though  holding  the  highest  place  in  the  affi3ctions  of  the  Western 
States,  he  dared  to  put  his  veto  upon  the  log-rolling  system  of  corrup- 
tion, Avhich  threatened  to  make  congress  an  exchange,  where  political 
brokers  should  be  sent  to  barter  money  laid  out  and  expended  for  promo- 
tion had  and  received.  By  this  bold  act  he  put  a  stop  to  the  squandering 
of  the  millions  on  millions  of  treasure  annually  drained  from  the  sea-board, 
and  applied  our  superabundant  resources  to  the  payment  of  the  national 
debt,  which  he  w^as  thus  enabled  to  cancel ;  and  now,  those  wlio  two 
years  ago  predicted  that  the  revenue  would  "  fall  short  one  half,  or  at 
least  one  third,"  have  no  other  ground  of  complaint  left  than  the  rapid 
accumulation  of  surplus  funds  in  the  treasury.  Yet  while  the  expenses 
of  the  government  have  been  kept  so  far  within  its  income,  by  the  pros- 
tration of  Mr.  Calhoun's  internal  improvement  system,  the  taxes  of  the 
people  have  been  diminished  to  the  amount  of  eighty-live  millions  of 
dollars,  on  goods  imported  for  their  use,  w^ithin  the  last  five  years, 
or  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  including  the  present 
year. 

The  system  of  unequal  taxation,  of  pampering  the  producers  of  a 
particular  article,  who  are  few,  at  the  cost  of  the  consumers,  wdio  are 
many,  has  been  a  fruitful  source  of  misery  in  most  of  the  civilized  na- 
tions of  modern  times.  After  it  had  become  the  object  of  the  abhor- 
rence of  the  friends  of  freedom  everywhere  else,  it  was  introduced, 
chiefly  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  Clay,  into  the  United  States.  The 
tariff  of  1828,  justly  styled  by  Mr.  Webster  "a  bill  of  abominations,"  car- 
ried this  system  to  its  height,  and  the  consequent  reaction  at  the  South 


272  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

produced  the  baneful  heresy  of  nullification.  This  brought  into  jeopardy 
our  Union,  and  republican  institutions  ;  and  there  -were  those  at  the  North 
who  promulgated  the  unchristian  sentiment,  "our  danger  lies  in  conces- 
sion," while  the  arch  nullifier  brandished  before  the  South  the  torch  of 
discord ;  and  the  dogs  of  war,  almost  loosed  from  their  leash,  ahx^ady 
seemed  to  snuff  the  blood  of  brethren,  deluging  the  land  devoted  to  civil 
strife.  But  the  administration  had  taken  for  its  motto,  "  the  federal 
Union,  it  must  be  preserved:"  concession  was  made,  liberal  concession, 
though  the  Catilines  preferred  disunion,  civil  war,  and  anarchy  to  con- 
cession. We  have  steered  clear  of  the  rocks  and  quicksands  that  beset 
us,  and  in  spite  of  the  conspiring  mutineers  that  would  have  run  her  on 
a  lee  shore,  that  they  might  take  command  of  the  wreck  and  parcel  out 
the  plunder,  the  ship  of  State  stands  steadily  on  her  proud  course,  — 
thanks  to  the  firm  hand  that  has  never  let  go  the  helm.  May  a  thou- 
sand ages  roll  away  before  our  country  is  again  environed  with  perils 
imminent  as  she  then  escaped !  Her  escape  she  owes,  under  God,  to 
the  far-seeing  wisdom  and  unwavering  patriotism  which  presided  over 
her  destinies,  —  a  statesmanship  which  will  couple  his  name  alone  with 
that  of  Washington  in  the  memory  of  our  remotest  posterity. 

When  Andrew  Jackson  was  first  elected  to  the  presidency  of  these 
United  States,  Ave  knew  his  patriotism  and  appreciated  his  talents  ;  but 
who  could  then  have  anticipated  that  the  crisis  would  come  so  soon  which 
would  put  in  requisition  all  his  patriotism  and  all  his  talents,  and 
"udiich  without  those  high  qualities  might  have  proved  fatal  to  us. 
Eighteen  long  years  before,  he  had  glory  enough  for  one  man,  but  now 
his  cup  is  filled  to  overflowing. 

Each  of  the  hero  presidents  received  the  sanction  of  the  approbation 
of  his  fellow-citizens,  after  his  system  of  administration  had  been  dis- 
tinctly developed,  by  a  reelection  for  a  second  term  of  service,  with  a 
high  degree  of  unanimity.  And  as  if  to  carry  out  and  complete  the 
parallel,  each  during  his  second  term  found  himself  harassed  by  the 
embarrassing  nature  of  our  relations  with  France.  Both  alike  main- 
tained an  independent  attitude  towards  that  power,  both  commanded  her 
respect ;  and  the  voice  of  congratulation  rising  from  the  whole  continent 
witnesses  the  universal  satisfaction  with  which  America  has  welcomed 
the  final  adjustment  of  the  late  difficulties. 

The  resemblance  is  not  confined  to  the  history,  but  it  extends  through 
the  personal  character  of  these  two  great  men.  Judge  jMarsliall  in 
sketching  the  character  of  Washington  observes,  that  in  his  civil  admin- 
istration, as  in  his  military  career,  were  exhibited  ample  proofs  of  that 
practical  good  sense  and  sound  judgment  which  is  perhaps  the  most 
rare,  as  it  is  certainly  the  most  valuable   quality  of  the  human  mind 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  373 

We  are  told  that  he  sought  to  acquire  all  the  information  which  was  at- 
tainable, and  to  hear  without  prejudice  all  the  reasons  which  could  be 
urged  for  or  against  a  particular  measure.  His  own  judgment  was  sus- 
pended until  it  became  necessary  to  determine ;  and  his  decisions,  thus 
maturely  made,  were  seldom  if  ever  to  be  shaken.  No  man  has  ever 
appeared  upon  the  theatre  of  public  action  whose  integrity  was  more  in- 
corruptible, or  whose  principles  were  more  perfectly  free  from  the  con- 
tamination of  those  selfish  and  unworthy  passions  w^hich  find  their 
nourishment  in  the  conflicts  of  party.  Having  no  views  which  required 
concealment,  his  real  and  avowed  motives  were  the  same  ;  and  his  whole 
correspondence  does  not  furnish  a  single  case  from  wliich  even  an  enemy 
would  infer  that  he  was  capable  under  any  circumstances,  of  stooping  to 
the  employment  of  duplicity.  No  truth  can  be  uttered  with  more  con- 
fidence than  that  his  ends  were  always  upright,  and  his  means  always 
pure.  He  exhibits  the  rare  example  of  a  politician  to  whom  wiles  were 
absolutely  unknown,  and  whose  professions  to  foreign  governments,  and 
to  his  own  countrymen,  were  always  sincere.  In  him  was  fully  exem- 
plified the  real  distinction  which  forever  exists  between  wisdom  and  cun- 
ning, and  the  importance  as  well  as  truth  of  the  maxim,  that  honesty  is 
the  best  policy.  Intrigue  was  never  employed  as  the  means  to  gratify 
his  ambition,  nor  was  personal  aggrandizement  its  object.  The  various 
high  and  important  stations  to  which  he  was  called  by  the  public  voice, 
were  unsought  by  himself;  and  in  consenting  to  fill  them,  he  seems 
rather  to  have  yielded  to  a  general  conviction,  that  the  interests  of  his 
country  would  be  thereby  promoted,  than  to  his  particular  inclination. 
Neither  the  extraordinary  partiality  of  the  American  people,  the  extra- 
vagant praises  which  w^ere  bestowed  upon  him,  nor  the  inveterate  op- 
position and  malignant  calumnies  which  he  experienced,  had  any  visible 
influence  upon  his  conduct.  The  cause  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  texture 
of  his  mind. 

It  is  impossible  to  contemplate  the  great  events  which  occurred  in  the 
United  States  under  the  auspices  of  Washington,  without  ascribing  them, 
in  some  measure,  to  him.  If  vre  ask  the  causes  of  the  prosperous  issue 
of  a  war,  against  the  glorious  termination  of  which  there  were  so  many 
probabilities  ;  of  the  good  which  was  produced  and  tlie  ill  which  was 
avoided,  during  an  administration  fated  to  contend  with  the  strongest 
prejudices  that  a  combination  of  circumstances  and  of  passions  could 
produce ;  of  the  constant  favor  of  the  great  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens, 
and  of  the  confidence  which,  to  the  last  moment,  they  reposed  in  him,  — 
the  answer,  so  far  as  the  causes  may  be  found  in  his  character,  will  fur- 
nish a  lesson  well  meriting  the  attention  of  those  who  are  candidates  for 
political  fame.     Endowed  by  nature  with  a  sound  judgment,  and  an  ac- 


274  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

curate,  discriminating  mind,  he  feared  not  that  laborious  attention  which 
made  him  perfectly  master  of  those  subjects,  in  all  their  relations,  on 
which  he  was  to  decide  ;  and  this  essential  quality  was  guided  by  an  un- 
varying sense  of  moral  right,  v/hich  would  tolerate  the  employment  only 
of  those  means  that  would  bear  the  most  rigid  examination  ;  by  a  fair- 
ness of  intention  which  neither  sought  nor  required  disguise,  and  by  a 
purity  of  virtue  which  was  not  only  untainted,  but  unsuspected.  Such 
are  almost  the  exact  words  of  his  biographer.  How  else  could  one  ade- 
quately describe  the  character  of  Jackson,  than  by  repeating  what  has 
been  said  of  "Washington  ? 

His  enemies,  even,  have  established  this  to  be  his  reputation  by  the 
nature  of  the  charges  they  have  brought  against  him.  More  solid  than 
brilliant  judgment,  rather  than  genius,  constituted  the  most  prominent 
feature  of  the  character  of  Washington.  Often  has  our  present  presi- 
dent been  reproached  because  he  never  exhibited  that  brilliant  oratorical 
genius  which  distinguishes  some  of  his  senatorial  rivals.  Often  has  his 
disposition  to  deliberate  and  consult  been  charged  upon  him  as  the  hesi- 
tation of  an  old  man  in  his  dotage,  or  the  subserviency  of  a  weak-minded 
man  to  his  leaders  ;  though  this  calumny  long  since  disappeared  before 
the  full  blaze  of  evidence  to  the  contrary,  as  snow  dissolves  under  the 
noonday  sun.  Of  late  years,  the  pertinacity  with  which  he  adheres  to 
his  matured  decisions,  has  been  a  much  more  frequent  topic,  and  it  is  re- 
presented as  the  obstinate  perversity  of  an  iron-headed  soldier. 

The  incorruptibility  which  withstood  the  approaches  of  intrigue,  in 
the  presidential  camj^aign  of  1824,  as  well  as  in  all  other  situations,  is 
fresh  in  the  recollection  of  all.  Often  has  he  been  rebuked  for  the  noble 
advice  Avhich  he  gave  to  Mr.  Monroe,  in  1816,  to  disregard  mere  party 
feelings,  and  select  "  characters  most  conspicuous  for  their  probity,  vir- 
tue, capacity,  and  firmness,  without  any  regard  to  party,"  and  his  own 
liberal  practice  in  this  particular  long  furnished  the  pretence  for  much 
abuse.  The  frankness  and  openness  of  his  manner,  many  have  derided 
as  undignified  in  a  public  station ;  and  his  want  of  diplomatic  cunning 
was  one  of  the  prominent  objections  to  his  election  ;  yet  the  maxim  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy  was  never  more  happily  exemplified  than  in 
his  unprecedented  and  unanticipated  success  in  our  foreign  relations. 
That  flattery  could  not  seduce  him,  nor  the  malignant  fury  of  party  rage 
intimidate  him,  is  now  so  universally  acknowledged  that  it  seems  almost 
too  trite  to  be  repeated.  For  these  qualities  he  stands  before  the  peo- 
ple with  a  fame  imperishable  as  monumental  marble,  — 


The  man  resolved  and  steady  to  his  trust, 
Inflexible  to  ill  and  obstinately  just; 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  275 

Like  TencrifFc  or  Atlas  unremovecl, 

The  stubborn  virtue  of  his  spirit  proved ; 

Should  the  whole  frame  of  nature  round  him  break, 

In  ruin  and  confusion  hurled, 
He  unconcerned  would  view  the  mighty  wreck, 

And  smile  secure  amidst  a  falling  world. 


"In  m6re  instances  than  one,"  as  Judge  Marshall  has  remarked  of 
Washington,  "  we  find  him  committing  his  whole  popularity  to  hazard, 
and  pursuing  steadily,  in  opposition  to  a  torrent,  which  would  have  over- 
whelmed a  man  of  ordinary  firmness,  that  course  which  had  been  dic- 
tated by  a  sense  of  duty."  "Trusting  to  the  reflecting  good  sense  of 
the  nation  for  approbation  and  support,  he  had  the  magnanimity  to  pur- 
sue its  real  interests,  in  opposition  to  temporary  prejudices  ;  and  though 
far  from  being  negardless  of  popular  favor,  he  could  never  stoop  to  re- 
tain by  deserving  to  lose  it." 

The  great  events  in  which  he  has  been  concerned  are  justly  ascribed 
to  his  personal  agency.  The  purity  of  his  intentions,  and  his  elevated 
purposes  are  attested  by  liis  immediate  predecessor,  and  now  that  the 
hoarse  roar  of  party  animosity  is  hushed,  no  voice  is  heard  to  impeach 
them. 

The  State  papers  of  the  first  administration  were  numerous,  highly 
important,  and  much  admired  ;  and  the  farewell  address  is  among  the 
richest  of  the  legacies  of  wisdom  which  we  inherit  from  the  revolution- 
ary worthies.  The  State  j^apers  of  the  present  administration  will  suffer 
nothing  by  the  comparison.  The  Maysville  Road  Bill  veto,  —  the  bank 
veto,  —  the  proclamation,  —  the  views  of  the  president  read  to  the  cabi- 
net on  the  18th  of  September,  1833, — the  protest,  —  the  several  mes- 
sages, especially  those  on  nullification,  the  bank,  and  the  French  affairs, 

—  have  been  a  New  Orleans  battery  of  heavy  ordnance,  —  the  close 
columns  of  the  British  party  have  never  been  able  to  make  head  against 
them.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  close  of  the  presidential  term  will  be 
signalized  by  the  appearance  of  a  farewell  address,  to  embody  the  part- 
ing counsels  of  the  restorer  of  the  Constitution. 

There  is  another  point  of  resemblance  in  the  possession  by  Washing- 
ton of  a  trait  of  character  often  attributed  by  his  enemies  to  Jackson, 

—  liability  to  passion.  An  eloquent  panegyrist  of  General  Washington, 
the  Hon.  Francis  C.  Gray,  thus  speaks  of  this  peculiarity,  —  "  History 
demands  the  whole  truth,  and  will  ask  if  he  had  no  failings.  If  he  had 
any  —  for  he  was  a  man  —  they  have  left  no  trace  in  the  annals  of  his 
country,  and  no  speck  upon  his  own  bright  fame.  His  enemies  could 
never  find  any  ;  for  all  the  shafts  of  calumny  seemed  to  be  directed 
against  the  strongest  points  of  his  character."    "  His  friends  could  never 


276  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

find  any,  excepting  one.  The  frailty  wliicli  reminded  him  of  his  nature, 
was  the  possession  of  such  violent  passions,  as  rarely  inhabit  the  human 
breast.  By  minute  scrutiny,  a  few  instances  may  be  discovered,  in  the 
course  of  his  active  and  varied  life,  in  which,  when  he  was  surprised  by 
the  gross  cowardice  or  misconduct  of  individuals  on  whom  he  had  relied, 
the  storm  gathered  on  his  brow,  usually  so  serene,  and  wrath  flashed 
forth  like  lisfhtnino: ;  terrible  as  transient ;  for,  in  an  instant  he  was  him- 
self  again."  No  more  will  General  Jackson's  failings,  be  they  what 
they  may,  leave  any  trace  in  the  history  of  his  country. 

America  might  be  supposed  a  partial  judge  of  the  fame  of  her  favor- 
ites,—  but  we  find  them  respected  abroad  no  less  highly  than  at  home. 
The  champion  of  the  rights  of  juries  at  the  English  bar,  the  great  mas- 
ter of  forensic  eloquence,  confessed,  that  he  stood  in  awe  of  Washing- 
ton. The  prime  minister  of  the  most  liberal  administration  Great  Bri- 
tain has  ever  yet  seen,  pronounced  Jackson  to  be  the  first  of  American 
statesmen.  Already  a  transatlantic  reputation,  which  no  one  living  save 
himself  can  claim,  associates  his  name  with  that  of  Washington,  and 
anticipates  the  sure  award  of  coming  generations. 

I  have  already  extended  these  remarks  too  fsir  to  allow  time  for  the 
parallel  which  might  easily  be  drawn  between  our  present  chief  magis- 
trate and  Thomas  Jefferson.  Their  character  as  bold  reformers,  their 
common  sentiments  on  all  the  great  political  questions,  the  venomous  but 
impotent  abuse  which  assailed  both,  while  candidates,  and  followed  all 
their  measures  after  their  election,  the  amazing  increase  of  their  popu- 
larity, by  the  very  means  employed  to  diminish  it,  the  clamor  excited 
by  removals  from  office,  the  opposition  which  their  efforts  at  retrench- 
ment encountered,  not  to  go  through  the  whole  catalogue  of  subjects 
acted  on  during  their  administrations,  afford  abundant  materials  for  an 
instructive  comparison.  It  was  urged,  that  Jefferson  could  not  be  a 
practical  statesman,  because,  said  the  British  party,  he  is  nothing  but  a 
whimsical  philosopher  ;  that  Jackson  could  not  be  a  practical  statesman, 
because,  said  the  whigs,  he  is  nothing  but  an  ignorant  soldier.  Loud, 
long,  and  vehement  was  the  outcry  against  them,  that  they  were  filling 
all  subordinate  offices  with  incompetent  men.  Yet  both  succeeded,  both 
grew  stronger  and  stronger  in  the  confidence  of  the  people,  and  before 
they  reached  the  accomplishment  of  their  mission,  were  greeted  with  a 
general  chorus  of  applause.  A  few  still  denounce  Jackson,  but  they  are 
those  who  believe  that  "  history  is  a  mere  fable,  if  Thomas  Jefferson 
would  not  have  made  his  will  the  only  law  of  the  land,  if  opposition  had 
not  wrought  upon  his  fears  ; "  and  who  admit,  while  they  condemn  them 
both,  that  "  Jacksonism  is  but  a  revival  of  Jeffersonism." 

These  three  illustrious  pioneers  of  genuine  independence,  have,  by 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  277 

their  whole  career  of  arduous  service  well  rewarded,  demonstrated  the 
proposition,  that  the  American  people  will  sustain  the  statesman,  who 
maintains  American  principles  ;  and,  that  nothing  can  be  more  grateful 
to  their  feelings,  than  whatever  is  perfectly  suited  to  our  own  institutions, 
character,  and  situation  ;  free,  equal,  liberal,  and  manly. 

Did  time  permit,  I  should  delight  to  follow  out  ideas  so  appropriate  to 
the  present  occasion,  and  to  show  why  it  is  that  we  have  scarcely  any- 
thing that  deserves  to  be  called  an  American  literature,  and  endeavor  to 
point  out  some  means  to  encourage  the  development  of  native  genius  in 
natural  and  independent  forms,  instead  of  subjecting  it,  for  the  most 
part,  to  the  constraint  of  servile  imitation  of  foreign  models,  and  repeti- 
tion of  foreign  notions.  The  masculine  and  republican  dignity  of  style 
in  which  our  State  papers  were  eomp>osed,  during,  and  even  before  the 
revolution,  as  well  as  at  later  periods,  must  exempt  these  documents  from 
the  general  censure.  There  are  other  brilliant  exceptions;  and,  far  as 
the  nation  may  be  below  the  independent  station  which  she  ought  to 
hold  in  the  literary  world,  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  Massachusetts  has 
done  her  share  towards  throwing  off  the  yoke  of  foreign  influence. 
Without  derogating  from  the  merits  of  others,  a  single  name  may  be 
mentioned  here  with  commendation.  A  citizen  of  this  Commonwealth, 
George  Bancroft,  of  Springfield,  is  doing  away  the  reproach,  which 
rested  on  us  so  long,  that  we  have  no  history  of  our  country,  worthy  of 
her  greatness.  lie  has  produced  a  work,  unexceptionable  for  the  accu- 
racy of  its  statements,  patriotic  in  sentiment,  delightfully  interesting,  ad- 
mirable for  the  purity  and  elegance  of  its  diction,  and  the  skilful  conduct 
of  the  story,  and  which,  so  far  as  it  is  published,  leaves  nothing  to  be 
desired.  Let  all  our  educated  men,  whom  nature  has  endowed  with  a 
capacity  for  the  higher  walks  of  literature,  employ  their  powers  with 
the  same  laudable  zeal,  and  judicious  choice  of  object,  with  whi.cli  this 
gentleman  exerts  his  fine  talents,  and  we  might  soon  pay  off  the  im- 
mense debt  we  owe  to  the  Old  World,  in  intellectual  coinage,  stamped 
with  the  im[)ress  of  original  genius. 

True  independence  requires  us  to  forbear  from  longer  aping  foreign 
manners,  when  inconsistent  with  republican  simplicity.  It  requires  the 
corrupt  i)ortion  of  the  population  of  our  great  cities,  to  be  kept  in  check 
by  our  sound,  substantial  yeomanry,  our  intelligent  mechanics,  and  our 
hardy  tars.     These,  we  may  safely  trust,  are  uncontaminated. 

Our  legislation,  also,  should  be  of  indigenous  growth.  The  laws 
should  be  intelligible  to  all,  equal  in  their  operation  ;  and  should  provide 
prompt  and  cheap  remedies  for  their  violation.  The  revision  of  the 
Statutes  of  this  Commonweahh,  just  completed,  has  done  something 
towards  this  great  end,  —  how  much,  the  public  are  hardly  yet  aware. 

24 


278  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AXD   WRITINGS 

It  would  liave  been  worth  all  the  time,  expense,  and  labor  spent  upon  it, 
even  though  they  had  been  ten  times  greater  than  they  were.  It  is  the 
most  important  aet  of  our  legislation  since  the  revolution.  Not  only  is 
the  whole  mass  systematized,  condensed,  simplified,  modernized,  and 
made  consistent  with  itself;  but  improvements,  almost  innumerable, 
have  been  introduced  into  every  part,  more  in  number  and  greater  in 
value,  than  our  general  court  would  have  elaborated,  in  their  ordinary 
mode  of  legislation,  for  many  years. 

But  the  Revised  Statutes,  excellent  as  they  are,  contrasted  with  the 
chaos  for  which  they  are  substituted,  still  cover  but  a  small  part  of  the 
ground.  We  are  governed  principally,  by  the  common  law  ;  and  this 
ought  to  be  reduced,  forthwith,  to  a  uniform  written  code. 

It  is  said  by  writers  on  the  subject,  that  there  are  numerous  princi- 
ples of  the  common  law,  which  are  definitely  settled  and  well  known, 
and  that  the  questionable  utility  of  putting  these  into  the  form  of  a  posi- 
tive and  unbending  text,  is  not  sufficient  to  outweigh  the  advantages  of 
leaving  them  to  be  applied  by  the  courts,  as  principles  of  common  law, 
whenever  the  occurrence  of  cases  should  require  it. 

How  can  that  which  is  definitely  settled  and  well  known,  be  applied 
otherwise  than  as  a  positive  and  unbending  text  ?  It  is  because  judge- 
made-law  is  indefinitely  and  vaguely  settled,  and  its  exact  limits  un- 
known, that  it  possesses  the  capacity  of  adapting  itself  to  new  cases,  or, 
in  other  words,  admits  oi  judicial  legislation. 

Imperfect  statutes  are,  therefore,  commended  because  they  leave  the 
law,  in  the  omitted  cases,  to  be  enacted  by  the  judges.  Why  not  carry 
the  argument  a  little  further,  and  repeal  the  existing  statutes,  so  that 
the  judges  may  make  all  the  laws?  Is  it  because  the  Constitution  for- 
bids judges  to  legislate  ?  Why,  then,  commend  the  legislation  of 
judges? 

The  law  should  he  a  positive  and  unbending  text,  otherwise  the  judge 
has  an  arbitrary  power,  or  discretion  ;  and  the  discretion  of  a  good  man 
is  often  nothing  better  than  caprice,  as  Lord  Camden  has  very  justly 
remarked,  while  the  discretion  of  a  bad  man  is  an  odious  and  irresponsible 
tyranny. 

Why  is  an  ex  ])ost  facto  law,  passed  by  the  legislature,  unjust,  uncon- 
stitutional, and  void,  while  j-udge-made  law,  which,  from  its  nature,  must 
always  be  ex  post  facto.,  is  not  only  to  be  obeyed,  but  applauded?  Is  it 
"because  judge-made  law  is  essentially  aristocratical?  It  is  said,  the 
judge  only  applies  to  the  case  the  principles  of  common  law  which  exist 
already ;  but  the  legislature  applies  to  a  whole  class  of  cases  the  princi- 
ples of  common  sense  and  justice,  which  exist  already,  and  which  have 
existed  from  a  much  more  remote  antiquity. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  279 

The  common  law  sprung  from  the  dark  ages  ;  the  fountain  of  justice 
is  the  throne  of  the  Deity.  The  common  law  is  but  the  glimmering  taper 
by  wliich  men  groped  their  way  through  the  palpable  midnight  in  which 
learning,  wit,  and  reason  were  almost  extinguished  ;  justice  shines  with 
the  splendor  of  that  fulness  of  light  which  beams  from  the  Ineffable 
Presence.  The  common  law  had  its  beginning  in  time,  and  in  the  time 
of  ignorance  ;  justice  is  eternal,  even  with  the  eternity  of  the  allwise  and 
just  Lawgiver  and  Judge.  The  common  law  had  its  origin  in  folly,  bar- 
barism, and  feudality  ;  justice  is  the  irradiance  of  divine  wisdom,  divine 
truth,  and  the  government  of  infinite  benevolence.  While  the  common 
law  sheds  no  light,  but  rather  darkness  visible,  that  serves  but  to  dis- 
cover sights  of  woe, — justice  rises,  like  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  with 
healing  on  his  wings,  scatters  the  doubts  that  torture  without  end,  dispels 
the  mists  of  scholastic  subtilty,  and  illuminates  with  the  light  that  lighteth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  Older,  nobler,  clearer,  and  more 
glorious,  then,  is  everlasting  justice,  than  ambiguous,  base-born,  purblind, 
perishable  common  law.  That  which  is  older  than  the  creation  may 
indeed  be  extolled  for  its  venerable  age ;  but  among  created  things,  the 
argument  from  antiquity  is  a  false  criterion  of  worth.  Sin  and  death 
are  older  than  the  common  law  ;  are  they,  therefore,  to  be  preferred  to 
it  ?  The  mortal  transgression  of  Cain  was  anterior  to  the  common  law : 
does  it  therefore  furnish  a  better  precedent  ? 

Judge-made  law  is  ex  post  facto  law,  and  therefore  unjust.  An  act  is 
not  forbidden  by  the  statute  law,  but  it  becomes  by  judicial  decision  a 
crime.  A  contract  is  intended  and  supposed  to  be  valid,  but  it  becomes 
void  by  judicial  construction.  The  legislature  could  not  effect  this,  for 
the  Constitution  forbids  it.  The  judiciary  shall  not  usurp  legislative 
power,  says  the  Bill  of  Rights :  yet  it  not  only  usurps,  but  runs  riot 
beyond  the  confines  of  legislative  power. 

Judge-made  law  is  special  legislation.  The  judge  is  human,  and  feels 
the  bias  which  the  coloring  of  the  particular  case  gives.  If  he  wishes  to 
decide  the  next  case  differently,  he  has  only  to  distinguish,  and  thereby 
make  a  new  law.  The  legislature  must  act  on  general  views,  and  pre- 
scribe at  once  for  a  Avhole  class  of  cases. 

No  man  can  tell  what  the  common  law  is ;'  therefore  it  is  not  law  :  for 
a  law  is  a  rule  of  action  ;  but  a  rule  which  is  unknown  can  govern  no 
man's  conduct.  Notwithstanding  this,  it  has  been  called  the  perfection 
of  human  reason. 

The  common  law  is  the  perfection  of  human  reason, — just  as  alcohol 
is  the  perfection  of  sugar.  The  subtle  spirit  of  the  common  law  is  reason 
double  distilled,  till  what  was  wholesome  and  nutritive  becomes  rank 
poison.     Reason  is  sweet  and  pleasant  to  the  unsophisticated  intellect ; 


280  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

but  this  sublimated  perversion  of  reason  bewilders,  and  perplexes,  and 
plunges  its  victims  into  mazes  of  error. 

The  judge  makes  law,  by  extorting  from  precedents  something  which 
they  do  not  contain.  He  extends  his  precedents,  wdiich  were  themselves 
the  extension  of  others,  till,  by  this  accommodating  principle,  a  whole 
system  of  law  is  built  up  without  the  authority  or  interference  of  the 
legislator. 

The  judge  labors  to  reconcile  conflicting  analogies,  and  to  derive  from 
them  a  rule  to  decide  future  cases.  No  one  knows  what  the  law  is, 
before  he  lays  it  down  ;  for  it  does  not  exist  even  in  the  breast  of  the 
judge.  All  the  cases  carried  up  to  the  tribunal  of  the  last  resort,  are 
capable  of  being  argued,  or  they  would  not  be  carried  there.  Those 
which  are  not  carried  up  are  not  law,  for  the  Supreme  Court  might 
decide  them  differently.  Those  which  are  carried  up,  argued,  and 
decided,  might  have  been  decided  diirerently,  as  will  appear  from  the 
arguments.  It  is,  therefore,  often  optional  with  the  judge  to  incline  the 
balance  as  he  pleases.  In  forty  per  cent,  of  the  cases  carried  up  to  a 
higher  court,  for  a  considerable  term  of  years,  terminating  not  long  ago, 
the  judgment  was  reversed.  Almost  any  case,  where  there  is  any  differ- 
ence  of  opinion,  may  be  decided  either  way,  and  plausible  analogies  found 
in  the  great  storehouse  of  precedent  to  justify  the  decision.  The  law, 
then,  is  the  final  will  or  whim  of  the  judge,  after  coun;sel  for  both  parties 
have  done  their  utmost  to  sway  it  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 

No  man  knows  what  the  law  is  after  the  judge  has  decided  it.  Be- 
cause, as  the  judge  is  careful  not  to  decide  any  point  which  is  not  brought 
before  him,  he  restricts  his  decision  w  ithin  the  narrowest  possible  limits ; 
and  though  the  very  next  case  that  may  arise  may  seem,  to  a  superficial 
observer,  and  even  upon  a  close  inspection  by  an  ordinary  mind,  to  be 
precisely  similar  to  the  last,  yet  the  ingenuity  of  a  thorough-bred  lawyer 
may  detect  some  unsuspected  shade  of  difference,  upon  which  an  opposite 
decision  may  be  founded.  Great  part  of  the  skill  of  a  judge  consists  in 
avoiding  the  direct  consequences  of  a  rule,  by  ingenious  expedients  and 
distinctions,  whenever  the  rule  would  operate  absurdly  :  and  as  an  an- 
cient maxim  may  be  evaded,  but  must  not  be  annulled,  the  whole  system 
has  been  gradually  rcndei*ed  a  labyrinth  of  apparent  contradictions, 
reconciled  by  legal  adroitness. 

Statutes,  enacted  by  the  legislature,  speak  the  public  voice.  Legis- 
lators, with  us,  are  not  only  chosen  because  they  possess  the  public  con- 
fidence, but  after  their  election,  they  are  strongly  influenced  by  public 
feeling.  They  must  sympathize  with  the  public,  and  ex{)ress  its  will ; 
should  they  fail  to  do  so,  the  next  year  witnesses  their  removal  from 
office,  and  others  are  selected  to  be  the  organs  of  the  popular  sentiment. 


OF    ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  281 

The  older  portions  of  the  common  law  are  the  work  of  judges,  who  held 
their  places  during  the  good  pleasure  of  the  king,  and  of  course  decided 
the  law  so  as  to  suit  the  pleasure  of  the  king.  In  feudal  times,  it  was 
made  up  of  feudal  principles,  warped,  to  be  sure,  according  to  the  king's 
necessities.  Judges  now  are  appointed  by  the  executive,  and  hold  their 
offices  during  good  behavior,  —  that  is,  for  life,  and  are  consequently  out 
of  the  reach  of  popular  influence.  They  are  sworn  to  administer  com- 
mon law  as  it  came  down  from  the  dark  ages,  excepting  what  has  been 
repealed  by  the  Constitution  and  the  statutes,  which  exception  they  are 
always  careful  to  reduce  to  the  narrowest  possible  limits.  With  them, 
wrong  is  right,  if  wrong  has  existed  from  time  immemorial :  precedents 
are  every  thing :  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  nothing.  And  suppose  the 
judge  prefers  the  common  law  to  the  Constitutions  of  the  State  and  of 
the  Union  ;  or  decides  in  defiance  of  a  statute  ;  what  is  the  remedy  ? 
An  astute  argument  is  always  as  hand  to  reconcile  the  open  violation  of 
that  instrument  with  the  express  letter  of  the  Constitution,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  United  States  Bank,  —  or  to  prove  an  obnoxious  statute  un- 
constitutional, as  would  have  happened  in  the  case  of  the  Warren  Bridge, 
but  for  the  firmness  of  Judge  Morton.  Impeachment  is  a  bugbear, 
which  has  lost  its  terrors.  We  must  have  democratic  governors,  who 
will  appoint  democratic  judges,  and  the  whole  body  of  the  law  must  be 
codified. 

It  is  said,  that  where  a  chain  of  precedents  is  found  running  back  to  a 
remote  antiquity,  it  may  be  presumed  that  they  originated  in  a  statute 
which,  through  lapse  of  time,  has  perished.  Unparalleled  presumption 
this !  To  suppose  the  legislation  of  a  barbarous  age  richer  and  more 
comprehensive  than  our  own.  It  was  without  doubt  a  thousand  times 
more  barren.  But  what  if  there  were  such  statutes  ?  The  specimens 
which  have  survived  do  not  impress  us  with  a  favorable  opinion  of  those 
that  may  have  been  lost.  Crudely  conceived,  savage  in  their  spirit, 
vague,  indeterminate,  and  unlimited  in  their  terms,  and  incoherent  when 
regarded  as  parts  of  a  system,  the  remains  of  ancient  legislation  are  of 
little  use  at  present,  and  what  is  lost  was  probably  still  more  worthless. 
If  such  laws  were  now  to  be  found  in  our  statute  book,  they  would  be 
repealed  at  once ;  the  innumerable  judicial  constructions  which  they 
might  have  received  would  not  save  them.  Why  then  should  supposed 
statutes,  which  probably  never  had  any  but  an  imaginary  existence, 
which  if  they  ever  existed  were  the  rude  work  of  barbarians,  which 
cannot  now  be  ascertained,  and  if  they  could  be,  would  be  despised  and 
rejected  as  bad  in  themselves,  and  worse  for  our  situation  and  circum- 
stances, —  why  should  such  supposed  statutes  govern,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  civilized  and  intelligent  freemen  of  Massachusetts  ? 

24* 


282  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

These  objections  to  the  common  law  have  a  peculiar  force  in  America, 
because  the  rapidly  advancing  state  of  our  country  is  continually  pre- 
senting new  cases  for  the  decision  of  the  judges ;  and  by  determining 
these  as  they  arise,  the  bench  takes  for  its  share  more  than  half  of  our 
legislation,  notwithstanding  the  express  provisions  of  the  Constitution 
that  the  judiciary  shall  not  usurp  the  functions  of  the  legislature.  If  a 
common  law  system  could  be  tolerable  anywhere,  it  is  only  where  every 
thing  is  stationary.  With  us,  it  is  subversive  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  a  free  government,  because  it  deposits  in  the  same  hands  the 
power  of  first  making  the  general  laws,  and  then  applying  them  to  indi- 
vidual cases  ;  powers  distinct  in  their  nature,  and  which  ought  to  be 
jealously  separated. 

But  even  in  England,  common  law  is  only  a  part  of  a  system,  which, 
as  a  whole,  would  be  incomplete  without  equity.  We  strive  to  make  the 
part  supply  the  place  of  the  whole.  Equity  is  the  correction  of  that 
wherein  the  law  by  reason  of  its  generality  is  deficient ;  yet  we  have 
taken  the  law,  deficient  as  it  confessedly  is,  without  the  correction,  ex- 
cept in  certain  cases,  where  by  degrees,  and  almost  without  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  people,  equity  powers  have  been  given  to  the  courts.  A 
court  of  chancery  would  not  be  tolerated  here,  for  reasons  which  I  have 
not  time  to  enter  upon  ;  and  without  that  adjunct,  the  common  law  sys- 
tem would  not  be  tolerated  in  England.  Tlie  remedy  is  to  fuse  both 
into  one  mass,  adopting  such  principles  of  equity  as  are  really  necessary, 
simplifying  the  whole,  enacting  the  result  in  the  form  of  statutes,  and, 
from  time  to  time,  supplying  defects  and  omissions,  as  they  are  discov- 
ered. It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe,  that  in  doing  this,  opportunity 
should  be  taken  to  reform  and  remodel  the  great  body  of  the  law,  which 
stands  in  need  of  such  a  revision  more  than  any  other  science.  Some 
immense  advances,  it  is  true,  have  been  made  within  the  last  two  years, 
of  which  the  total  abolition  of  special  pleading  is  not  the  least  remark- 
able. But  instead  of  being  satisfied  with  what  has  been  gained,  it  should 
only  encourage  us  to  step  forward  more  boldly  in  what  remains  to  do. 
All  American  law  must  be  statute  law. 

In  our  State  policy,  the  principles  of  civil  and  religious  freedom  are 
the  only  sure  foundation  to  build  on.  Existing  laws  grossly  inconsistent 
with  these  principles  should  be  repealed.  The  democracy  of  the  State 
have  already  struggled  hard  to  repeal  them.  They  have  had  some  suc- 
cess, and  hope  for  more. 

In  our  national  policy,  free  trade,  no  bank,  no  debt,  light  taxes,  and  an 
economical  government  are  the  American  doctrines.  The  government 
must  be  confined  within  its  proper  sphere ;  the  supply  of  a  sound  cur- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  283 

rcncy  free  from  fluctuations,  the  care  of  our  foreign  relations,  the  defence 
of  the  national  honor,  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  It  should  be 
restricted  within  the  narrowest  constitutional  limits,  and  where  any  power 
is  doubtful,  it  should  not  be  exercised. 

The  leading  idea  of  the  American  policy  is  freedom.  The  sole  pur- 
pose of  government  is  to  prevent  the  rights  of  the  citizen  from  being  in- 
fringed or  encroached  upon.  Every  man  should  be  left  in  the  full  en- 
joyment of  his  natural  liberty,  so  long  as  he  does  not  thereby  interfere 
with  any  of  the  natural  rights  of  his  neighbor.  When  he  invades  the 
hallowed  boundary  of  another's  rights,  then  the  government  should  put 
forth  its  strong  arm  to  protect  them :  but  so  long  as  he  refrains  fiom 
any  such  invasion,  an  American  citizen  may  chiim,  as  his  biith-iight, 
perfect  and  unrestrained  liberty  of  action.  Within  these  limits,  where- 
over  his  interests,  wherever  his  inclination  may  lead  him,  he  may  take 
his  own  course,  and  government  has  no  riglit  to  place  in  his  f)ath  the 
Tery  slightest  impediment.  He  may  rove  iree  as  the  free  air  which  he 
breathes,  calling  no  man  his  master,  acknowledging  no  power  above  him 
but  in  heaven,  subject  to  no  other  restraint  but  the  obligations  of  virtue 
and  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  honor,  unshackled  by  arbitrary,  vex- 
atious, and  galling  restrictions,  untrammelled  by  human  legislation,  so 
long  as  he  obeys  the  guidance  of  an  enlightened  monitor  within.  For 
him  the  wdiole  object  of  government  is  negative.  It  is  to  remove,  and 
keep  out  of  his  way  all  obstacles  to  his  natural  freedom  of  action.  So 
long  as  it  performs  this  duty,  he  cheerfully  contributes  towards  its  sup- 
port. If  it  fails  in  the  performance,  he  sets  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel 
to  bring  about  the  requisite  reform  :  he  removes  the  inefficient,  or  in- 
competent, or  unfaithful  agents,  and  substitutes  in  their  place  those  who 
understand  and  will  take  care  to  effect  the  object  of  their  appointment. 
But  if  his  agents  have  exceeded  their  commission  ;  if  the  power  intrust- 
ed to  them,  to  guard  and  to  protect  his  liberty,  has  been  employed  in- 
sidiously to  steal  from  his  possession,  or  forcibly  to  wrest  from  his  grasp 
that  liberty,  then  indeed  he  no  longer  lives  under  a  free  government,  but 
under  a  despotism  ;  and  it  should  be  his  nightly  prayer  and  daily  en- 
deavor to  burst  asunder  the  chains  it  will  fasten  around  him  before 
they  are  riveted  too  strongly  to  be  broken.  I  want  no  government  to 
prescribe  to  me  when,  and  where,  and  how^  I  may  enjoy  my  natural 
rights.  That  is  my  owqi  affair.  I  only  ask  the  government  to  stand  by, 
a  watchful  sentinel,  a  mighty  guardian,  to  take  care  that  I  am  not  inter- 
rupted in  the  enjoyment  of  them.  It  should  be  our  presiding  genius, 
ever  near  us  and  around  us,  to  avert  all  evil  from  us  :  covering  us  with 
the  broad  a^gis  of  its  protection,  yet  at  the  same  time,  unseen,  unfelt, 


284  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AHD  WRITINGS 

unknown,  leaving  us  with  our  unrestricted  energies  to  work  out,  in  our 
own  way,  our  own  highest  happiness.* 

It  is  in  these  particulars,  features  indeed  more  striking  than  any  other, 
that  our  constitutions  are  peculiarly  American  and  purely  democratic. 
The  great  dividing  line  between  our  parties  originally  was,  generally 
has  been,  and  for  the  most  part  will  be,  between  the  friends  of  arbitrary 
power  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  friends  of  constitutional  freedom  on  the 
other,  —  between  those  who  wish,  by  wholesome  limitations  originally 
imposed,  and  by  a  strict  construction  of  them,  to  confine  governments  to 
the  few  objects  which  have  been  specified,  and  to  leave  the  people  oth- 
erwise individually  free  to  govern  themselves,  and  those,  whq^  by  a 
lavish  grant  of  power  originally,  and  a  broad  latitude  of  interpretation, 
and  a  free  use  of  implication  afterwards,  would  enable  the  government 
to  control  and  regulate  every  action,  and  would  make  it,  in  fine,  a  mere 
engine  for  the  aggrandizement  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many, 
like  every  other  government  upon  the  face  of  the  globe.  The  first  con- 
stitute the  democratic  or  constitutional  party,  —  the  latter  are  the  aristo- 
cratic or  consolidationist  party,  who  seem  to  be  governed  by  British 
rather  than  American  principles. 

The  aristocratic  party  seem  never  to  have  abandoned  the  doctrine 
that  the  people  could  not  safely  be  trusted  with  political  power.  They 
consider  the  popular  will  too  sandy  a  foundation  to  uphold  the  structure 
of  government.  For  this  reason,  after  failing  in  the  attempt  to  estab- 
lish a  government  whose  leading  features  should  be  a  president  to  serve 
during  good  behavior,  —  a  senate  to  serve  during  good  behavior,  and  to 
have  the  sole  power  of  declaring  war,  —  the  governor  of  each  State  to 
be  appointed  by  the  federal  head  and  to  have  a  negative  on  the  laws  of 
the  State,  —  they  set  about  building  a  consolidated  government  under 
the  forms  of  a  democratic  Constitution.  In  many  respects  the  attempt 
has  been  alarmingly  successful.  One  who  observes  the  little  considera- 
tion which  the  States  now  command,  and  how  completely  the  central 
government  absorbs  and  drawls  into  its  vortex  every  interest  and  all  am- 
bition, cannot  but  feel  some  misgivings  lest  the  States  may  have  com- 
mitted the  same  fatal  error  in  consenting  to  the  federal  government, 
which  the  forest  committed  in  giving  the  axe  wood  enough  to  furnish  a 
handle.     Such  misgivings  would  have  been  but  too  well  founded  had  not 

*  Tlie  nature  and  purpose  of  government  arc  discussed  much  more  at  large  in  a 
report  on  the  subject  of  Capital  Punishment,  made  in  the  House  of  Kcprcsentativcs 
of  Massachusetts,  February  22d,  1836,  printed  as  document  of  the  House  No.  32, 
from  the  eiglitli  to  the  thirtieth  page.  In  several  of  the  above  paragraphs  free  use 
has  been  made  of  the  discussion  in  that  report,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  285 

the  Roman  energy  of  Andrew  Jackson  arrested,  before  it  was  too  late, 
the  progress  of  consolidation,  and  redressed  the  wrongs  of  the  violated 
Constitution. 

The  original  plan  of  the  consolidationists  was  an  elective  monarch, 
with  elective  lords,  appointing  their  lieutenants  in  the  provinces.  Such 
a  scheme  differed  more  in  name  than  in  principle  from  the  British  mon- 
archy. After  the  failure  of  that  scheme,  it  was  natural  that  its  author, 
and  the  other  friends  of  a  strong  government,  when  contriving  how  to 
fortify  and  enlarge  the  federal  powers  so  as  to  overawe,  and  to  hold  the 
people  in  subjection,  should  still  continue  to  copy  after  British  models. 
The  first  auxiliary  institution  to  prop  up  the  fabric  of  an  energetic  gov- 
ernment was  a  copy  of  the  bank  of  England.  In  1G93,  the  whigs  of 
Great  Britain  patronized  a  scheme  for  a  national  bank,  which  they 
promised  should  be  fruitful  of  vast  advantages  of  every  conceivable  de- 
scription. A  strong  party  affirmed,*  that  it  v»'ould  become  a  monopoly, 
be  subservient  to  government  views,  be  employed  to  the  worst  purposes 
of  arbitrary  power,  produce  a  swarm  of  brokers  and  jobbers  to  i)rey 
upon  their  fellow-creatures,  encourage  fraud,  and  gaming,  and  corrupt 
the  morals  of  the  nation.  The  short-sighted  and  selfish  William,  then 
tenant  of  the  British  throne,  affixed  his  signature  to  the  charter.  The 
predictions  of  its  opponents  were  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  None  of  those 
splendid  promises  which  ushered  in  the  magnificent  delusion  were  ever 
realized.  The  evils  which  were  apprehended  followed,  in  a  lengthened 
and  gloomy  train ;  and  Great  Britain  is  still  smarting  under  their  effects, 
which  will  not  cease  to  plague  her  so  long  as  her  fast-anchored  island 
shall  remain  the  seat  of  an  independent  em{)ire.  That  mammoth  mo- 
noply,  so  diametrically  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  the 
United  States  bank,  is  the  legitimate  progeny  of  its  transatlantic  proto- 
type. Like  that,  it  has  performed  none  of  the  many  promises  it  made 
to  the  people.  It  is  now  sinking  under  the  weight  of  that  universal 
odium  which  its  multiplied  and  aggravated  offences  have  justly  brought 
down  upon  it.  It  is  now  about  to  receive  the  just  reward  for  all  its 
transgressions,  —  the  wages  of  its  sin  will  be  its  death.  Wickedness 
may  prosper  for  awhile,  but  justice  will  overtake  it  at  last.  In  the  na- 
ture of  events,  and  in  the  wise  ordination  of  Providence,  crime,  Avhether 
secret  or  in  high  [)laces,  brings  after  it  necessarily,  though  sometimes 
slowly,  its  own  appropriate  retribution.  The  scarlet  mother  of  corrup- 
tion, who  so  long  sat  secure  within  her  marble  palace,  in  vain  looked  to 
be  exempted  from  this  universal  law.  The  gilded  Juggernaut  tliat 
drove,  as  it  were  but  yesterday,  her  cruel  car  over  prostrate  and  groan- 


*  Continuation  of  Hume  by  Smollct. 


286  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WETTINGS 

ing  misery,  to  grind  the  poor  man  to  powder,  and  overwhelm  ns  w^ith 
the  double  curse  of  want  and  slavery,  that,  when  she  had  withered  and 
blasted  far  and  wdde  with  her  pestilential  breath,  she  might  tower 
supreme  amid  the  desolation  she  had  made,  is  soon  to  be  hurled  from 
her  lofty  throne,  and  trampled,  in  her  turn,  in  the  dust  where  she 
crushed  her  victims. 

Assyria  fell  beneath  the  rod  of  Divine  wrath.     Rome  —  guilty  Rome 

—  saw  an  avenging  world  overrun,  and  dismember,  and  extinguish  her 
empire.  Mammon,  w4th  his  paper  dynasty,  is  doomed  like  these  to  fall, 
never  again  to  lift  his  horrid  head,  —  more  fatal  to  liberty  than  Moloch, 

—  more  hateful  to  the  sight  of  men  than  the  brand  on  the  forehead  of 
Cain. 

Yes,  Mammon  is  dethroned,  and  shall  be  banished  from  our  borders, 
amidst  the  exulting  shouts  and  anthems  of  the  free.  Bitter  is  the  taunt 
with  which  millions  mock  the  paralyzed  and  powerless  monster.  "  How 
art  thou  fallen,  O  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning  !  How  art  thou  brought 
low,  thou  that  didst  trouble  the  nations  ! " 

The  bank  whose  death-warrant  has  been  signed  by  Andrew  Jackson, 
was  only  one,  though  indeed  the  first  and  mightiest,  of  those  British  en- 
gines of  influence  which  were  transplanted  to  supply  the  supposed  defi- 
ciencies of  our  own  Constitution,  and  to  accumulate  power  in  the  hands 
that  could  wield  them.  A  splendid  system  of  consolidated  government, 
copied  171  all  its  prominent  features  from  the  practice  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment, w^as  devised,  which  held  up  glittering  prizes  for  ambition,  and 
was  calculated  to  enlist  in  the  service  of  the  leaders  all  the  wealth  and 
all  the  talent  in  the  nation,  that  was  not  restrained  by  principle.  It  was 
the  conspiracy  of  avarice  against  liberty,  a  system  of  partial  privileges, 
partial  taxes,  and  universal  restrictions. 

The  highest  democratic  authority  in  America,  fully  sustains  this  view 
of  the  whig  policy.  Thomas  Jefferson  thus  characterized  it  in  a  letter  to 
"William  B.  Giles.  Consolidation  opens  w^ith  a  vast  accession  of  strength 
from  their  younger  recruits,  who  having  nothing  in  them  of  the  princi- 
ples of  '7G,  now  look  to  a  splendid  government  of  an  aristocracy,  —  rid- 
ing and  ruling  over  the  plundered  ploughman,  and  beggared  yeomanry. 
This  will  be  to  them  a  next  best  blessing  to  the  monarchy  of  their  first 
aim,  and  perhaps  the  surest  stepping  stone  to  it.  I  see  as  you  do,  says 
the  venerable  patriarch,  and  with  the  deepest  aflliction,  the  rapid  strides 
with  which  the  federal  branch  of  our  government  is  advancing  towards 
the  usurpation  of  all  the  rights  reserved  to  the  States,  and  the  consoli- 
dation in  itself  of  all  powers  foreign  and  domestic  ;  and  that  too  by  con- 
structions which,  if  legitimate,  leave  no  limits  to  their  power.  It  is  but 
too  evident,  that  the  three  ruling  branches  of  the  federal  department  are 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  337 

in  a  combination  to  strip  their  colleagues,  the  State  authorities,  of  the 
povv^ers  reserved  by  them,  and  to  exercise  themselves  all  functions,  for- 
eign and  domestic.  ^^And  ivhat,''  he  exclaims,  —  "  is  our  resource  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Constitution  ?  Reason  and  argument  ?  You 
might  as  well  reason  with  the  marble  columns  encircling  them  ! " 

There  was  but  one  resource  for  the  preservation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  that  was  an  energetic,  democratic  chief  magistrate.  Providence, 
which  in  great  perils  raises  up  great  deliverers,  has  given  us  the  man. 
lie  has  fulfilled  his  destiny,  and  routed  the  consolidationists  as  effectually 
as  he  did  their  British  friends  at  New  Orleans. 

To  return  to  the  character  of  the  whig  or  British  party.  We  need 
not  resort  to  democratic  authority  to  learn  what  was  the  original  distinc- 
tion of  sentiment,  I  do  not  say  between  every  member  of  the  two  great 
parties,  but  between  the  leaders  ;  a  distinction  which  still  continues  the 
same.  The  late  Rufus  King,  before  he  resigned  his  seat  in  the  senate, 
asserted  in  a  very  remarkable  speech  which  he  delivered,  that  the  people 
would  never  have  adopted  the  federal  Constitution  if  they  could  have 
imagined  the  extent  of  power  that  would  be  claimed  and  assumed  under 
it.  This  assertion  every  impartial  reader  of  our  history  knows  to  be 
undeniably  true.  James  A.  Bayard,  in  1804,  declared,  that  the  question 
between  the  two  parties  was  by  no  means  the  executive  power,  which 
he  was  not  disposed  to  enlarge,  but  what  amount  of  power  should  be 
given  to  the  federal  government,  and  how  much  left  to  the  States.  It 
may  be  demonstrated  from  history  that  this  view  also  was  correct. 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  tells  us  that  the  bank  was  the  rock  on  which  our 
parties  split ;  a  fact  perfectly  consistent  with,  and  no  more  to  be  doubted 
than  the  preceding.  Gouverneur  Morris,  hearing  some  one  speak  favor- 
ably of  the  new  Constitution,  answered  that  that  was  according  as  it 
might  be  construed  ;  an  answer  pregnant  with  meaning,  when  we  consi- 
der the  high-toned  politics  of  the  man,  —  a  true  whig  as  we  were  as- 
sured on  the  3d  of  July  last,  by  the  Salem  Gazette,  the  highest  whig 
authority  in  Essex.  In  1811,  while  Henry  Clay  was  yet  a  democrat, 
he  beheved,  and  justly  too,  that  the  recharter  of  the  United  States  bank, 
upon  the  ground  of  precedent,  would  make  our  Constitution,  "as  diffused 
and  intangible  as  the  pretended  Constitution  of  England."  He  probably 
still  holds  the  same  opinion  ;  and  for  this  reason  doubtless  among  others, 
he  has  been,  ever  since  his  apostasy,  one  of  the  most  zealous  advocates 
of  the  recharter  of  that  institution  upon  a  much  grander  scale  than  was 
proposed  in  1811. 

The  whig  champion  of  the  Constitution,  Daniel  Webster,  explained  to 
the  world  his  notions  of  the  nature  of  government,  in  his  speech  in  the 
Massachusetts  Convention  against  basing  the  senate  on  population,  and 


288  MEISIOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

in  favor  of  the  basis  of  u'calth.  "  It  would  seem,"  said  that  gentleman, 
"  to  be  the  part  of  political  wisdom  to  found  government  on  propertij^^'  * 

—  "  property  being  the  true  basis  and  measure  of  power."  He  main- 
tains that  a  government  founded  on  property,  is  legitimately  founded, 
and  that  a  government  founded  on  the  disregard  of  property,  is  founded 
in  injustice.  These  purely  British  notions  come  quite  up  to  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son's idea  of  the  "  splendid  government  of  an  aristocracy."  Such  a  gov- 
ernment would  be  very  certain  to  take  care  of  the  rich^  and  let  the  rich 
take  care  of  the  poor,  in  whatever  way  might  suit  their  own  interest. 
No  wonder  that  a  statesman  holding  such  principles  should  desire  to 
build  up  our  House  of  Lords  into  an  irresponsible  oligarchy,  capable  of 
controlling  every  other  branch  of  the  government.  No  wonder  that  he 
should  look  with  peculiar  favor  upon  every  British  feature  in  our  insti- 
tutions, and  that  he  should  aim  especially  to  make  a  national  hank  the 
main  pillar  of  that  government,  which  he  thinks  it  "  the  part  of  political 
wisdom  to  found  on  property.''^  The  candidate  of  our  Boston  politicians 
should  adopt  for  his  motto  the  British  maxim,  "  Liberty  and  Property  !  " 
It  would  be  the  most  plausible  version  of  his  creed,  and  make  an  admi- 
rable rallying  cry  for  those  friends  of  a  consohdated  national  republic, 
wdio  after  so  many  discomfitures  have  folded  up  their  tattered  banners, 
whose  broken  ranks  were  marshalled  under  the  bank  flag  only  to  be 
routed  worse  than  ever,  and  who  Had  exhausted  the  American  vocabu- 
lary before  they  sheltered  their  British  principles  under  a  British  name. 
"  Tlie  immortal  spirit  of  the  wood-nymph  liberty  dwells  only  in  the  Brit- 
ish oak,''  said  Fisher  Ames,  wiiose  opinions  must  have  coincided  very 
nearly,  one  would  think,  with  those  quoted  from  the  Boston  candidate. 
Alexander  Hamilton  pronounced  the  British  government,  with  all  its 
corruptions,  to  be  the  best  government  ever  established  by  the  wisdom 
of  man.  A  whig  orator  of  some  reputation,  while  addressing  an  assem- 
bly of  the  man-worshippers  of  the  city,  dared  to  pnjrfane  Fanueil   Hall 

—  the  cradle  of  Liberty  —  with  the  sentiment,  that  "  this  government 
as  now  administered,  is  the  worst  government  that  God  ever  suffered  to 
exist  on  tlie  face  of  the  earth  !  "  A  party  that  believes  the  British 
government,  Avith  all  its  corruptions,  to  be  the  best,  and  our  own  govern- 
ment, under  a  democratic  administration,  to  be  the  worst  of  all  possible 
governments,  must  be  British  to  the  core,  and  deserves  a  British  name. 
Every  member  of  such  a  party  might  respond  cordially  to  the  exclama- 
tion of  Tristam  Burgcs,  the  whig  leader  of  a  neighboring  State,  "  I 
thank  my  God  heartily  that  I  am  not  a  democrat,  nor  do  I  wish  ever  to 
be  one  ! " 


Sec  Journal  of  Debates,  pogc  143. 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  289 

The  democratic  party,  on  the  other  hand,  holds  fast  those  purely 
American  principles  which  have  already  been  described.  Again  and 
again  have  they  been  put  forward  as  our  distinguishing  doctrines,  and  it 
is  upon  the  faithfulness  with  which  they  have  supported  and  ap[)lied 
these  doctrines,  that  those  who  stand  foremost  in  our  ranks  must  rest 
their  claims  to  public  confidence.  As  no  man  has  practically  illustrated 
this  creed  more  consistently  or  with  happier  effect  than  our  present  chief 
magistrate,  so  no  man  has  given  the  theory  a  more  beautiful  expression. 
"  The  ambition  which  leads  me  on  " —  these  were  the  words  of  that  ven- 
erated patriot,  uttered  upon  a  memorable  occasion,  with  that  noble  frank- 
ness which  only  conscious  rectitude  could  insure  —  "  the  ambition  which 
leads  me  on,  is  an  anxious  desire  and  a  fixed  determination  to  return  to 
the  people,  unimpaired,  the  sacred  trust  they  have  committed  to  my 
charge,  —  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  Constitution  and  preserve  it  from 
further  violation ;  to  persuade  my  countrymen,  so  far  as  I  may,  that 
it  is  not  in  a  splendid  government,  supported  by  powerful  monopolies 
and  aristocratic  establishments,  that  they  will  find  happiness  or  their 
liberties  protection,  but  in  a  plain  system,  void  of  pomp,  —  protecting  all 
and  granting  favors  to  none,  —  dispensing  its  blessings  like  the  dews  of 
heaven,  unseen  and  unfelt  save  in  the  freshness  and  beauty  they  con- 
tribute to  produce.  If  the  Almighty  Being,  who  has  hitherto  sustained 
and  protected  me,  will  but  vouchsafe  to  make  my  feeble  powers  instru- 
mental to  such  a  result,  I  shall  anticipate  with  pleasure  the  place  to  be 
assigned  me  in  the  history  of  my  country,  and  die  contented  with  the 
belief  that  I  have  contributed,  in  some  small  degree,  to  increase  the 
value  and  prolong  the  duration  of  American  liberty." 

To  increase  the  value  and  prolong  the  duration  of  American  liberty, 
there  are  three  essential  requisites, —;■  a  strict  observance  of  its  sacred 
charter,  the  Constitution,  the  supremacy  of  the  laws  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  the  preservation  of  the  federal  union.  If  the  Constitution 
should  be  violated  by  the  adoption  of  the  whig  policy  of  plundering  the 
many  to  pamper  the  few,  consolidation  would  either  bring  on  the  dead 
calm  of  despotism,  or  provoke  a  tempest  of  resistance,  ending  in  nuUifi- 
cation  and  revolution.  If  the  laws  may  with  impunity  be  set  at  defiance, 
either  by  a  corporation  exalting  itself  above  law,  and  gathering  its 
strength  to  break  down  our  constituted  authorities ;  or  by  a  band  of  fac- 
tious demagogues,  disappointed,  revengeful,  and  disorganizing  ;  or  by 
seditious  mobs  instigated  to  violence  and  outrage  by  the  incendiary  ha- 
rangues of  the  Catilines  who  preach  panic,  create  distress,  and  cry  to  arms, 
because  they  would  w^illingly  welcome  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  rather 
than  endure  the  prevalence  of  democracy,  —  in  either  case,  anarchy, 
misrule,  and  civil  discord  would  stalk  through  the  land.     If  bold  bad: 

25 


290  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

men,  struggling  to  pull  down  tlie  virtue  tliey  cannot  rise  to  emulate, 
should  burst  asunder  the  bands  of  our  national  union,  the  days  of  our 
independence  would  soon  be  numbered,  and  liberty  could  not  hope  to 
survive.  These  three  fundamental  truths,  the  President,  in  his  usual 
comprehensive  and  emphatic  language,  has  condensed  into  an  apho- 
rism, —  "  The  Constitution  and  the  Laws  are  supreme,  and  the  Union 
indissoluble^ 

This  grand  and  simple  annunciation  of  democratic  doctrine  would 
have  been  a  mere  form  of  words  without  meaning,  if  their  author  had 
not  redressed  the  first  and  most  fearful  infraction  of  the  Constitution. 
The  duty  of  the  administration,  as  to  this  point,  was  fully  expressed 
in  the  sentiment  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  —  "  Unqualified  and  uncompromising 
opposition  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  —  the  interest  and  the 
honor  of  the  people  demand  it." 

No  one  that  knew  the  bold  heart  and  the  firm  hand  that  guided  the 
helm  of  State  could  doubt  for  a  moment  that  the  interest  and  the  honor 
of  the  people  were  safe.  The  opinion  of  the  early  friend  of  Washing- 
ton, the  adopted  child  of  America,  the  apostle  of  universal  liberty,  the 
lamented  of  both  worlds,  the  great  and  good  Lafayette,  w^as  also  the 
opinion  of  the  democrats  of  America,  as  tw^o  hundred  and  nineteen  elec- 
toral votes  bestowed  upon  the  author  of  the  bank  veto,  against  \\\(i 
forty-nine  votes  of  the  bank  or  whig  party,  may  amply  testify.  The 
illustrious  worthy  to  whose  opinion  I  have  just  alluded,  shortly  before  he 
closed  his  sublunary  pilgrimage,  and  went  joyfully  to  receive  the  reward 
of  a  long  life  of  suffering,  toil  and  virtue,  expressed  himself  in  words 
which  ought  to  be  forever  remembered.  I  quote  them,  because  they 
cannot  be  repeated  too  often,  and  because  this  occasion  ought  not  to  pass 
without  recalling  freshly  to  our  recollection  the  sainted  memory  of  La- 
fayette, by  presenting  to  our  minds  some  one,  at  least,  of  his  recorded 
acts  or  sayings  most  worthy  of  the  man. 

"  General  Jackson  is  the  very  man  fitted  for  the  present  crisis,"  said 
that  keen,  judicious,  and  experienced  observer  of  human  character. 
"  His  stern  and  uncompromising  republicanism,  and  high  sense  of  honor, 
will  prove  the  best  security  for  our  republican  institutions  (for  he  calls 
every  thing  American  his  own).  For  a  long  time  I  saw  with  pain  the 
advances  of  an  aristocratic  moneyed  institution,  which  threatened  to  cast 
a  poisonous  mildew  over  our  precious  liberties.  They  would  have  ren- 
dered our  fair  country  a  passive  instrument  in  their  hands,  in  which  case 
freedom  would  have  vanished  from  among  us.  General  Jackson  jdos- 
sesses  the  honesty  of  a  Regulus,  the  patriotism  of  a  Washington,  and 
the  firmness  of  a  Timoleon,  —  in  fact,  I  am  unacquainted  with  any  char- 
acter in  ancient  or  modern  history,  which  combines  so  much  excellence 
with  so  few  of  the  errors  of  humanity." 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  291 

Such  was  the  reliance  of  the  wise  Lafayette  upon  the  hero  who,  be- 
fore the  battle  of  New  Orleans,  possessed  "  the  unbounded  confidence 
and  expectation  of  the  nation,"  which  confidence  he  carried  with  him 
into  his  contest  with  the  bank.  The  event  showed  that  his  sagacity  was 
not  deceived.  The  United  States  Bank,  having  been  chartered  in  defi- 
ance of  the  Constitution,  had  become  the  most  formidable  foe  of  our 
liberties,  and  put  forward  pretensions  which  amounted  to  a  claim  to  per- 
petuity. It  took  the  field  openly,  and  used  the  people's  money  to 
electioneer  against  the  president  of  the  people's  choice.  It  did  all  that 
money  could  do.  It  bought  the  venal,  cajoled  or  intimidated  the  weak, 
and  deceived  the  simple.  After  the  veto  had  inflicted  a  wound  that  will 
finally  prove  mortal,  it  contracted  with  the  convulsive  energy  of  despair. 
That  vile  monopoly  was  locking  in  its  vaults  every  dollar  it  could  grasp, 
and  pressing  with  gigantic  strength  to  break  the  safety  fund  banks,  to 
break  the  merchants,  to  prostrate  credit,  and  to  lay  the  enterprise  and 
prosperity  of  the  country  in  ruins,  that  it  might  rebuild  its  own  hated 
power  on  its  only  possible  foundation  hereafter,  universal  ruin.  Then  it 
was  that  the  president,  taking  upon  himself  the  responsibility,  stepped 
in  and  stayed  the  wave  of  desolation  before  it  could  sweep  over  and  in- 
gulf all  in  common  destruction,  and  annihilate  at  once  all  means  and 
hope  of  future  resistance  or  relief.  He  did  this  by  enabling  the  local 
banks  to  discount  many  millions  without  delay,  at  the  points  of  greatest 
pressure,  in  the  very  crisis  of  the  distress.  The  movement  was  decisive, — 
it  saved  the  country,  and  filled  full  the  measure  of  the  hero's  glory.  It  is 
enough  for  one  man  that  his  administration  has  enlarged  our  commerce, 
recovered  our  claims,  vindicated  our  honor,  redeemed  our  Constitution 
from  repeated  violations,  preserved  the  Union  from  threatened  dissolu- 
tion, preserved  property  and  credit  from  universal  prostration,  preserved 
liberty  from  universal  subjection,  preserved  equality  from  the  despotic 
reign  of  paper  wealth  condensed  into  one  vast  monopoly,  whose  central 
throne  is  in  a  marble  palace,  but  whose  fangs  reach  everywhere,  grasp- 
ing, controlling,  subduing,  overruling  all. 

rrom  foul  oppression  and  from  Mammon's  ban, 
"Who  hadi  redeemed  aspersed  demoeracy  1 
King-loathed  Columbia's  brave  and  wise  old  man. 
Rejoice,  oh  world  !  God  said,  let  Jackson  be, 
And  at  his  feet  died  swoln  monopoly. 
Rejoice  !     His  triumph  saves  no  single  State, 
•    But  every  State.     It  bids  all  lands  be  free. 
Lone  Washington !     Another,  good  and  great. 
Hath  earned  a  deathless  name,  and  evcrv  villain's  hate. 


292  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

The  burning  veliemence  of  poetical  inspiration  has  branded  the  enemj 
of  the  patriot  with  a  harsh  epithet.  We  may  rejoice  in  the  conviction, 
however,  that  there  are  none  of  those  villains  anywhere  in  Massachu- 
setts :  most  assuredly,  my  friends,  there  cannot  be.  Some  of  us  may 
judge  of  this  from  the  evidence  of  our  own  senses.  W^ith  our  own  eyes, 
we  saw  the  aristocracy  of  the  city  of  Boston  welcome  the  old  hero  with 
the  homage  of  the  heart,  ^ —  for  it  could  not  have  been  all  mere  lip  ser- 
vice. We  heard  them  send  up  the  universal  shout  that  almost  rent  the 
blue  concave.  We  saw  them  thronging  his  antechamber,  —  besieging 
his  bedchamber, —  scarcely  leaving  uninvaded  his  refuge  on  the  couch 
of  sickness,  —  so  eager  w^ere  they  to  pour  into  his  ear  the  testimony  of 
their  respect,  their  gratitude,  and  their  love.  Our  ancient  university  of 
Harvard  bestowed  her  highest  honors  upon  her  illustrious  visitor,  thereby 
honoring  herself  more  than  she  honored  him.  And  at  Bunker  Hill,  the 
scene  of  the  first  great  battle  in  the  long  struggle  with  British  power, 
which  he  himself  had  closed  so  gloriously  at  New  Orleans,  one  of  our 
most  eloquent  orators  exhausted  the  language  of  panegyric  to  do  justice 
to  his  virtues  and  his  valor,  for  which  appropriate  tribute,  in  conjunction 
with  his  other  merits,  the  orator  has  been  nominated  and  elected  by  the 
lately  dominant  party  in  the  Commonwealth  to  the  office  of  governor.  Oh, 
no,  gentlemen  !  King-loathed  Columbia's  brave  and  wise  old  man  cannot 
have  earned  the  hatred  of  any  citizen  of  Massachusetts.  We  have  no 
bold,  bad  men,  —  no  senators,  like  Catiline  the  Roman  senator  when 
he  aspired- to  the  consulship,  striving  to  pull  down  the  virtue  they  cannot 
rise  to  emulate.  Thousands  witnessed  the  affiiction,  it  might  almost  be 
said  the  adoration,  wdiich  the  whigs  of  Boston  manifested  in  1833,  for 
the  defender  and  restorer  of  the  Constitution,  and  since  that  time  he  has 
done  much,  very  much  to  strengthen  their  devotion,  having  prostrated 
that  deadly  enemy  whom  we  most  hated  and  feared,  the  United  States 
Bank  monopoly.  Nobody,  therefore,  w^ithin  the  sound  of  my  voice,  even 
if  it  could  reach  the  limits  of  the  State,  can  possible  entertain  any  ill  will 
towards  our  democratic  president ;  and  the  lines  quoted  cannot  have  any 
personal  bearing  :  so  at  least  we  would  fain  believe. 

But  their  bearing  upon  the  comparison  between  the  democratic, 
American,  independent  policy,  and  the  aristocratic,  British,  or  wliig 
policy,  and  the  distinguished  merit  of  the  most  prominent  cham[)ion  of 
American  principles,  is  quite  direct  enough  to  justify  the  quotation.  It 
might  not  be  proper,  in  this  place  and  on  this  occasion,  to  express,  even 
if  it  were  altogether  charitable  to  entertain  the  belief,  the  opinion  avow- 
ed by  the  great  statesman  of  New  England,  so  long  the  acknowledged 
head  and  leader  of  the  party  in  oi)position  to  which  the  present  adminis- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  293 

tration  came  into  power.  That  gentleman,  lately  president  of  the  United 
States,  with  the  concurrence,  if  not  with  the  positive  good  will  of  the 
whigs  of  Massachusetts,  has  told  us  what  he  thinks  of  the  party,  "  so 
rotten  with  the  corruption  of  both  its  elements."  He  bears  testimony, 
and  he  ought  to  know,  for  he  has  the  most  intimate  familiarity  with  their 
designs  and  views,  and  with  their  whole  history,  that  "  they  have  no 
honest  principle  to  keep  them  together."  "  Their  only  cement  is  a  sym- 
pathy of  hatred  to  every  man  of  purer  principles  than  themselves."  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  this  sweeping  condemnation  may  be  far  from  uni- 
versally applicable,  notwithstanding  the  almost  irresistible  weight  of 
authority  with  which  it  comes  to  us.  Yet  the  sentiment  of  hatred  may 
have  been,  it  would  almost  seem  must  have  been  engendered  in  the 
hearts  of  many  who  have  found  their  interests,  involved  in  special  legis- 
lation, sacrificed  without  scruple  to  the  general  welfare,  by  the  unflinch- 
ing firmness  with  which  our  hero  maintained  the  great  contest  between 
swoln  monopoly  and  exclusive  privileges  on  the  one  hand,  and  aspersed 
democracy  with  equal  rights  on  the  other.  In  many  hearts,  too,  envy 
rankles  ;  for  the  success  with  which  he  came  out  of  that  critical  contest 
stung  to  the  quick  those  who  looked  enviously  on  his  former  fame  ;  and, 
alas  for  human  nature  !  they  were  but  too  numerous,  the  more  so  as  his 
glory  was  more  dazzling. 

lie  who  ascends  to  mountain  tops,  shall  find 

The  loftiest  peaks  most  wrapt  in  clouds  and  snow  ; 

He  who  surpasses  or  subdues  mankind, 

Must  look  down  on  the  hate  of  those  below. 

Though  high  ahoce  the  sun  of  glory  glow, 

And  far  heneatli  the  earth  and  ocean  spread, 

Round  him  are  icy  rocks,  and  loudly  blow 

Contending  tempests  on  his  naked  head, 

And  thus  reward  the  toils  which  to  those  summits  led, 

Can  it  be,  my  countrymen,  that  there  is  any  one  among  us  who  would 
tarnish  the  splendor  of  the  nation's  brightest  jewels,  who  would  blot  out 
the  proudest  pages  from  our  annals,  and  recompense  with  scorn  and  con- 
tumely services  which  applause  and  honor  cannot  adequately  reward  ? 
There  is  but  too  much  cause  to  apprehend  it.  Envy,  which  stands  by 
the  urn  of  the  great  man,  ages  after  he  has  gone,  stirring  his  ashes  with 
her  poisoned  dagger,  —  Envy,  which  never  ceased  to  revile  the  illustri- 
ous Jefferson  while  alive,  and  which  has  never  ceased  to  water  his  grave 
with  the  wormwood  and  gall  of  calumnious  falsehood,  —  Envy  could  not 
spare,  whom  Providence  has  spared,  to  be  the  last  survivor  of  a  noble 
race,  our  last  Roman,  —  Envy  could  not  suffer  to  go  down  in  peace  to 

25* 


294  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

his  final  resting-place,  the  time  honored  head  of  him  "  who  filled  the 
measure  of  his  country's  glory." 

Is  it  credible,  you  ask,  that  there  crawls  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth 
a  wretch  capable  of  entertaining  so  despicable  a  sentiment  ? 

We  have  too  much  evidence  that  there  are  many  :  evidence  which  we 
would,  but  cannot,  forget.  There  is  no  word  or  act  of  the  hero's  life 
that  has  not  been  misrepresented,  —  no  dazzling  achievement  of  his  that 
has  not  been  depreciated, —  no  grand  and  original  measure  of  a  bold  and 
wise  policy  that  has  not  been  received  with  rancorous  invective,  —  no 
benefit,  no  blessing  bestowed  at  his  hands,  but  it  has  rankled  in  the  breast 
of  black  ingratitude,  till  derision  of  disinterestedness  and  hatred  of  all 
good  have  burst  out  in  loud  and  bitter  curses.  Nothing  that  bears  his 
honorable  name,  but  the  mention  of  it  ministers  occasion  for  jeering  and 
for  imprecation.  No  lifeless  block  that  is  carved  into  the  likeness  of  his 
venerable  features,  can  be  secure,  for  a  moment,  from  insult  and  outrage, 
even  here  in  sober  New  England. 

Do  we  live  in  a  Christian  land  ?  Are  those  who  originate  and  coun- 
tenance such  speech,  and  such  behavior,  civilized  and  educated  men, 
members  of  a  party  laying  claim  to  all  the  decency  ?  Is  this  the  gratitude 
of  republics  ? 

The  sole  purpose  of  government  is  the  good  of  the  whole  people,  and 
the  gratitude  and  love  of  the  people  will  reward  him  whom  the  enmity 
of  the  few  would  in  vain  strive  to  load  with  dishonor.  lie  has  fought 
the  good  fight  faithfully,  and  let  the  disappointed  and  the  envious  de- 
tractors say  what  they  may,  fifteen  millions  of  freemen  have  already 
awarded  to  him  the  meed  of  an  undying  fame. 

My  friends,  the  conflict  which  we  have  hitherto  carried  on  victoriously 
under  his  auspices,  is  still  to  be  continued  ;  and  soon  other  leaders  must 
be  placed  in  the  van.  Perpetual  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty.  Let 
no  neglect  of  ours  forfeit  the  rich  inheritance.  In  union  there  is  strength. 
Let  us  march  shoulder  to  shoulder  to  the  decisive  onset.  Let  us  present 
to  the  foes  of  the  democratic  cause,  a  concentrated,  and  therefore  a 
formidable  front. 

In  our  candidate  for  the  first  ofiice  in  the  gift  of  the  people,  we  can 
have  nothing  more  to  desire.  The  distinguished  son  of  the  Empire 
State  is  the  adopted  favorite  of  the  whole  Union.  The  arrows  of  his 
assailants  have  fallen  harmless  at  his  feet,  and  our  clear-sighted  yeomanry 
do  justice  to  the  leading  traits  of  his  well  balanced  character. 

To  form  a  perfect  statesman,  tlie  knowledge  of  history,  the  wisdom  of 
experience,  and  the  inspiration  of  genius  must  combine  to  illuminate  his 
understanding  ;  while  courage  to  dare,  and  fortitude  to  suffer  in  the  cause 
•of  humanity,  must  arm  him  with  an  impenetrable  panoply  for  that  war- 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  295 

fare  against  tlie  common  enemies  of  our  race,  to  which  a  generous  phi- 
lanthropy will  incessantly  impel  him.  In  which  of  these  requisites  does 
not  JNIartin  Van  Buren  excel  ? 

"  Who,"  said  Mr.  Wilde  of  Georgia,  no  partial  witness,  —  "  who  was 
a  more  dexterous  debater  ;  better  versed  in  the  politics  of  our  country  ; 
or  deeper  read  in  the  history  of  others  ;  above  all,  who  was  more  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  idiom  of  the  English  language,  and  its  beauty, 
and  delicacy,  or  more  capable  of  breathing  thoughts  of  flame  in  words  of 
magic,  and  tones  of  silver  ?  " 

P^rom  the  momentous  crisis  of  the  war  to  this  day,  holding  the  most 
important  trusts,  and  filling  the  most  responsible  stations,  in  State  and 
nation,  in  a  continued,  though  varied  career  of  active  and  arduous  duty, 
who  can  have  reaped  a  richer  harvest  of  experience  ? 

At  the  outset  of  his  public  life,  he  stepped  at  once  into  the  front  rank 
of  the  New  York  bar,  where  the  Spencers,  Kents,  and  Livingstons,  and 
Hamilton  had  established  the  standard  of  talent.  At  the  time  which 
tried  men's  souls,  the  darkest  period  of  the  war,  on  his  first  entrance  to 
the  senate  of  that  State,  he,  a  youth,  gave  the  efficient  impulse  to  that 
body.  Mounting  to  higher  theatres  of  fame,  in  every  part  he  is  called 
to  act,  he  distances  all  rivalship.  W^hen  his  enemies  look  for  his  eclipse 
and  downfall,  they  behold  him  shining  brighter,  and  soaring  higher,  with 
the  brilliancy  of  transcendent  intellect,  and  the  buoyancy  of  paramount 
merit.  His  intrigues  the  service  of  the  people,  his  arts  the  faithful  per- 
formance of  duty,  he  has  run  rapidly  through  a  series  of  promotion,  shed- 
ding lustre  on  every  post  he  occupies.  Who  can  exhibit  proofs  more 
unequivocal  of  genius  of  the  highest  order  ? 

In  the  legislature,  the  senate,  the  cabinet,  through  the  war,  the  great 
northern  defection,  and  the  struggle  for  the  renewed  ascendancy  of  demo- 
cratic principles,  through  the  death  grapple  with  the  moneyed  power,  the 
courage  he  has  manifested  cannot  be  called  in  question  ;  neither  can  the 
fortitude  with  which  he  smiles  upon  the  systematic  detraction,  virulent 
beyond  example  except  in  the  history  of  Jefferson  and  Jackson,  by  which 
he  has  been  tried  as  by  fire,  but  under  which  no  man  ever  saw  him  quail 
or  waver. 

"Uncompromising  hostility  to  the  United  States  bank,  the  interest  and 
the  honor  of  the  people  demand  it,"  has  been  the  maxim  of  his  faith  and 
practice.  We  have,  with  his  express  pledge,  the  guaranty  of  his  uni- 
form course,  from  his  first  entrance  upon  the  political  arena,  that  he  will 
follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Andrew  Jackson. 

In  politics,  men  are  put  forw^ard  to  represent  principles,  and  to  effect 
the  will  of  the  masses.  Let  us  elevate  Martin  Van  Buren  to  the  chair 
of  State,  that  we  may  not  only  maintain  the  ground  we  have  gained 


296  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

already,  but  during  his  presidency,  soon  about  to  open  so  auspiciously, 
eradicate  from  our  system  and  institutions,  every  vestige  of  foreign 
policy,  introduced  by  servile  imitation,  and  discordantly  combined  with 
the  original  home  growth  of  freedom,  only  to  mar  its  simplicity  and 
unity. 

When  this,  his  destined  work,  shall  have  been  fully  accomplished,  and 
his  high  mission  performed  to  the  end,  then  may  we  celebrate  without 
misgivings  the  fourth  of  July ;  for  then  shall  we  have  secured  the  per- 
manent stability  of  American  liberty.  Then  may  we  exult  in  the  assur- 
ance that  independence  is  ours  forever. 


EXTRACTS  FUOM  AX   OEATIO:?^.* 

Our  independence  was  desirable  not  for  its  own  sake  merely;  tyranny 
at  home  would  have  been  little  better  than  tyranny  from  abroad ;  it  was 
to  be  desired  and  valued  as  the  means  of  securing  the  undisturbed  en- 
joyment of  law  and  liberty,  both  of  which  had  been  invaded  by  Great 
Britain.  It  is  the  sagacious  remark  of  Hume,  the  philosophical  histo- 
rian, that  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  British  government,  the 
king,  the  lords,  the  commons,  the  army  and  navy,  the  public  institutions, 
the  great  officers  of  state,  are  all  established  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing twelve  men  together  into  a  jury  box.  If  it  be  considered  that  gov- 
ernment is  not  instituted  to  confer  rights  or  privileges  on  any  man  or 
class  of  men,  but  to  hold,  with  an  equal  hand,  the  balance  between  the 
citizens,  this  truth  will  appear  as  striking  as  it  is  profound.  Rights,  ac- 
cording to  the  creed  of  American  democracy,  existed  before  govern- 
ment, and  are  pei-fect  without  its  sanction.  All  men  are  born  free  and 
equal,  vsays  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  and  have  certain  natural, 
essential,  and  unalienable  rights  ;  among  which  may  be  reckoned  the 
right  of  enjoying  and  defending  their  lives  and  liberties ;  that  of  ac- 
quiring, possessing,  and  protecting  property ;  in  fine,  that  of  seeking 
and  obtaining  their  safety  and  happiness.  Privileges,  according  to  the 
same  authority,  belong  to  none.  No  man  nor  corporation,  or  association 
of  men,  have  any  other  title  to  obtain  advantages,  or  particular  and  ex- 

*  Dclivci-cd  at  Lenox,  before  the  citizens  of  Berkshire  county,  on  the  fourth  of 
July,  1838. 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  297 

elusive  privileges  distinct  from  those  of  the  community,  than  what  arises 
from  the  consideration  of  services  rendered  to  the  public,  a  title  from  its 
nature  not  hereditary.  Government  is  instituted  for  the  common  good; 
for  the  protection,  safety,  prosperity,  and  happiness  of  the  people  ;  and 
not  for  the  profit,  honor,  or  private  interest  of  any  one  man,  family,  or 
class  of  men.  The  end  of  the  institution,  maintenance  and  admhilstra- 
tion  of  government,  is  to  secure  the  existence  of  the  body  politic,  to  pro- 
tect it,  and  to  furnish  the  individuals  who  compose  it^  with  the  power  of 
enjoying,  in  safety  and  tranquillity,  their  natural  rights,  and  the  blessings 
of  life. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  says  the  declaration,  that  all 
men  are  created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed,  by  their  Creator,  with 
certain  unalienable  rights ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness ;  that  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  insti- 
tuted among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed;  that  whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive 
of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to 
institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and 
organizing  its  powers  in  such  form  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to 
effect  their  safety  and  happiness.  From  these  maxims  may  be  deduced 
the  paramount  importance  of  a  pure  and  impartial  administration  of  jus- 
tice, under  equal  and  wdiolesome  law\s  for  the  protection  of  property, 
life,  and  liberty,  which  protection  is  the  whole  office  and  purpose  of  gov- 
ernment. Thus  law  and  liberty  are  happily  blended  in  one  object,  for 
the  law  only  enforces  such  restrictions  on  the  Hberty  of  every  man,  as 
will  prevent  him  from  interfering  with  and  infringing  upon  the  rights  of 
another,  and  it  thereby  enables  each  to  enjoy  the  largest  possible  por- 
tion of  liberty  consistent  with  a  like  enjoyment  by  others.  Law,  there- 
fore, regulated  on  democratical  principles,  does  not  diminish,  but  augments 
to  the  utmost,  the  aggregate  of  practical  liberty  in  the  community. 

The  repeated  injuries  and  usurpations  alleged  in  the  declaration,  as 
constituting  the  necessity  which  constrained  them  to  throw  off  the  yoke 
of  Great  Britain,  consist  mainly  of  infractions  of  the  right  of  domestic 
legislation,  invasions  of  liberty  by  arbitrary  legislation  extended  over  us 
from  abroad,  and  perversions  of  the  free  exercise  of  the  judicial  authority. 
Under  each  head,  the  specifications  are  abundant.  It  is  charged  upon 
King  George  that  he  has  refused  his  assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome 
and  necessary  for  the  public  good,  and  in  various  ways  harassed  tlie 
legislatures  and  impeded  their  action  ;  that  he  has  combined  with  parlia- 
ment In  tyrannical  acts  of  pretended  legislation,  to  cut  off  the  trade  of  the 
provinces,  tax  them  without  their  consent,  take  away  their  charters, 
abolish  their  best  laws,  and  alter  fundamentally  their  forms  of  govern- 


298  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

merit ;  that  he  has  obstructed  the  administration  of  justice,  by  refusing 
his  assent  to  laws  for  establishing  judiciary  powers,  has  created  judges 
solely  dependent  on  his  will,  has  abrogated,  in  many  cases,  the  trial  by 
jury,  and  transported  citizens  beyond  the  seas  for  trial ;  and  that  he  has 
supported  this  long  train  of  abuses  by  waging  war  against  the  colonies, 
with  large  armies  of  foreign  mercenaries,  and  answered  repeated  peti- 
tions for  redress  only  by  repeated  injury.  These  were  the  practical 
grievances,  a  formidable  catalogue  it  must  be  confessed,  which  absolved 
the  colonies  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown. 

The  maximum  of  liberty  to  be  enjoyed  under  the  protection  of  law 
can  only  be  secured  by  establishing  and  maintaining  good  governments, 
such  as  are  opposite  equally  to  the  fatal  extremes  of  anarchy  and  des- 
potism. Our  independence  has  given  us  the  opportunity  of  trying  the 
experiment  of  such  a  government  on  a  broad  scale,  and  under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances. 

Governments  represent  the  elements  of  power  existing  in  society  pre- 
viously to  their  formation.  Physical  force,  intellectual  superiority,  moral 
influence,  and  the  power  of  wealth,  each  claims  its  share  in  the  control 
of  the  body  politic.  As  one  or  the  other  of  these  ingredients  has  pre- 
dominated, governments  have  assumed  the  form  of  military  despotism, 
hierarchy,  feudalism,  or  plutocracy. 

These  different  forms  of  government,  and  various  combinations,  com- 
pounded of  them,  have  succeeded  each  other  according  to  the  laws  that 
govern  the  distribution  of  knowledge  and  wealth,  and  so  must  forever 
continue  to  alternate,  whenever  the  people  have  not  advanced  to  that 
degree  of  social  elevation  requisite  to  the  condition  of  fitness  for  the  en- 
joyment of  democracy.  The  crown,  the  mitre,  the  sword,  and  the  money- 
bag have  had  their  turns ;  and  looking  back  through  the  obscure  history 
of  long  extinguished  freedom,  we  can  but  dimly  discern,  and  that  for  a 
few  short  intervals,  the  appearance  on  the  stage  of  any  other  power,  as 
a  controlling  power,  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  American  and  French 
revolutions. 

Governments  cannot  be  created  out  of  nothing.  To  be  healthy  and 
robust,  they  must  grow  with  the  growth  and  strengthen  with  the  strength 
of  the  societies  over  which  they  preside.  They  gradually  develop  them- 
selves in  fit  proportions  for  their  several  functions,  like  the  development 
of  the  body,  joints,  and  limbs  of  an  animal,  or  the  trunk,  roots,  and 
branches  of  the  most  magnificent  tree. 


The  ovcrsliadowint^  oak, 

The  gnarled  and  knotted  sovereign  of  the  forest, 

The  tardy  growth  of  twice  two  centuries, 


OF  EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  299 

That  throws  about  its  Briarean  arms, 
Protecting  all  the  neighboring  underwood, 
Daring  heaven's  shafts  alone. 


can  be  rivalled  by  no  plant  of  the  hot-bed,  much  less  can  it  be  made  to 
spring  perfect  and  mature  from  the  crucibles  and  alembics  of  the  political 
alchemist. 

The  mission  of  the  French  revolution  was  a  work  of  destruction,  and 
it  was  faithfully  performed.  Sudden  and  convulsive  efforts  may  level 
the  tottering  fabrics  that  encumber  the  ground.  They  may  destroy,  but 
they  cannot  re-create.  Permanent  institutions  must  be  the  product  of 
time. 

In  our  own  revolution,  nothing  more  was  necessary  than  to  cast  off 
the  foreign  yoke.  All  the  elements  of  good  government  already  existed 
among  us.  The  little  democratic  corporations,  the  towns,  managed  their 
own  municipal  concerns,  and  bred  up  in  the  best  of  schools  practical 
statesmen  for  a  wider  sphere  of  action.  The  ancient  county  organiza- 
tion provided  for  many  matters  beyond  the  reach  of  towns^  but  not 
requiring  the  intervention  of  the  State.  Public  worship,  and  common 
education,  had  each  their  own  complete  arrangements.  The  people 
knew  the  respect  and  confidence  due  to  an  independent  judiciary,  and 
were  familiar  with  the  operation  of  the  jury  trial,  their  birthright  as 
Englishmen,  as  also  with  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  all  the  grand 
securities  of  British  liberty.  They  had  their  own  legislative  assemblies, 
and  had  only  to  substitute  an  executive  chosen  by  their  votes  for  the 
royal  governor,  and  the  machinery  of  State  administration  continued  in 
w^orking  order.  The  Constitution  of  the  Federal  Union  was  not  framed 
until  the  want  of  it  was  felt.  It  then  innovated  upon  the  previously 
existing  structure  of  government  no  further  than  the  generally  recognized 
necessity  demanded  ;  it  was  the  result  of  great  deliberation  and  careful 
compromise,  and  was  curiously  adjusted  to  existing  influences  and 
interests. 

Our  American  constitutions  are  the  first  in  the  world  which  deserve 
the  name  of  democratic,  being  the  first  that  were  ever  founded  on  the 
basis  of  strict  equality.  Fortunately,  they  could  not  well  be  otherwise, 
for  there  was  nothing  but  equality  in  the  condition  of  the  people  on  which 
they  could  be  founded. 

To  this  general  rule  there  Avere  a  few  exceptions,  most  of  which,  how- 
ever, have  already  disappeared.  Such  was  the  mode  of  electing  the 
senate  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  until  the  recent  alteration.  Such  also 
is  the  limitation  of  the  right  of  suffrage  in  Rhode  Island. 

There  still  remains  in  the  Constitution  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Mas- 


300  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

sachusetts  one  singular  anomaly,  strikingly  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of 
our  institutions ;  I  mean  the  basis  of  our  senate  on  wealth,  and  not  on 
population.  Our  aristocrats  cling  to  this  peculiarity  with  the  fondest 
affection,  because  it  is  the  last  relic  of  exploded  privilege  left  in  our 
otherwise  equal  system.  Those  who  hold  the  democratic  faith  have  long 
been  desirous  of  a  change  in  this  respect,  for,  in  their  opinion,  the  present 
basis  of  the  senate  is  unequal  and  unjust  in  practice,  and  still  more  so  in 
theory.  They  believe  in  the  first  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  prefixed 
to  our  State  Constitution,  —  "  All  men  are  born  free  and  equal ; "  and 
they  therefore  believe  that  all  free  citizens  of  this  Commonwealth,  who 
have  not  by  crime  forfeited  their  birthright,  have  a  perfect  and  undeni- 
able right  to  be  equally  represented  in  every  branch  of  their  own  govern- 
ment. They  believe  also  in  the  fifth  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  that 
"  All  power  residing  originally  in  the  people,  and  being  derived  from 
them,  the  several  magistrates  and  officers  of  government  vested  with 
authority,  whether  legislative,  executive,  or  judicial,  are  their  substitutes 
and  agents,  and  are  at  all  times  accountable  to  them."  And  they  can 
find  no  reason  why  a  man  born  in  one  section  of  this  Commonwealth 
should  have  many  times  more  influence  than  the  same  man  would  have 
had  living  in  another,  in  the  selection  of  an  essential  part  of  those  sub- 
stitutes and  agents.  They  believe  in  the  sixth  article  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  that  "  no  man,  nor  corporation,  or  association  of  men,  have  any 
other  title  to  obtain  advantages,  or  particular  and  exclusive  privileges, 
distinct  from  those  of  the  community,  than  what  arises  from  the  con- 
sideration of  services  rendered  to  the  public  ; "  and  they  are  not  aware 
of  any  services  rendered  to  the  public  by  certain  sections  of  this  Com- 
monwealth which  could  give  them  the  title  to  obtain  the  advantage,  and 
the  particular  and  exclusive  privilege,  distinct  from  those  of  the  rest 
of  the  community,  of  a  disproportionate  additional  representation  in  the 
senate  of  the  State,  beyond  the  representation  of  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity. And  as  the  consideration  of  services  rendered  to  the  public 
can  no  more  belong  to  a  particular  portion  of  territory,  and  be  connected 
with  the  amount  of  wealth  casually  accumulated  thereon,  than  it  can  "  in 
nature"  be  "hereditary,  or  transmissible  to  children,  or  descendants,  or 
relations  by  blood,"  the  idea  of  a  particular  and  exclusive  privilege  to 
have  a  larger  share  in  the  appointment  of  the  substitutes  and  agents  of 
the  people  belonging  to  a  section  of  territory  so  long  as  disproportionate 
wealth  is  collected  on  it,  is  as  j^lainly  "  absurd  and  unnatural "  as  "  the 
idea  of  a  man  born  a  magistrate,  lawgiver,  or  judge." 

They  believe  in  the  seventh  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  that  "  gov- 
ernment is  instituted  for  the  protection,  safety,  prosperity,  and  happiness 
of  the  people ;  and  not  for  the  profit,  honor,  or  private  interest  of  any 


OF  EOBEKT  llANTOUL,  JR.  301 

one  man,  family,  or  class  of  men."  They  therefore  cannot  admit  that  a 
class  of  men  living  in  one  county  ought  to  have  a  much  larger  share  in 
the  institution  of  government  than  a  class  of  men  equally  numerous, 
living  in  another  county. 

******* 

The  influence  of  wealth  is  great  all  over  the  world,  for  wealth  is  only 
another  name  for  one  of  the  forms  of  power.  The  tendency  of  all  power 
is  to  augment  and  strengthen  itself,  and  this  is  more  especially  the  nature 
of  wealth.  All  who  have  speculated  upon  political  systems  agree  in 
this  ftxct,  and  indeed  the  prevailing  opinion  is,  that  it  has  a  much  larger 
share  in  controlling  the  conduct  of  mankind  than  talent  or  learning,  or 
even  both  in  their  happiest  combinations.  But  upon  this  acknowledged 
fact  of  the  vast  influence  of  wealth  in  society,  a  practical  question  arises, 
admitting  of  opposite  answers,  furnishing  the  broad  fundamental  dis- 
tinctions between  two  great  parties  to  be  found  in  every  society. 

Ought  the  laws,  and  the  action  of  government,  to  favor  the  accumula- 
tion of  wealth  in  masses,  and  its  concentration  in  a  few  hands  ?  The 
immediate  interests  of  the  aristocratic  faction  impel  them  to  decide  this 
question  in  the  afhrmative.  The  welfare  of  the  popular  masses,  and  the 
permanent  interests  of  the  whole  nation  are  most  decidedly  on  the  other 
side. 

This  is  the  division,  between  these  parties  in  the  contest,  everywhere. 
The  one,  relying  on  the  dead  weight  of  the  purse,  confidently  trusts  to 
preponderate  by  this  element  of  power,  and  often  has  this  hope  been 
realized  in  the  old  world  and  in  the  new.  The  other  party  fixes  its 
dependence  on  the  indestructible  energies  of  the  human  soul,  whose 
rights  have  sometimes  vindicated,  for  a  brief  period,  their  superiority 
oyer  the  accidental  favors  of  fortune,  and  whose  legitimate  claims  v/ill 
be  universally  admitted  when  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth  have  removed  the  obstacles  that  now  impede  the  j^ro- 
gress  of  equal  liberty. 

Wealth,  by  the  many  inducements  it  can  hold  out,  enlists  in  its  service 
a  large  proportion  of  talent ;  and  wealth  and  talent  together,  regulate 
the  standard  of  opinion,  and  fix  the  fashion.  Against  this  powerful  com- 
bination few  men  can  stand  up.  The  sturdy  independence  of  a  free 
spirit,  born  to  speak  out  his  thoughts,  now  and  then  gives  utterance  to 
the  condemnation  of  the  rule  of  faction,  which  thousands  feel,  but  from 
unbecoming  prudence  forbear  to  express.  The  instruments  of  the  mon- 
eyed cabal,  knowing  how  odious  their  principles  are  to  the  people,  sel- 
dom make  a  full  avowal  of  their  creed,  but  content  themselves  with 
steadily  acting  up  to  it,  as  often  as  they  dare,  giving  way  to  the  pressure 
from  without  whenever  they  are  satisfied  that  it  is  useless  to  resist  it 

26 


302  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

longer.  From  tliese  causes,  the  real  interests  at  tlie  bottom  of  most  of 
our  political  disputes  arc  seldom  mentioned  in  public  discussions.  To 
bring  them  before  the  public  is  apt  to  be  very  uncomfortable  to  those 
who  make  the  experiment,  and  there  is  therefore  a  sort  of  conventional 
understanding  that  they  are  to  be  avoided  in  all  States  governed  by  the 
aristocracy.  Of  this  class  of  States,  Massachusetts  is  the  most  decided 
specimen ;  and  the  silence  here  is  deepest. 

Yet  deep  as  is  the  silence,  Massachusetts  aristocracy  will  sometimes, 
on  great  occasions,  break  out,  and  expose  its  native  deformity.  If  in 
any  other  State  than  this,  any  prominent  statesman  would  have  dared  to 
advance  the  distinctive  notions  of  a  British  whig,  it  is  impossible  that  he 
could  have  brought  the  majority  of  the  representatives  of  the  people  to 
adopt  that  variety  of  aristocracy  in  its  crude  and  unadulterated  form. 
Yet  so  it  was  in  Massachusetts  in  the  convention  of  1820.  The  Hon. 
Daniel  Webster,  in  that  assembly,  in  the  debate  on  the  apportionment  of 
the  senate,  deliberately  avowed  the  odious  dogma  that  it  was  the  part  of 
political  wisdom  to  found  government  on  property.  As  this  has  been  a 
fundamental  principle  of  the  whig  party  in  Great  Britain  ever  since  its 
origin,  and  seems  to  be  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  whig  party 
in  America  at  the  present  day,  it  deserves  great  attention  from  all  those 
who  wish  to  understand  that  party :  and  as  Mr.  Webster  is  looked  up  to 
by  them  all  as  their  chosen  champion  of  constitutional  truth,  his  expo- 
sition of  this  point  is  more  likely  to  express  the  views  of  our  aristocracy, 
so  far  as  they  deem  it  prudent  to  express  themselves^  than  any  commen- 
tary from  any  other  c^uarter.  I  quote  it,  also,  because  it  is  clear,  explicit, 
and  unreserved. 

Mr.  Webster  commenced  his  speech  on  the  fifteenth  of  December, 
1820,  by  remarking  that  lie  did  not  know  whether  any  opinions  or  votes 
of  his  were  ever  likely  to  be  of  more  permanent  importance  than  those 
given  in  the  convention ;  and  that  he  did  not  anticipate,  among  the  ques- 
tions to  arise,  any  of  greater  consequence  than  that  before  them.  On 
this  most  important  occasion  of  his  life,  we  may  be  sure  that  every  word 
was  weighed  carefully  before  it  was  uttered. 

He  stated  the  question  to  be,  Shall  the  senators  "  be  chosen  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  inhabitants  in  each  district,  or  in  proportion  to  the 
taxable  property  of  each  district."  He  supported,  as  he  always  has 
done,  the  influence  of  property,  in  the  most  studied  oration  which  he 
delivered  in  the  convention,  and  by  his  exertions  the  weight  of  property 
prevailed.  I  do  not  know  where  a  fuller  statement  of  the  whig  theory 
of  the  rights  of  property  can  be  found  than  in  this  speech.  That  the 
whig  party  still  act  upon  the  general  theory,  we  know  too  well  by  their 
conduct  on  all  the  great  questions  now  before  the  country.     That  they 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3O3 

act  upon  it  in  the  particular  case  discussed  is  also  known,  for  with 
immense  majorities  in  both  houses,  they  refuse  to  ^Iter  the  basis  of  the 
senate. 

Mr.  Webster  said  in  determining  the  basis  of  the  senate,  there  w^ere 
two  questions  to  be  settled  :  1st.  Shall  the  legislative  department  be  con- 
structed with  any  other  check  than  simjily  dividing  the  members  into 
two  houses  ?  2d.  If  a  further  check  ought  to  exist,  in  what  manner 
shall  it  be  created  ? 

On  the  first  point  he  remarks,  that,  with  all  the  guards  which  can  be 
raised  by  constitutional  provisions,  w^e  are  not  likely  to  be  too  well  se- 
cured against  cases  of  improper,  or  hasty,  or  intemperate  legislation  : 
and  that,  if  all  legislative  power  vested  in  one  house,  it  is  very  problem- 
atical, wdiether  any  proper  independence  could  be  given,  either  to  the 
executive  or  the  judiciary.  lie  proposes,  therefore,  two  houses  with 
equal  authority  and  mutual  checks.  The  senate  is  not  to  be  a  check  on 
the  people,  but  on  the  house  of  representatives.  It  is  the  case  of  an 
authority  given  to  one  agent  to  check  or  control  the  acts  of  another. 
And  if  it  be  wise  to  give  to  one  agent  the  pov/er  of  checking  ov. control- 
ling another,  it  is  equally  wise,  most  manifestly,  that  there  should  be 
some  difference  of  character,  sentiment,  feeling,  or  origin,  in  that  agent, 
who  is  to  possess  this  control.  There  can  be  no  effectual  control  with- 
out such  a  difference.  Where  shall  we  find  or  how  create  this  difference  ? 
The  present  Constitution  assigns  to  each  district  a  number  of  senators 
proportioned  to  its  public  taxes. 

On  this  aristocratical  provision,  the  great  expounder  comments  thus :  — 

"  I  take  the  'prhicl'ple  to  be  well  established  by  writers  of  the  greatest 
authority.  In  the  first  place,  those  who  have  treated  of  natural  law, 
have  maintained  as  a  principle  of  that  law,  that  as  far  as  the  object  of 
society  is  the  protection  of  something  in  which  the  members  possess  un- 
equal shares,  it  is  just  that  the  weight  of  each  person,  in  the  common 
councils,  should  bear  a  relation  and  proportion  to  his  interest." 

Such  a  principle  would  limit  the  right  of  suffrage,  and  prevent  men 
of  small  property  from  having  any  voice  whatever  in  the  election  of 
senators,  and  Mr.  Webster  accordingly  declares,  that  a  ditferent  sort  of 
qualification  in  the  electors^  for  the  two  houses,  is  probably  the  most  pro- 
per and  eflacient  check.  But  although  Mr.  Webster  takes  this  principle 
to  be  well  established,  by  writers  of  the  greatest  authority,  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  the  philosophical  writer  of  the  greatest  celebrity  that 
America  has  yet  produced,  thought  far  otherwise.  Dr.  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin argued  the  principle  of  property  qualification  as  follows.  In  a  cer- 
tain State,  property  of  the  value  of  fifty  dollars  was  necessary  to  quali- 
fy the  voter.     A  resident  citizen   of  legal   age,  owned   a  jackass  v.orth 


304  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

fifty  dollars,  but  no  other  property.  He  presented  liimself  at  the  polls, 
proved  his  right  and  voted.  A  few  months  afterwards,  when  it  might 
fairly  be  inferred  that  the  man  had  grown  wiser,  and  was  better  able  to 
discern  his  duty,  and  better  qualified  to  exercise  the  elective  franchise, 
he  presented  himself  again  at  the  polls,  but  lie  vvas  now  challenged  as 
not  qualified  to  vote.  Though  the  man  had  grown  wiser,  the  jackass 
was  dead,  and  with  his  life  departed  the  owner's  right  of  suffrage.  Now, 
asks  Dr.  Franklin,  to  which  did  the  vote  belong,  to  the  man  or  to  the 
jackass  ?  And  so  we  may  inquire  do  the  votes  of  Suffolk  county  belong 
to  its  inhabitants,  or  to  bank  stock,  India  rubber  companies,  and  eastern 
lands  ?  If  to  the  inhabitants,  by  what  logic  can  it  be  shown  that  in  one 
branch  of  the  legislature  4782  inhabitants  of  Suffolk  ought  to  be  equal 
to  30,210  inhabitants  of  Hampshire  ?  IIow  is  this  principle  "to  be  well 
established  ?  "  Let  us  look  a  little  further  into  the  mystery,  for  in  it  lies 
the  essence  of  whig  faith. 

"  Those  authors  who  have  written  more  particularly  on  the  subject  of 
political  institutions,  have,  many  of  them,  maintained  similar  sentiments. 
Not  indeed  that  every  man's  power  should  be  in  exact  proportion  to  his 
property,  but  that  in  a  general  sense,  and  in  a  general  form,  property,  as 
such,  should  have  its  weight  and  influence  in  political  arrangements. 
******  One  of  the  most  ingenious  of  political  writers  is  Mr.  Har- 
rington ;  an  author  not  now  so  much  read  as  he  deserves.  It  is  his  lead- 
ing object,  in  his  Oceana,  to  prove  that  power  naturally  and  necessarily 
follows  property.  He  maintains  that  a  government  founded  on  property 
is  legitimately  founded ;  and  that  a  government  founded  on  the  disre- 
gard of  property  is  founded  in  injustice.  *  *  *  *  '  It  is  strange,'  says 
Mr.  Pope,  in  one  of  his  recorded  conversations,  '  that  Harrington  should 
be  the  first  man  to  find  out  so  evident  and  demonstrable  a  truth,  as  that 
of  property  heing  the  true  basis  and  measure  of  power. ^  In  truth  he 
was  not  the  first.  The  idea  is  as  old  as  political  science  itself.  It  may 
be  found  in  Aristotle,  Lord  Bacon,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  other  v/riters. 
Ilarrington  seems  however  to  be  the  first  writer  who  has  illustrated  and 
expanded  the  principle,  and  given  to  it  the  effect  and  prominence  which 
justly  belong  to  it.  To  this  sentiment,  says  Mr.  Webster,  /  entirely 
agree. 

"  In  the  nature  of  things,  those  who  have  not  property,  and  see  their 
neighbors  possess  much. more  than  they  think  them  to  need,  cannot  be 
favorable  to  laws  made  for  the  protection  of  property.  When  this  class 
becomes  numerous,  it  grows  clamorous.  It  looks  on  property  as  its  prey 
and  plunder,  and  is  naturally  ready,  at  all  times,  for  violence  and  revolu- 
tion. It  would  seem,  tl ten,  to  he  tlte  part  of  pjoUtical  wisdom  to  found 
government  on  property''  *  *  *  *  "  If  the  nature  of  our  institutions  be 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR,  305 

to  found  government  on  property,  and  that  it  should  look  to  those  who 
hold  property  for  its  protection,  it  is  entirely  just  that  property  should 
have  its  due  weight  and  consideration  in  political  arrangements." 

In  pursuing  his  argument,  Mr.  Webster  claims  a  political  relationshi[) 
with  the  English  Avhigs.  "  The  English  revolution  of  1G88,"  he  tells  iis, 
"  was  a  revolution  in  favor  of  property,  as  well  as  of  other  rights." 
This  was  the  "glorious  revolution,"  as  it  vras  called,  of  the  English 
whigs,  whose  rallying  cry  v»'as,  liberty  and  property. 

"As  to  the  rigid  of  apportioning  senators  upon  this  principle,"  says 
Mr.  Webster,  '■^  I  do  not  understand  lioio  there  can  he  a  question  ahout  it ;  " 
and  in  another  part  of  his  speech,  "  I  consider  it  as  giving  property,  gen- 
erally, a  representation  in  the  senate,  both  because  it  is  just  that  it  should 
have  such  representation,  and  because  it  is  a  convenient  mode  of  pro- 
viding that  check,  which  the  Constitution  of  the  legislature  requires." 

"  I  will  beg  leave  to  ask,  Sir,"  says  this  antagonist  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
*^'  whether  property  may  not  be  said  to  deserve  this  portion  of  respect  in 
the  government?  It  pays,  at  this  moment,  I  think, j^t^e  sixths  of  all  the 
public  taxes." 

Is  not  this,  my  friends,  astounding  doctrine  to  be  laid  down  for  the 
government  of  a  democracy  ?  Do  we  find  in  these  principles  the  reason 
why  the  banks  in  Massachusetts  Vvcre  allowed  to  decide  five  sixths  of 
the  most  important  legislation  of  the  State  last  winter,  in  many  instances 
turning  the  scale  by  the  votes  of  their  presidents  and  directors,  and 
almost  without  exception  deciding  the  question  by  their  influence  ?  Our 
banks  pay  about  three  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars  out  of  less 
than  four  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dollars  State  taxes.  Do  they 
imagine,  upon  the  whig  principles  of  founding  government  on  property, 
making  it  the  true  basis  and  measure  of  power,  and  giving  the  agents 
who  represent  property  an  effectual  control  over  the  agents  who  repre- 
sent nothing  but  the  understandings,  and  honest  hearts,  and  souls,  and 
consciences,  and  equal  rights  of  freemen,  —  do  they  think  on  these  sound 
whig  principles,  that  the  representatives  of  the  banks  deserve  this  portion 
of  respect  in  the  government  .^  They  may.;  for  we  have  seen  these  claims 
allowed. 

We  have  seen,  w^ith  the  profoundest  humiliation,  bank  influence  pre- 
dominant, not  only  in  the  senate,  which  by  the  Constitution  represents 
property,  but  in  the  house  of  representatives,  which  ought  to  represent, 
even  on  the  slavish  principles  of  Webster  and  the  whigs,  the  souls 
which  God  created  free,  and  w^illed  to  be  amenable  to  no  power  beneath 
him.  There  have  we  seen  the  wdiolesome  advice  of  his  excellency  the 
governor,  spurned  by  his  political  friends,  when  it  came  in  contact  with 
the  interests  of  the  banks.     There  have  we  heard  his  excellency  virtu- 

26* 


306  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

ally  ranked  witli  the  vilest  of  criminals,  by  declaring  a  measure  recom- 
mended by  him  to  be  worthy  only  of  "  pickpockets,  rascals,  cut-throats." 
There  have  we  seen  a  recommendation  of  his  excellency  to  comply  with 
the  rules  of  ordinary  honesty,  supported  only  by  his  political  opponents, 
and  rejected  without  ceremony  by  the  whole  mass  of  his  political  friends. 
There  have  we  heard  it  proclaimed  that  the  people  ought  not  to  be 
trusted  with  power  which  they  may  abuse  to  do  w^rong,  and  this  sage 
maxim  assigned  as  a  reason  why  banks  which  had  violated  their  char- 
ters, should  continue  to  be  independent  of  the  control  of  the  State  gov- 
ernment. There  have  w^e  heard  a  bank  director  gravely  assuring  the 
house,  that  he  w^ould  agree  that  banks  should  be  subject  to  the  laws 
which  the  legislature  might  pass,  if  he  could  be  satisfied  that  all  future 
legislatures  would  be  wise  and  good  !  As  if  it  were  self-evident  that  all 
bank  directors,  to  the  end  of  time,  must  be  ex-officio,  infallible  in  their 
judgment,  of  boundless  benevolence,  and  of  unspotted  patriotism,  and, 
therefore,  worthy  to  be  forever  above  the  law,  and  independent  of  the 
people,  even  if  they  should  not  be  vested,  as  the  representatives  of  prop- 
erty, with  an  effectual  control  over  them  ! 

There  have  we  seen  a  house  which  accepted  the  report  of  its  judiciary 
committee,  that  the  non-payment  of  specie  for  their  bills  upon  demand, 
is  a  violation  of  the  charter  of  a  bank,  by  a  vote  of  two  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  to  fifty-one,  shortly  after  refuse  to  declare  those  charters 
forfeited,  by  the  casting  votes  of  bank  directors,  Avhile  I  read  in  their 
rules  and  orders  this  salutary  regulation  unanimously  adopted  in  an  un- 
commonly full  session :  — 

"  No  member  shall  be  permitted  to  vote,  or  serve  on  any  committee,  in 
any  question  in  which  his  private  right  is  immediately  concerned  dis- 
tinct from  the  public  interest :  "  and  while  Thomas  Jefierson's  manual  of 
parliamentary  practice  is  open  on  the  speaker's  table  in  which  I  read 
this  plain  and  emphatic  paragraph  :  — 

"  Where  the  private  interests  of  a  member  are  concerned  in  a  bill  in 
question,  he  is  to  withdraw.  And  where  such  an  interest  has  appeared, 
his  voice  has  been  disallowed,  even  after  a  division.  In  a  case  so  con- 
trary, not  only  to  the  laws  of  decency,  but  to  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  the  social  compact,  which  denies  to  any  man  to  be  a  judge  in  his 
own  cause,  it  is  for  the  honor  of  the  house  that  this  rule,  of  immemorial 
observance,  should  be  strictly  adhered  to." 

This  is  the  law  of  the  house.  What  is  its  practice?  On  every 
debate  on  the  banking  system,  ofiicers  of  the  banks  are  the  principal 
speakers  in  defence  of  its  abuses.  On  every  committee  where  the  in- 
terests of  banks  are  concerned,  bank  directors  take  the  lead.  In  every 
important  vote  where  the  private  interests  of  bank  stockholders  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3O7 

directors  are  distinct  from  tliose  of  the  public,  bank  stockliolders  and 
directors  turn  the  scale,  by  their  own  votes,  in  their  own  favor.  Is  it  to 
be  longer  endured  that  this  species  of  property  should  thus  have  the 
effectual  control  of  the  representation  of  the  people  ?  Is  not  Massachu- 
setts as  bank-ridden  as  the  congress  of  the  United  States  ? 

The  United  States  bank  loaned  to  members  of  congress  during  the  five 
years'  contest  ending  in  1834,  w^hile  as  an  independent  sovereignty  it 
was  waging  war  w^ith  the  government,  and  endeavoring  to  obtain  the 
effectual  control  over  it,  the  enormous  aggregate  of  one  million  six  hun- 
dred and  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighty-one  dollars. 

In  1830  to  fifty-two  members,         ....       $192,1G1 

1831  to  fifty-nine  members, 322,199 

1832  to  forty-four  members,       ....         478,0G9 

1833  to  fifty-eight  members,  ....     374,706 

1834  to  fifty-two  members,         ....         238,586 
Makhig  a  total  greater  than  the  aggregate  salaries  of  all  the  members  of 

both  houses  of  congress  during  the  same  period  of  five  years.  The 
bank  was  at  the  sa  ;  e  time  lavishing  the  people's  money  to  corrupt  the 
press,  and  through  the  press  to  traduce  and  vilify  the  people's  govern- 
ment. It  is  no  Avonder  that  it  carried  a  charter  through  both  houses, 
and  if  the  executive  had  not  stepped  in  wath  his  constitutional  veto,  and 
stayed  the  plague,  the  bank  w^ould  have  been  at  this  moment  the  ruling 
power. 


CHAPTER  V. 


HIS    POSITION    AND     INFLUENCE    IN    THE    MASSACHUSETTS 
LEGISLATURE,    ETC. 

In  1835,  the  citizens  of  Gloucester  first  elected  Mr.  Kantoul 
one  of  their  representatives.  His  high  moral  and  intellectual 
character,  so  congenial  with  his  well  understood  democratic 
principles,  gave  him  the  confidence  of  his  constituents,  which  his 
legislative  usefulness,  through  four  years  of  laborious  service, 
nobly  justified.  As  a  democratic  representative,  he  soon  saw 
arrayed  against  him  every  influence  and  every  device  of  political 
hostility,  whether  to  be  found  in  the  numerical  strength  of  his 
opponents,  amounting  to  two  thirds  of  the  house,  or  in  their 
bitter  hatred  of  the  principles  of  which  he  was  a  bold  and  able 
champion.  The  reign  of  class  legislation,  notwithstanding  the 
burdens  it  imposed  upon  industry,  and  its  encroachments  on 
personal  rights, 'had  long  been  undisturbed  by  serious  opposi- 
tion. Mr.  Rantoul  broke  the  apathetic  slumbers  of  the  guardians 
of  liberty,  and  roused  them  for  its  defence.  He  represented  a 
community  distinguished  for  its  economy,  its  sturdy,  patient 
industry,  and  its  hazardous  personal  enterprise,  rather  than  by 
wealth  and  its  often  immoral  expenditures  ;  and  he  both  exe- 
cuted the  will  of  his  constituents,  and  satisfied  the  convictions 
of  his  own  mind,  when  he  attempted  to  recall  the  legislation  of 
Massachusetts  to  its  constitutional  action.  Had  he,  indeed, 
come  from  a  mountain  cavern,  "  monstrum  horrendum  informe 
ingens,"  with  a  Cyclopean  frame  and  roar,  the  c6nsternation  of 
the  house  could  not  have  exceeded  that  of  the  monopolists  and 
aristocrats  of  the  whole  Commonwealth,  at  what  they  deemed 


MEMOIRS    OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  399 

the  audacity,  as  they  felt  the  force,  of  his  assaults  on  special 
legislation  and  exclusive  privileges. 

No  sooner  did  he  give  evidence  of  his  high  qualifications  for 
the  work  of  reform,  which  he  dared  to  undertake,  than  he  had 
to  meet  almost  alone  the  combined  whig  talent  of  the  house, 
directed  by  gentlemen  as  able  in  debate,  and  as  experienced  in 
legislative  rules  and  tactics,  as  any  equal  number  of  men  that 
ever  acted  as  Massachusetts  representatives.  Many  of  them 
never  hesitated  to  seize  every  opportunity  and  every  means, 
parliamentary  or  otherwise,  right  or  wrong,  to  put  down  and 
crush  this  new  and  well  appointed  advocate  of  democratic 
principles.  Unusual  and  unfair  modes  of  proceeding,  unjust 
and  offensive  personalities,  and  whatever  else  was  possible 
under  a  latitudinarian,  if  not  a  licentious  construction  of  the 
rules  of  debate,  were  tolerated,  in  many  instances,  as  it  seemed, 
merely  because  directed  against  Mr.  Rantoul. 

No  one  could  have  witnessed  the  debates,  at  that  time,  in  the 
Massachusetts  legislature,  without  observing  how  much  impor- 
tance was  assigned  to  whatever  was  said  by  "  the  gentleman 
from  Gloucester,"  and  how  constantly  this  phrase  rang  through 
the  house.  It  was  on  the  tongue  of  every  whig  speaker,  and 
apparently  relished,  as  if  there  were  a  kind  of  eloquence  in  the 
mere  words.  "  The  gentleman  from  Gloucester"  was  himself 
eloquent ;  and  if  speaking  of  him,  at  him,  and  around  him,  could 
have  made  others  so,  there  would  have  been  many  distinguished 
orators  in  that  house  of  representatives.  But  victory  in  debate 
is  not  empty  air.  It  is  the  substantial  prize  of  knowledge, 
thought,  and  truth  ;  and  Mr.  Rantoul's  sound  and  convincing 
arguments,  and  his  vivid,  flashing  eloquence,  soon  made  it  no 
mean  distinction  to  be  a  "  gentleman  from  Gloucester."  The 
name  of  this  respectable  old  town  must  long  be  associated  with 
the  memory  of  his  genius  and  legislative  fame. 

He  soon  took  and  maintained  a  stand  which  compelled  the 
respect  and  admiration  of  every  fair  opponent.  He  was  not  only 
the  champion,  and  at  once  acknowledged  as  such,  of  his  party; 
he  was,  although  in  a  minority,  in  all  but  the  technical  sense, 
the  leader  of  the  house.  No  important  subject  of  discussion 
during  the  four  years  of  his  membership,  failed  to  receive  lucid 
illustration  from  the  treasures  of  his  research,  and  his  surprising 


810  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

facility  in  the  jnst  application  of  general  principles  to  particular 
cases.  His  mind  was  well  disciplined.  He  did  not  permit  his 
imagination,  fruitful  and  glowing  as  it  was,  to  mislead  his  judg- 
ment. Though  naturally  nervous,  quick  in  feeling  and  percep- 
tion, he  allowed  no  opposition  in  debate,  or  other  intellectual 
contests,  to  sour  his  temper,  or  disturb  the  clear  depths  of  his 
reason.  When  others  railed,  and  poured  out  turbid  torrents  of 
invective  and  misrepresentation,  he  replied  with  quick  though 
calm  logic,  an  accumulation  of  rebutting  facts,  an  avalanche  of 
statistical  truths,  and  sometimes  with  humorous  or  scathing 
sarcasm.  But  intentional  misrepresentation,  or  conscious  un- 
fairness, constituted  no  part  of  his  rhetorical  armory.  He  had 
too  much  self-respect  to  give  utterance  to  personalities,  or  to 
abuse  and  blacken  an  opponent,  rather  than  answer  his  argu- 
ments. No  public  speaker,  perhaps,  ever  confined  himself  more 
scrupulously  or  more  logically  to  the  subject  of  discussion.  His 
purpose  being  to  produce,  in  others,  the  convictions  of  his  own 
mind,  side  issues  and  personal  considerations  could  not  divert 
him  from  it.  He  had  at  command  a  vast  variety  of  established 
facts  and  principles,  the  denial  of  which  would  exhibit  the 
ignorance  or  impeach  the  integrity  of  an  opponent.  With  these 
he  triumphed.  They  were  his  weapons  ;  and  many  an  adversary, 
whose  declamation  was  sonorous,  and  whose  vehemence  was 
unquestionable,  has  found  himself  beating  the  air  far  away  from 
the  fortress  of  fac  s,  which  Mr.  Rantoul  had  made  the  strength 
of  his  position.  Distinguished  as  he  was  by  the  most  patient 
incbistry;  by  indefatigable  application,  by  a  wonderful  facility 
of  acquisition,  and  a  not  less  wonderful  readiness  to  command, 
at  will,  and  consequently  with  effect,  the  result  of  his  labors,  the 
knowledge  he  had  acquired,  sustained  by  his  evident  integrity 
of  purpose,  was  his  strength.  He  entered  the  lists  completely 
armed.  He  was  ready  for  attack  or  defence,  as  truth,  justice, 
and  humanity  might  demand.  In  effective  talent  for  debate, 
he  was  unequalled.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  no  son  of 
Massachusetts,  of  his  age,  ever  entered  her  legislative  hall  better 
fitted  by  various  and  appropriate  knowledge,  by  high  purity  of 
character,  united  with  a  ready  and  apt  command  of  all  his 
mental  resources,  in  a  rapid,  lucid,  logical  flow  of  effective  and 
brilliant  eloquence,  than  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.    His  language  was 


JR.  311 

the  simple  and  direct  utterance  of  his  thoughts.  What  best 
served  that  end,  whatever  made  him  best  understood,  was  his 
instantaneous  choice.  It  was  at  the  same  time  singularly  pure, 
intelligible,  and  unostentatious.  While  he  made  no  display  of 
mere  words,  few  men  were  capable  of  a  more  just  discrimina- 
tion in  their  use.  "  Non  fumum  ex  fulgore,  sed  ex  famo  dare 
lucem  cogitat." 

"  I  will  give  the  ideas  with  absolute  correctness,"  he  once 
said,  when  interrupted  by  an  opposing  counsel ;  "  my  language 
must  take  care  of  itself."  That  was,  indeed,  his  way.  Ideas, 
thoughts,  meaning  were  in  him,  and  to  give  them  fit  utterance 
was  a  service  which  he  intrusted,  without  much  care,  to  his 
mother  tongue ;  he  seeming  to  be,  while  speaking,  as  little 
anxious  about  the  showiness  of  the  words  he  used,  as  of  the 
breath  which  aided  their  enunciation.  His  voice  was  manly, 
and  at  the  same  time  high,  clear,  ringing,  and  reminded  one  of 
some  of  the  upper  notes  of  the  bugle.  It  could  be  distinctly 
heard,  without  great  effort  to  himself,  by  those  furthest  from 
him  in  the  most  numerous  assemblies. 

To  give  a  view,  brief  and  imperfect  it  must  necessarily  be, 
of  Mr.  Rantoul's  course  and  services  in  the  Massachusetts  legis- 
lature, is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter.  The  following  extract 
from  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  will  present  an  idea  of  his 
personal  appearance,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was 
placed. 

It  is  understood  to  have  been  from  the  pen  of  John  G. 
Whittier,  who  was  also  a  member  of  the  house.  The  friendly 
personal  relations  between  that  gentleman  and  Mr.  Rantoul, 
established  at  this  time,  and  continuing  unchanged  during  the 
life  of  the  latter,  were  made  the  occasion  of  an  unjust  and  illib- 
eral attack  upon  Mr.  Whittier,  by  Hon.  G.  T.  Davis,  in  the 
United  States  house  of  representatives,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Ran- 
toul :  — 

Our  "  extra  session  "  of  the  legislature  has  just  terminated ;  and  after 
a  tedious  sitting  of  more  than  two  months,  we  have  left  our  revised 
"  code  "  pretty  much  as  we  found  it.  We  had  too  many  conservatives 
among  us  to  admit  any  radical  change  in  our  law^s.  Imprisonment  for 
debt,  contracted  prior  to  1834,  is  still  maintained.  The  law  monopoly, 
the  odious  militia  system,  the  anti-republican  inequalities  of  the  taxation 


312  ME]\IOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

law,  the  sanguinary  provisions  of  the  criminal  code,  still  exist.  The  at- 
tempt to  reduce  the  large  and  disproportionate  salaries  of  our  public  of- 
ficers failed,  except  in  two  or  three  instances.  Among  those  who  have 
distinguished  themselves  in  vigorous  and  persevering  efforts  for  salutary- 
reform  in  these  particulars,  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  of  Gloucester,  deserves 
honorable  mention.  Nominally  a  whig,  and  consequently  differing  upon 
some  points  from  this  gentleman,  I  may  be  expected  to  speak  of  him 
with  no  undue  bias  of  partiality.  Looking  into  our  legislative  mena- 
gerie, while  some  exciting  topic  was  under  discussion,  you  would  notice 
a  slightly  framed  young  man  —  carelessly  dressed,  in  comparison  with 
the  dandyism  which  represents  degenerate  Boston  —  pale,  dark,  and 
thought-worn,  watching  intently  the  progress  of  debate.  Suddenly  you 
find  him  on  his  feet, — ten  to  one  he  commences  with  an  appeal  to  the 
authority  of  the  Constitution,  — he  calls  upon  the  house  to  beware  how 
they  trample  on  the  bill  of  rights,  or  sanction  the  continued  violation  of 
the  plainest  principles  of  liberty  and  justice.  All  eyes  are  turned 
towards  him,  —  he  has  secured  the  attention  of  the  legislative  hundreds, 
—  newspaper  readers,  sleepers,  and  all,  —  he  is  going  on,  like  the  storms 
which  sweep  over  his  own  Cape  Ann,  shrill,  loud,  impetuous,  —  radical 
as  truth,  uncompromising  as  honesty.  Ilis  fine  intellectual  head  is 
thrown  back  over  his  left  slioulder,  —  his  sallow  cheek  kindles  and  glows 
with  excitement,  —  his  right  hand  (his  left  is  thrust  rather  ungracefully 
into  his  pantaloons  pocket)  flung  ever  and  anon  impetuously  forward,  or 
shaken  at  his  antagonist  v/itli  a  single  extended  finger,  a  la  mode  John 
Randolph.  Wit,  sarcasm,  retort,  invective,  earnest  appeals  to  the 
innate  perceptions  of  natural  justice,  expressions  of  entire  confidence  in 
the  ultimate  decisions  of  the  people,  follow  each  other  in  rapid  succes- 
sion, lie  ceases,  —  and  you  see,  all  over  the  house,  a  mustering  of  the 
conservative  forces.  Half  a  dozen  lawyers  spring  on  their  feet,  one 
after  the  other,  to  sustain  their  shaken,  and  half-demolished  positions. 
Where  argument  fails,  then  an  appeal  is  made  to  party  feeling;  the 
whigs  are  rallied ;  the  measure  advocated  by  the  radical,  must  be  deci- 
ded, not  on  its  own  merits,  but  on  party  grounds.  Ask  who  the  man  is 
who  has  excited  all  this  commotion,  and  you  will  probably  be  told  by 
some  ancient  stickler  for  old  abuses  —  some  foppish  scion  of  the  aristoc- 
racy:—  "That's  the  radical  and  disorganizer,  Rantoul."  Yet  this  man, 
misrepresented  as  he  is  by  political  opponents,  sneered  at  as  he  is  by 

such    genteel  ruffians  as  the  editors  of  the  ,  who   like  Shak- 

speare's  boult,  hold  a  place 


"For  wliicli  tlic  paindcst  fiend 

Of  hell  would  not  in  reputation  change. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3X3 

And  associated  as  he  is,  like  Trinculo,  with  "  strange  bedfellows "  of 
his  own  party,  is  an  honor  and  an  ornament  to  Massachusetts.  Kot  one 
of  her  young  men  gives  fairer  promise  of  usefulness  and  honorable 
fame.  His  speeches  during  the  session  of  last  winter  against  incorpo- 
rations, and  during  the  one  which  has  just  terminated  in  favor  of  the 
abolition  of  capital  punishment,  for  eloquence  and  intellectual  power, 
have  seldom,  if  ever,  been  surpassed  in  either  branch  of  our  legis- 
lature. 

One  of  the  earliest  debates  in  whieh  Mr.  Rantoul  partici- 
pated, was  on  the  bill  to  incorporate  the  Boyden  Malleable  Cast 
Iron  and  Steel  Company,  with  half  a  million  of  dollars  capital. 
An  imperfect  report  of  his  speech  on  the  bill  was  published  in 
the  Boston  Atlas.  The  editor  of  the  Boston  Post,  who  trans- 
ferred the  report  to  the  columns  of  the  latter  paper,  says:  — 

The  people  are  beginning  to  inquire  into  the  unjust  and  dangerous 
course  pursued  by  this  State  in  granting  acts  of  incorporation,  and  wo 
hope  this  inquiry  will  lead  to  radical  reformation.  The  public  have  an 
able  and  faithful  sentinel  in  Mr.  Rantoul,  and  one  who  will  do  all  in  his 
power  to  protect  their  interests. 

Mr.  Rantoul  of  Gloucester  rose.  He  was  observing,  yesterday,  he 
said,  when  interrupted  by  the  member  from  Greenfield,  that  if  a  stop 
was  ever  to  be  }  ut  to  the  special  legislation  with  respect  to  incorpora- 
tions which  had  been  going  on,  and  increasing  in  extent  for  several 
years,  one  step  towards  this  end  would  be  to  institute  an  inquiry  into 
every  application  for  incorporation  that  came  before  them.  To  grant  no 
charters,  unless  a  strong  case  could  be  made  out  by  the  applicants  for  a 
charter ;  unless  the  objects  for  which  they  prayed  a  charter  were  likely 
to  be  beneficial  to  the  Commonwealth,  —  also,  that  they  had  the  capital 
they  named,  —  and  that  such  capital  was  actually  put  into  the  concern. 
Restrictions,  too,  should  be  imposed  upon  them,  so  as  to  prevent  their 
departing  from  the  purposes  they  professed  to  pursue.  The  burden  of 
proof  was  on  the  applicants, —  they  were  bound  to  make  out  their  case  ; 
and  if  they  did  not  do  this,  no  charter  should  be  granted  to  them.  It 
was  not  consistent  with  the  character  of  the  house,  for  members  to  act 
as  they  had  hitherto  done  in  relation  to  this  matter.  A  bill  was  brought 
in —  went  through  the  usual  course — not  a  single  vote  was  given  for  or 
against  it  —  no  opinion  expressed  —  it  passed,  and  at  once  became  the 
law  of  the  land.  Was  this  rinrht  ?  This  house  was  a  deliberative 
assembly ;  its  duty  was  to  consider,  and  discuss  the  subjects  that  came 

27 


314  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AXD  WRITINGS 

before  it ;  but  was  it  not  a  fact  that  all  a  man  had  now  to  do  to  get  an 
act  of  incorporation,  was  to  ask  for  it  ?  The  names  of  a  few  influential 
men  were  procured ;  individuals  for  whom  the  house  had  a  respect,  and 
the  bill  passed,  as  a  matter  of  course.  He  asked  again,  was  this  right  ? 
He  appealed  to  every  member  present,  whether  their  business  ought  to 
be  conducted  in  this  manner.  But  he  should  go  further  back.  He  had 
other  objections  to  granting  these  acts  of  incorporation ;  and  in  these 
objections  he  did  not  expect  the  house  to  concur  so  readily  as  they  per- 
haps might  in  what  he  had  said  as  to  the  necessity  of  inquiry  and  exam- 
ination ;  they  were,  however,  objections  in  which  every  man  ought  to 
concur,  unless  he  was  willing  to  open  the  flood-gates  to  this  sort  of  ap- 
plications, and  extend  the  system  of  corporations  unlimitedly.  The  ten- 
dency of  corporations,  when  they  come  in  competition  with  individual 
exertion,  was  precisely  that  of  great  wealth,  if  it  came  in  competition 
with  small  means.  They  could  not  prevent  a  wealthy  individual  from 
having  great  advantages  over  the  man  that  was  not  wealthy ;  this  could 
not  be  avoided,  without  striking  at  the  security  of  property,  which  no 
one  thought  of  doing.  But  when  the  poor  man  had  an  advantage  over 
the  rich  one  —  in  the  way  of  mechanical  ingenuity,  etc.  — an  advantage 
which  he  (the  poor  man)  could  not  be  prevented  from  having,  would  the 
legislature  deprive  him  of  this,  —  expose  him  (by  incorporating  capital) 
to  the  necessity  of  contending  against  greater  odds  than  naturally  ex- 
isted against  him  in  the  individual  wealth  of  the  rich  man  ?  Would 
they  do  this  by  legislation  —  especial  legislation  —  contrary  to  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  the  Constitution  ? 

When  once,  too,  one  of  these  corporations  obtained  an  ascendancy  in 
any  particular  interest,  they  locked  it  up  from  the  rest  of  the  commu- 
nity forever.  *  *  *  *  So  that  when  a  power  was  granted  to  a  corpora- 
tion to  lock  up  land,  although  that  grant  might  be  limited,  the  limit  was 
of  no  avail.  A  vast  portion  of  the  real  estate  of  the  Commonwealth 
was  now  owned  by  corporations ;  or  where  the  title  deeds  remained  in 
the  hands  of  the  yeomanry,  it  was  mortgaged  to  corporations.  A  neigh- 
boring county  was  shingled  over  with  mortgages.  Now  ought  this  to  be 
so?  Ought  the  real  estate  of  the  Commonwealth  to  be  tenanted  by 
farmers,  but  owned  by  corporations  ? 

But  this  was  the  state  of  things  to  which  we  were  rapidly  coming. 
Ought  the  yeomanry  to  be  under  the  influence  of  great  companies? 
It  was  the  interest  of  repubHcan  governments  everywhere,  that  the 
farmers  should  be  the  owners  of  the  soil  they  cultivated ;  but  this  would 
shortly  be  no  longer  the  case  in  Massachusetts.  •  These  views,  he  was 
happy  to  say,  were  not  merely  his  own  views,  or  those  of  a  party ;  they 
were  entertained  by  many  of  our  most  distinguished  citizens,  —  by  men 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  315 

of  the  most  opposite  political  opinions  ;  and  not  many  years  since  they 
were  sanctioned  by  an  unanimous  vote  of  both  houses.  In  1827,  cer- 
tain gentlemen  of  Salem  formed  themselves  into  an  association  for 
musical  purposes,  under  the  name  of  the  "  Mozart  Society,"  and 
petitioned  the  legislature  for  an  act  of  incorporation.  Now  if  there  ever 
was  a  harmless  association,  this  was  one.  They  only  solicited  to  be 
allowed  a  capital,  ten  thousand  dollars  personal  and  ten  thousand  dollars 
real  estate,  and  their  only  object  was  to  sing  psalms  and  hymns.  The  bill 
passed  both  houses,  —  there  was  not  a  vote  against  it;  but  when  it  was 
sent  to  Governor  Lincoln  for  signature,  his  excellency  took  a  bold  stand, 
and  returned  it.  lie  made  no  specific  objections,  —  did  not  say  that  the 
capital  proposed  was  too  great,  or  that  the  object  to  be  pursued  was 
likely  to  become  injurious  ;  but  he  objected  to  the  incorporation  on  (jeneral 
principles.  *  *  *   * 

Mr.  R.  here  read  several  extracts  from  the  message  sent  by  Gov- 
ernor Lincoln  on  the  occasion  of  his  returning  the  bill  incorporating  the 
Mozart  Society.  The  message  depicts  the  evils  resulting  from  incorpo- 
rations,—  pronounces  such  associations  unconstitutional,  and  hints  the 
probability  of  their  eventually  substituting  a  humble  and  dependent 
tenantry  in  place  of  the  high-spirited  and  independent  yeomanry  who 
ought  to  possess  the  real  estate  of  the  Commonwealth. 

Mr.  R.  proceeded.  All  this  was  from  Levi  Lincoln  ;  not  from  a  mere 
radical  speculator,  but  from  a  governor  of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  R. 
begged  the  gentlemen  to  remember  this  ;  and  also  that  both  houses  acqui- 
esced in  these  opinions  and  principles  when  the  bill  was  sent  back  to 
them.  They  had  passed  this  bill  unanimously,  and  yet  Governor  Lin- 
coln interposed  his  veto.  This  was  rather  an  extraordinary  proceeding, — 
rather  unusual  for  an  executive  to  return  a  bill  respecting  which  both 
houses  were  unanii^ous.  But  this  was  done.  And  what  did  the  legis- 
lature ?  Why,  they  were  convinced  they  had  been  acting  erroneously, 
and  retraced  their  steps.  These  principles  and  opinions,  then,  Mr.  R. 
said,  came  before  members  of  high  authority,  —  from  Governor  Lincoln, 
from  the  senate,  from  the  house.  He  did  not  know  any  other  principle 
that  came  recommended  by  such  an  aggregate  of  authority  as  these.  If 
the  conduct  of  the  governor,  the  senate,  and  the  house  was  to  be  looked 
upon  as  deserving  of  notice,  as  meaning  any  thing,  it  was  high  time 
that  the  system  they  deprecated  should  be  done  away  with.  If  it  was 
not  stopped  effectually  in  1827,  it  ought  to  be  in  1835.  Corporations 
had  gone  on  increasing,  and  the  evil  was  far  greater  now  than  it  was  at 
the  first-named  period,  as  described  by  Governor  Lincoln.  There  must 
be  a  time  to  stop  them,  and  now  was  the  time.  The  evil  of  incorpora- 
tions in  1827  had  become  so  great,  so  evident,  that  the  justice  of  the 


316  MEMOIRS,   SrEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

opinions  expressed  in  Governor  Lincoln's  message,  was  immediately 
acknowledged  by  the  legislature.  The  evil  had  increased,  —  it  was  infi- 
nitely greater  now  than  it  was  in  1827,  and  by  and  by  this  subject 
would  become  the  first  in  the  eye  of  the  people.  The  people  would 
stand  up  against  corporations  ;  they  would  say,  "  We  will  see  whether 
the  citizens  of  the  Commonwealth  are  to  govern  themselves,  or  to  be  gov- 
erned by  corporations."  He  (Mr.  R.)  maintained  that  these  corporations 
formed  a  political  party,  —  not  perhaps  immediately  identified  with  either 
of  the  two  great  parties  into  which  the  country  was  now  divided,  but  which 
might  become  so ;  having,  at  all  events,  peculiar  opinions  and  interests,  and 
possessing  a  power  of  patronage  that  would  enable  them  to  carry  any 
question  they  might  espouse  ;  a  power  of  patronage  far  greater  than 
that  of  the  federal  government.  The  corporations  of  this  city  wielded 
a  power  of  patronage,  -for  corporation  purposes,  infinitely  greater  than 
that  of  the  United  States.  And  was  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  people 
would  be  forever  dumb  with  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  in  their  pos- 
session ? 

He  told  the  house  if  they  did  not  put  a  stop  to  these  corporations, 
they  would  become  the  great  turning  question.  A  great  party  would 
grow  up  against  them,  and  then  corporations  might  look  to  them- 
selves. *  *  *  *  What  was  the  object  of  our  constitutional  govern- 
ment ?  It  was  to  insure  equal  laws  and  privileges  to  alL  If  no  Constitution 
had  been  framed,  men  would  be  governed  by  such  parties  as  chanced  to 
grow  up  among  them,  and  who  would  make  laws  to  secure  and  advance 
their  own  interests ;  but  we  did  not  like  this  ;  we  did  not  approve  of  aris- 
tocracies and  exclusive  legislation,  and  therefore  a  Constitution  was 
framed.  Aristocracy  was  an  evil  because  it  governed  unequally.  We 
established  a  government,  under  certain  rules  and  regulations,  in  order 
to  prevent  this ;  in  order  that  there  should  not  be  one  law  for  one  man 
and  another  for  another,  but  that  there  should  be  general  laws,  operating 
alike  on  the  whole  mass  of  the  community.  Now  corporations  were  a 
violation  of  this  first  principle  of  the  Constitution,  which  was  framed  to 
prevent  special  legislation, —  to  prevent  the  passing  of  hxws  for  the  exclu- 
sive benefit  of  one  set  of  individuals  ;  and  yet,  here  had  the  house  been 
engaged  in  special  and  unequal  legislation  for  several  years  past.  The 
sixth  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  (and  he  had  noticed  a  sneer  upon  the 
faces  of  some  gentlemen,  when  this  article  was  alluded  to  the  other  day 
in  a  petition,)  he  had  always  supposed  to  mean  something;  but  in  this 
house  he  feared  he  should  learn,  for  the  first  time,  that  it  meant  nothing. 
The  sixth  article  said  "that  no  man  should  have  exclusive  privileges." 
Now  this  article  was  clearly  violated  by  the  granting  of  charters  of  in- 
corporation.      Companies  came  to  the  legislature  to  get  exclusive  privi- 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3I7 

leges.     If  they  did  not  get  them,  they  would  not  apply  for  charters, 
which  would  then  be  valueless. 

Mr.  R.,  in  conclusion,  said  that  he  did  not  expect  the  house  to  go  with 
him  in  all  the  views  he  had  expressed  on  this  subject.  He  knew  the 
Constitution  was,  in  many  respects  and  in  certain  particulars,  a  dead 
letter  ;  and  this  because  there  was  a  party  indifferent  to  it.  He  hoped, 
although  his  hope  was  not  strong,  that  the  party  did  not  constitute  a 
majority  of  that  house,  and  that  at  least  some  degree  of  caution  would 
in  future  be  exercised  in  granting  these  acts  of  incorporation.  If  not, 
something  else  would  be  done.  The  people  would  say  that  a  general 
law  in  relation  to  this  matter  might  be  passed  in  a  week,  and  yet  the 
legislature  persisted  in  legislating  for  particular  parties.  He  conjured 
the  house  to  pause ;  to  go  on  no  longer  with  special  legislation,  but  to 
frame  general  laws,  which  would  save  the  iiouse  the  trouble  attendant 
upon  applications  for  incorporation,  and  the  people  from  the  injurious 
operation  of  such  associations. 

In  relation  to  the  debate  on  this  bill,  and  to  the  part  which 
Mr.  Rantoul  took  in  it,  the  Boston  Advocate  said  that 

Mr.  Rantoul  of  Gloucester,  who  has  been  the  point  of  attack  for  all 
the  members  on  the  other  side  of  the  question,  took  the  floor,  and  spoke 
in  a  forcible  strain  of  eloquence  and  invective  against  his  assailants, 
which  riveted  the  attention  of  the  whole  house.  We  have  rarely  wit- 
nessed a  more  happy  effort  in  public  speaking. 

Mr.  Rantoul  said  he  thought  the  motion  which  he  had  made  the 
other  day,  to  lay  his  bill  upon  the  table,  was  not  unfair;  yet  it  had  been 
treated  throughout  this  discussion  as  a  most  signal  instance  of  unfairness. 
How  was  that  matter  ?  Somebody  must  have  the  last  word.  Six  or  eight 
gentlemen  had  spoken  in  answer  to  him, —  six  or  eight  of  the  most  expe- 
rienced and  adroit  debaters  in  the  house.  The  proportion  of  speakers 
through  the  whole  debate  had  been  six  or  eight  in  favor  of  corporations 
to  every  one  against  them,  and  the  proportion  of  time  on  each  side  about 
the  same.  He  thought,  as  one  side  or  the  other  must  have  the  last  word, 
it  fairly  belonged  to  the  speaker  who  stood  almost  alone,  and  not  to  the 
host  who,  like  Philistines,  had  fallen  upon  him.  The  gentleman 
from  Taunton  ( Mr.  BayHes)  had  called  the  corporation  system  the  set- 
tled policy  of  the  Commonwealth  for  the  last  sixty  years  !  Where  that 
gentleman  got  his  authority,  in  the  history  of  this  Commonwealth,  for 
such  an  assertion,  he  could  not  imagine.  But,  if  it  be  so,  is  the  policy 
of  the  last  sixty  years  so  rotten  and  in  such  a  tumbling  condition  that  it 
cannot  be  called  in  question,  —  no,  not  by  a  single  individual  with  the 

27* 


318  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

most  weak  and  inefficient  arguments,  among  six  hundred  intelligent  and 
considerate  men,  without  great  and  imminent  danger  of  being  demol- 
ished ?  Put  your  finger  upon  it  and  it  will  crumble  into  dust,  seems  to 
be  the  implied  admission  of  these  teri'ified  gentlemen  corporationists : 
it  will  not  even  bear  to  be  looked  at.  Indeed?  Then  it  is  high  time 
it  should  be  looked  at  and  scrutinized  thoroughly.  Then  the  people  of 
this  Commonwealth  have  already  condemned  it.  If  it  be  so  already  inse- 
cure or  even  so  odious  that  the  few  crude  remarks  which  he  submitted 
the  other  day  were  sufficient  to  call  forth  the  alarm  and  excitement 
which  exists  in  this  house,  and  out  of  this  house,  then  its  strength  is 
gone,  and  it  might  as  well  be  abandoned  now,  for  very  soon  it  must  be. 

Gentlemen  tell  us,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  that  they  are  not  alarmed.  Sir, 
what  is  the  language  of  their  acts  ?  When  you  see  Sir  Peter  Teazel 
storming  about  the  stage,  and  telling  you  he  is  not  in  a  passion,  what 
inference  do  you  draw  from  his  words  and  his  acts  taken  together  ? 
Gentlemen  may  tell  the  house  they  feel  perfectly  secure  about  corpora- 
tions, —  that  the  constitutional  argument  is  nothing,  —  the  argument  from 
expediency  nothing,  —  but  if  they  take  ten  days'  hard  labor  to  answer 
these  foolish  arguments,  and  after  all  do  not  answer  them,  the  house  will 
know  what  to  judge  of  the  matter. 

The  whole  tone  of  argument  on  the  other  side,  has  been  in  the  high- 
est degree  disrespectful  to  this  house.  The  house  sustained  me  by  a 
vote  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven  to  one  hundred  and  eighty-six,  in 
the  view  I  took.  No  sooner  has  the  house  made  its  decision,  than  a  tor- 
rent of  vituperation  is  poured  out  upon  that  decision.  Fifteen  gentle- 
men from  Boston,  and  there  may  be  fifty-two  more  to  follow,  with  two 
or  three  friends  of  the  Worcester  Hotel  to  aid  them  to  })our  out  the 
phials  of  their  wrath,  not  upon  my  head,  but  upon  the  house,  which  has 
not  shown  itself  subservient  to  their  views.  It  seems  to  be  taken  ior 
granted  by  these  fifteen  gentlemen,  that  the  house  will  see  its  own  folly 
and  their  wisdom,  and  will  retract  after  a  little  schooling,  even  without 
reason. 

Sir,  agrarianism,  levelling.  Jacobinism,  war  of  the  })Oor  against  the  rich, 
these  are  the  cries.  This  is  the  stale  trash,  by  which  this  house  is  to  be 
driven  to  reverse  an  opinion  expressed  after  mature  deliberation  and  by 
a  majority  of  fifty-one  votes. 

It  was  nothing  that  fell  from  me.  Sir,  but  it  was  the  vote  of  this 
house,  it  was  the  vote  that  stirred  the  hornet's  nest.  It  was  that  vote 
that  put  the  whole  covey  of  aristocracy  in  a  fiutler,  —  a  vote  to  lay  a 
monopoly  flat  on  its  back  upon  the  table,  two  hundr(;d  and  thirty-seven 
to  one  hundred  and  eighty-six.  Gentlemen  could  smile  at  the  constitu- 
tional argument,  just  as  they  smiled  at  the  sixth   article  of  the  Bill  of 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  319 

Rights  when  it  was  read  a  few  days  since  in  a  petition,  just  as  they 
smiled  at  the  old  Jeffersonian  creed,  when  they  heard  it  in  the  Georgia 
resolutions,  but  when  the  vote  was  announced,  their  countenances  changed. 
They  smiled  still,  but  it  was  what  the  French  call  a  rire  jaiine^  a  jaun- 
diced smile,  a  bitter  smile,  a  smile  of  anguish,  a  smile  that  showed  how 
deeply  that  vote  had  entered  into  their  souls. 

The  representatives  of  Boston  then  rose  up  by  the  dozen,  to  proclaim 
that  a  new  straggler  from  Cape  Ann  had  come  here  with  some  wild  no- 
tions, but  that  they  were  all  moonshine. 

Sir,  I  wish  to  dispose  in  a  very  few  words  of  each  of  the  gentlemen 
who  has  answered  since  I  was  up  last.  Fifteen  gentlemen  from  Boston 
have  taken  their  turns,  and  there  are  fifty-two  more  to  come.  I  must 
take  them  singly  in  the  order  in  which  they  spoke.  They  represent  this 
great  city,  one  class  of  whose  population,  and  that  a  powerful  class,  is 
all  awake  like  Ephesus  when  the  apostle  threatened  the  monopoly  of  the 
silversmiths.  They  cried  out  for  the  space  of  two  hours.  Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians  !  And  our  monopolists  have  cried  out  for  the  last  ten 
days.  Great  are  the  corporations  of  Massachusetts  ! 

]My  friend  of  Boston,  behind  me,  (Mr.  Parsons,)  first  opened  upon  the 
house.  lie  was  highly  heated,  and  exploded  like  Vesusius  when  its  en- 
trails are  troubled,  in  a  tremendous  and  fiery  eruption.  And  for  what? 
The  alleged  cause  was  that  1  had  held  up  George  Cabot  to  disgrace. 
Not  so.  Sir.  I  held  him  to  no  disgrace,  —  unless  the  gentleman  will 
have  it  that  it  was  a  disgrace  to  have  been  president  of  the  Hartford 
Convention.  I  introduced  his  name  to  show  the  gentleman  from  Boston, 
(Mr.  Blake,)  under  what  colors  he  was  now  sailing.  At  the  latter 
part  of  the  last  century,  and  the  beginning  of  the  present,  the  democratic 
party  was  opposed  to  corporations  in  this  State.  This  can  be  f)roved 
from  the  Chronicle  and  Essex  Register,  if  the  house  did  not  know  the 
facts  very  well.  One  might  take  the  special  acts  in  one  hand,  and  the 
political  history  of  the  State  in  the  other,  and  read  the  names  of  the 
stockholders  of  the  banks,  from  the  Massachusetts  Bank,  down  to  1811, 
and  in  all  the  earliest  manufacturing  corporations,  and  show  that  tlu^y 
were  all  federalists,  and  mostly  leading  federalists,  and  that  tlie  whole 
power  of  the  corporations  was  federal  power.  To  hint  the  same  fact  to 
the  venerable  gentleman,  I  introduced  the  name  of  George  Cabot,  presi- 
dent of  the  Hartford  Convention,  the  first  named  corporator  in  one  of  the 
first,  if  not  the  very  first  manufacturing  corporation  in  Massachusetts. 
I  had  a  right  to  do  so.  The  gentleman  had  taken  the  liberty  to  bestow 
on  the  opponents  of  the  bill  the  title  of  agrarians,  and  with  his  char- 
acteristic piety  thanked  God  that  the  democracy  of  1801,  was  a  very 
different  thing  from  that  of  the  present  day. 


320  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

Sir,  if  the  gentleman  calls  himself  a  democrat  now,  he  must  think  that 
democracy  is  a  very  different  thing  from  what  it  was  in  1801.  But  I 
thank  the  Giver  of  all  good  that  there  is  a  little  of  the  old  fashioned 
democracy  left  in  the  land,  —  however  widely  that  gentleman  may  have 
wandered  from  it.  Sir,  suppose  in  1801,  when  that  gentleman  was  a 
democrat,  and  was  in  favor  of  rotation  in  office,  and  other  democratic 
principles,  a  prophet  had  appeared  to  him  and  said,  in  a  few  years  you 
will  find  yourself  side  by  side  and  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  editor 
of  the  most  consistent*  paper  in  the  United  States,  from  whom  you  are 
now  wide  as  the  poles  asunder,  he,  that  veteran  editor,  still  continuing 
one  of  the  most  consistent  politicians  in  the  Union,  and  having  never 
swerved,  no,  not  one  jot  or  tittle,  by  the  breadth  of  a  hair  from  his  ori- 
ginal principles.  What  would  he  have  thought  of  such  a  prophecy  ? 
Yet  such  has  been  the  wonderful  reality.  Some  years  ago  it  was  an- 
nounced in  the  columns  of  the  Centinel,  "  Redeunt  Satania  regna,'^  that 
the  kingdom  of  Satan  had  returned,  and  ever  since  that  day,  the  two 
veterans  have  been  fellow-workers  in  that  same  kingdom  of  Satan. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  opinions  of  corporations  were  also  freely  de- 
clared in  his  speech  on  the  Tavern  Bill  brought  before  the  house 
in  the  same  session.  A  majority  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  had  refused  to  pass  a  bill  for  the  incorporation  of  a  hotel 
in  Worcester.    Its  friends  moved  a  reconsideration  of  that  vote. 

Mr.  Rantoul  hoped  the  bill  would  not  be  reconsidered  after  the  solemn 
manner  in  which  the  house  had  decided,  not  to  grant  an  incorporation  to 
a  hotel.  He  hoped  the  principle  was  settled.  The  indication  of  public 
sentiment  from  the  country  could  not  be  mistaken.  *****  The  bill 
was  still  pressed  against  the  clear  and  manifest  sense  of  the  house.  The 
pretence  now  was  that  if  a  certain  amendment,  preventing  the  sale  of 
ardent  spirits,  were  made  in  the  bill,  it  would  then  become  acceptable  to 
the  house,  when  in  fact  the  house  had  first  rejected  that  amendment, 
and  then  rejected  the  bill.  Gendemen,  too,  had  placed  it  on  the  ground 
of  its  being  an  enterprise  in  which  men  of  moderate  means  were  to  in- 
vest funds,  while  at  the  same  time,  they  admitted  that  it  presented  so 
little  prospect  of  profit  no  capitalist  would  engage  in  it.  lie  contended 
that  it  was  not  doing  any  kindness  to  the  middling  classes,  to  furnish  a 
place  of  fashionable  dissipation  in  Worcester  or  Boston.  The  legisla- 
ture could  not  prevent  the  increase  of  luxury,  but  they  could  withhold 
their  sanction  to  incorporating  establishments  of  this  kind.  The  town 
of  Worcester  was  growing  and  he  rejoiced  at  it,  and  when  a  hotel  should 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  321 

be  wanted  there  in  addition  to  those  ah'eady  established,  it  would  be  pro- 
vided by  private  enterprise,  without  granting  an  act  of  incorporation  to 
induce  men  to  risk  their  means  in  what  was  admitted  on  all  hands  to  be 
a  hazardous  experiment.  *  *  *  *  *  It  had  been  said,  it  was  now  esta- 
blished that  the  house  would  not  grant  incorporations  indiscriminately. 
He  was  glad  to  hear  that,  —  he  was  rejoiced  to  learn  that  the  house  had  got 
so  far.  Heretofore  they  had  granted  all  that  were  asked  for.  But  was 
the  rule  now  to  be,  that  they  would  incorporate  all  hazardous  enterprises 
which  no  prudent  individuals  would  undertake  ?  It  was  admitted  that 
individuals  would  not  undertake  this  project,  and  that  it  would  be  made 
up  by  funds  derived  from  men  of  moderate  property,  who  were  to  put 
in  a  few  hundred  dollars.  *****  The  encouragement  of  hazardous 
experiments  was  not  the  part  of  a  prudent  legislature.  Massachusetts 
had  encouraged  rash  experiments  by  her  system  of  indiscriminate  acts 
of  incorporation,  which  led  to  the  ruinous  disasters  of  1828  and  1829. 
Massachusetts  and  the  general  government  might  share  the  fault  be- 
tween them.  Indiscriminate  legislation  of  both  led  to  the  ruin  which 
followed. 


In  the  course  of  the  same  session  of  1835,  the  Warren  Bridge 
question  came  before  the  legislature.  This  was  plainly  a  ques- 
tion of  popular  rights  on  one  side,  and  the  selfishness  of  cor- 
porations on  the  other. 

The  citizens  of  Charlestown  and  vicinity  a  few  years  since, 
finding  that  the  amount  of  tolls  they  were  obliged  to  pay,  in 
passing  and  repassing  Charles  River,  was  a  great  and  oppressive 
burden,  determined  to  have  a  free  communication  with  the  city 
of  Boston.  To  this  end  Warren  Bridge  was  built,  which  after 
a  certain  number  of  years  was  to  be  given  up  to  the  State,  and 
made  free.  The  time  arrived  when  the  bridge  was  to  be  given 
up,  but  still  there  were  tolls  collected  under  various  pretexts. 
This  had  been  done  by  the  influence  of  the  stockholders  in  the 
other  bridges,  who  had  probably  been  paid  ten  times  over  the 
original  cost  of  the  stock.  An  animated  debate  occurred  in 
the  house  on  this  subject,  which  was  commenced  by  Mr.  Robin- 
son of  Marblehead,  who  spoke  ably  and  at  some  length  in  favor 
of  making  the  bridge  free.  This,  it  was  contended  on  the 
other  side,  would  be  an  unjustifiable  interference  with  vested 
rights,  etc. 


822  MEMOmS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Mr.  Rantoul  said,  he  perceived  that  gentlemen  ah^eady  snuffed,  in  the 
gale,  the  plunder  of  the  counties  of  Essex  and  Middlesex.  They  pro- 
posed to  draw  a  great  revenue  from  one  part  of  the  Commonwealth,  and 
then  divide  the  spoils  among  the  whole.  This  was  contrary  to  the  Con- 
stitution. The  tenth  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  said  that  each  citizen 
should  bear  his  share  of  the  burdens  of  the  Commonwealth.  If  they 
compelled,  then,  a  citizen  to  bear  more  than  his  share,  they  were  guilty 
of  a  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  an  act  of  tyranny  and  oppression. 
This  sort  of  taxation  had  been  the  cause  of  most  of  the  troubles  in  Eu- 
rope, of  the  outrages  which  took  place  in  the  early  part  of  the  French 
revolution.  Mr.  R.  said  he  knew  the  state  of  feeling  existing  among 
the  i^eople  in  relation  to  this  matter  ;  and  the  legislature  might  depend 
upon  it,  that  if  they  passed  a  law  to  maintain  the  existing  state  of  things, 
(the  tolls  for  the  benefit  of  the  State,)  that  law  would  be  nullified,  —  he 
w^ould  not  say  how,  but  it  would  be  nullified. 

The  house  voted  by  a  large  majority  to  appropriate  the  tolls 
to  the  repair  of  the  bridge  ;  but  in  this  measure  the  senate  re- 
fused to  concur,  and  the  lieutenant-governor  and  council  adopted 
the  opinion  of  the  attorney-general,  that  it  would  be  law^ful  to 
continue  in  force  the  provision  for  taking  tolls  to  the  end  of  that 
session  of  the  general  court.  The  house,  which  is  based  on 
population,  voted  to  sustain  the  interests  of  population.  The 
senate,  which  was  then  based  on  property,  voted  to  sustain  the 
interests  of  property. 

In  the  house  of  representatives,  Thursday,  September  8, 
1835,  the  bill  from  the  senate  continuing  in  force  the  act  of 
1833,  relating  to  the  Warren  Bridge,  being  taken  up  in  the 
house,  was  amended  on  its  passage  to  a  third  reading,  by  the 
proviso  that  the  tolls  already  collected,  and  that  those  that  may 
be  hereafter  collected,  shall  be  exclusively  appropriated  to  the 
repairs  and  maintenance  of  said  bridge,  and  other  purposes 
relating  thereto.  Messrs.  Blake  and  Simmons  opposed  the 
amendment;  Messrs.  Keyes  and  Rantoul  supported  it.  The 
following  is  a  copy  from  the  Morning  Post  of  Mr.  RantouPs 
remarks  :  — 

The  gentleman  from  Boston  had*  told  us,  and  told  us  truly,  that  neither 
the  former  proprietors,  nor  the  Commonwealth,  had  paid  a  dollar  for  the 
Warren  Bridge.    Those  who  have  used  that  bridge  have  paid  for  it,  and 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  323 

for  that  very  reason  should  not  be  called  upon  to  pay  for  it  again.  But 
still  that  gentleman  contended  that  the  Commonweath  had  a  perfect  right 
to  the  tolls  of  that  bridge.  The  gentleman  from  Boston  had  forgotten 
his  early  political  notions  ;  thirty-five  years  ago  he  would  have  stood  up 
in  his  j)lace,  and  refuted,  much  more  clearly  and  effectually  than  I  can 
now  do,  the  principle  that  one  portion  of  the  community  should  be  taxed 
for  the  wdiole.  The  gentleman  asks,  where  is  the  prohibition  in  the 
Constitution  against  raising  a  revenue  from  such  a  bridge  ?  But  that  is 
not  the  proper  question.  The  question  should  be,  Where  in  the  Consti- 
tution do  w^e  find  the  power  to  tax  such  a  bridge  ?  It  is  for  the  other 
side  to  show  the  power,  and  not  for  us  to  show  the  prohibition.  If  a 
power  be  not  granted,  it  is  prohibited.  We  ought  not  be  called  upon  to 
prove  a  negative  ;  but  still,  difficult  as  it  often  is  to  prove  a  negative, 
Mr.  Rantoul  thought  it  could  be  done  in  this  case,  by  the  strict  letter  of 
the  Constitution.  He  w^as  aware  that  gentleman  had  said  that  the  objec- 
tion to  the  tax  on  passengers  over  the  Warren  Bridge,  upon  constitutional 
grounds,  was  not  entitled  to  much  weight,  and  unworthy  of  any  parti- 
cular examination  ;  and  this  indifference  to  the  constitutionality  of  meas- 
ures he  had  alwa3^s  found  to  be  a  characteristic  of  a  certain  class  of 
politicians,  whenever  it  became  necessary  to  sustain  any  species  of  mo- 
nopoly. All  arguments  or  inferences  drawn  from  the  Constitution,  by 
the  closest  and  soundest  logic,  were  sneered  down  as  unworthy  of  a  reply. 
No  attempts  w^ere  made  to  prove  the  arguments  or  inferences  unsound, 
by  logic  equally  clear  and  exact.  A  sneer  was  a  more  certain  way  of 
silencing  an  opponent,  who  professed  to  derive  his  arguments  from  the 
Constitution.  An  argument  against  a  constitutional  objection  might  not 
succeed,  but  a  sneer  W' as  rarely  known  to  fail  with  the  party.  The  Con- 
stitution has  therefore  become  for  all  practical  purposes  a  dead  letter. 
Yet  at  the  same  time  that  all  deductions,  however  legitimate,  and  result- 
ing by  the  clearest  implication  from  the  Constitution,  are  thus  disre- 
garded by  gentlemen,  they  still  profess  to  ivorship  the  Constitution.  Yes, 
worship  the  Constitution  ;  but  all  consequences  of  the  Constitution  they 
deny  and  deride.  Mr.  Rantoul  did  not  know  that  he  had  ever  referred 
to  the  Constitution  or  the  Bill  of  Rights,  in  argument,  without  being 
rebuked ;  he  would  still,  however,  go  back  to  the  Constitution,  in  the 
present  case,  and  see  if  he  could  not  find  there  the  prohibition,  which  the 
gentleman  from  Boston  supposes  it  does  not  contain.  The  words  of  the 
Constitution  are,  that  the  legislature  shall  have  power  "  to  impose  and 
levy  proportional  taxes."  Is  it  proportional  to  raise  $45,000  a  year  out 
of  the  profits  of  the  people  east  of  the  bridge,  and  none  from  the  otlier 
parts  of  the  Commonwealth  ?  The  gentleman  from  Boston  had  com- 
pared the  tax  on  the  Warren  Bridge  to  the  bank  tax,  or  auction  tax,  or 


324  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

license  tax  ;  and  there  might  have  been  some  color  in  the  comparison, 
if  it  were  proposed  to  tax  all  the  bridges.  But  to  raise  a  tax  on  Warren 
Bridge  only,  is  precisely  the  same  thing  as  if  only  one  bank  was  taxed, 
and  all  the  rest  exempted  ;  or  as  if  the  auction  tax  was  levied  on  one 
auctioneer  ;  or  the  license  tax  on  one  inn-holder. 

Mr.  Rantoul  continued.  The  Bill  of  Rights  declares  that  the  property 
of  the  citizen  shall  not  be  taken  for  the  public  use,  without  rendering  an 
equivalent.  ISiow  what  equivalent  do  the  people  receive  from  the  War- 
ren Bridge  ?  The  very  people  who  now  use,  and  have  used  it,  have 
themselves  paid  for  itj  —  it  never  cost  the  State  a  dollar.  What  equi- 
valent does  the  State  render  ?  The  State  surely  cannot  give  to  thera 
what  is  already  their  own,  —  what  they  have  bought  and  paid  for.  It  is 
not  pretended  that  they  have  not  paid  for  it,  and  in  the  fullest  manner. 
Let  the  history  of  the  bridge  be  traced  and  stated.  The  State  has  the 
regulation  of  Charles  River,  the  navigation  of  which  will  be  obstructed 
by  erecting  another  bridge  over  it ;  but  it  is  believed  that  the  con- 
venience to  the  public  of  another  bridge  will  more  than  counterbalance 
the  inconvenience  of  additional  obstruction  of  the  navigation,  and  the 
legislature  therefore  permit  another  bridge  to  be  erected.  Individuals, 
then,  immediately  interested  build  the  bridge,  and  offer  to  surrender  their 
right  to.  take  toll,  as  soon  as  the  bridge  is  paid  for  by  those  who  use  it. 
That  has  been  accomplished,  and  the  bridge  is  made  over  to  the  State 
as  a  public  highway,  and  what  right  has  the  Commonwealth  —  since  the 
legislature  has  declared  that  the  public  necessity  requires  a  bridge  —  to 
put  a  toll-gate  on  that  bridge,  any  more  than  it  has  to  place  a  toll-gate 
on  the  highway  to  Roxbury  ? 

Mr,  Rantoul  next  adverted  to  the  Charles  River  Bridge,  —  that  bridge 
had  set  up  an  exclusive  claim  to  all  the  travel  over  the  river,  when  West 
Boston  Bridge  was  petitioned  for ;  but  the  legislature  would  not  listen 
to  their  pretensions,  though  it  allowed  the  proprietors  an  extension  of 
their  charter  for  thirty  years,  on  account  of  the  risk  they  had  incurred 
of  being  reimbursed  for  building  the  bridge  for  public  convenience,  —  but 
since  that  time  other  bridges  have  been  erected,  and  the  legislature  has 
not  granted  any  further  extension  of  the  Warren  Bridge  charter.  They 
considered  the  question  of  exclusive  right  disposed  of;  and  the  building 
of  the  Cambridge  Bridge  ought  to  have  settled  the  question  forever.  It 
is  plain  the  legislature  never  intended  to  admit  their  claim  to  indemnity 
beyond  an  actual  reimbursement,  both  of  principal  and  interest,  and 
which,  by  the  by,  at  the  expiration  of  the  first  term  of  the  charter,  they 
had  more  than  received.  The  Commonwealth  did  say  to  the  old  bridge, 
it  is  true,  that  every  man  who  passed  over  it  should  pay  toll ;  but  the 
Commonwealth  never  did  say,  that  every  man  who  had  occasion  to  pass 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  325 

from  Boston  to  Charlestown,  should  cross  over  tliat  bridge,  and  no  other. 
The  buiUlers  of 'that  bridge  have  been  paid  over  and  over.  Thcj  have 
received  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  for  what  cost  them  $50,000  or 
$G0,000,  and  in  the  expending  of  which  they  ran  no  risk,  —  no  risk  that 
other  reasonable  men  were  not  all  willing  to  incur  at  that  very  time,  and 
after  that  bridge  was  undertaken.  Yet  we  are  called  upon  to  pay  tliem 
over  again,  upon  the  score  of  the  great  risk  of  their  undertaking,  when 
no  risk  was  run,  as  the  result  has  proved. 

We  are  told  that  the  present  stockholders  are  the  widows  and  orphans 
of  the  original  proprietors.  Orphans  they  must  be,  whose  parents  died 
fifty  years  ago.  We  should  remember  that  the  present  burden  falls  up- 
on those  widows  and  orphans  who  have  become  so  in  our  day,  who  have 
to  cross  that  bridge. 

There  is  one  consideration  growing  out  of  the  amendment  proposed, 
which  has  entirely  escaped  the  notice  of  the  gentleman  from  Boston.  It 
is,  that  it  proposes  to  retain  the  money  received  for  tolls,  for  the  use  of 
the  bridge  and  purposes  connected  with  it.  Xow  the  gentleman  tells 
us  that  there  is  a  question  pending  at  Washington,  and  the  decision  may 
be  against  the  Warren  Bridge.  We,  however,  deny  that  there  is  any 
question  pending  at  Washington,  —  and  there  was  a  time,  too,  when  the 
gentleman  himself  would  have  indignantly  repelled  the  doctrine,  that 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  was  not  competent  to  decide  when  and 
where  her  own  bridges  should  be  built.  Massachusetts,  a  sovereign  State, 
is  surely  competent  to  manage  her  own  concerns.  The  reference  of  a 
purely  domestic  matter  to  Washington,  is  only  one  instance  to  show  the 
tendency  towards  consolidation,  manifested,  both  directly  and  indirectly, 
by  certain  individuals.  But  admitting  the  decision  to  be  against  the 
Warren  Bridge,  and  a  suit  is  brought  for  the  tolls ;  where  is  the  money 
to  come  from  ?  By  the  present  law,  it  goes  into  the  treasury  of  the 
Commonwealth,  from  which  it  will  soon  be  extracted  for  some  humbug 
speculation,  which  will  be  set  on  foot  the  moment  it  can  be  got  hold  of. 
Of  the  fifty  thousand  dollars,  not  a  dollar  will  be  in  existence  at  the 
close  of  the  year.  Means  and  ways  will  speedily  be  devised  to  squan- 
der it  in  projects  from  which  the  people  will  never  derive  any  advan- 
tage. If  the  legislature  would  invest  it  in  the  Great  Western  Railroad 
they  talked  of  in  Faneuil  Hall  last  night,  some  advantage  to  the  State 
might  accrue ;  but  he  would  venture  to  prophesy  that  not  a  cent  would 
ever  find  its  way  into  a  channel  which  would  benefit  the  people.  In- 
stead of  that,  there  would  spring  up  some  monopoly  to  be  fed  with  it ; 
some  academy  to  be  endowed,  —  some  college  to  be  established. 

Mr.  Rantoul  referred  to  Mr.  Simmons'  remark,  that  an  attempt  had 
been  made  to  bully  the  legislature  last  session.     He  would  not  utter  any 

28 


326  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

threats  —  there  was  no  need  of  any —  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were 
not  disposed  to  acts  of  violence.  One  of  the  greatest  riots  that  ever 
occurred  at  Paris,  was  occasioned  by  the  country  people  opposing  the 
collection  of  tolls  at  the  gates  of  Paris ;  but  here,  there  would  be  no 
riot ;  the  people  would  resort  to  a  peaceful  remedy  —  if  they  resorted  to 
any  —  to  free  themselves  from  the  burden  that  falls  so  heavy  on  them. 
With  a  very  small  part  of  the  money  now  paid  for  tolls,  a  line  of  steam 
ferry-boats  could  be  established,  which  would  relieve  the  bridges  from 
the  chief  portion  of  their  travel. 

The  amendment  was  opposed  with  great  vehemence  and 
pertinacity,  and  while  Mr.  Rantoul  was  speaking  in  support  of 
it,  on  account  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  be  gave  way  to  a 
motion  to  adjourn.  The  friends  of  the  bridge  monopoly,  sub- 
sequently succeeded  in  continuing  the  laws  for  taking  toll,  to 
the  second  of  March,  1836.  On  the  eleventh  of  that  month, 
we  read  in  the  Gloucester  Democrat,  the  following  announce- 
ment:— 

The  power  of  one  species  of  monopolizing  encroachment  is  broken. 
Warren  Bridge  is  at  last  free,  —  the  law  authorizing  the  taking  of  toll  at 
that  bridge  having  expired  on  the  second  instant,  and  the  legislature 
having  refused  to  pass  any  new  act  for  the  spunging  of  the  traveUing 
public.  The  event  was  celebrated  with  great  animation  by  the  people 
of  Charlestown  and  vicinity. 

A  large  number  of  the  inhabitants,  with  their  invited  guests,  including 
the  governor  of  the  State,  members  of  the  council,  senate,  and  house  of 
representatives,  partook  of  a  collation  at  the  town  haU.  Many  pertinent 
speeches  and  sentiments  were  called  forth  on  the  occasion.  We  select 
a  few  of  the  toasts.     Governor  Everett  gave :  — 

''  The  city  of  Boston  and  the  town  of  Charlestown.  May  the  in- 
creased facilities  of  communication  between  them,  promote  the  common 
welfare,  and  strengthen  the  bond  of  good  feeling." 

Mr.  Rantoul,  of  Gloucester,  being  called  on  for  a  sentiment,  remarked. 
That  they  had  met  to  celebrate  the  termination  of  a  contest  for  a  prin- 
ciple of  vital  importance  to  the  interests  of  the  whole  community. 
Charlestown  had  once  been  the  battle-ground  where  another  question 
was  contested,  —  the  great  question  of  American  independence.  It 
might  almost  be  said,  that  the  events  which  took  place  within  her  terri- 
tory constituted  the  point  on  which  the  crisis  turned.  She  had  a  large 
share  of  the  suffering,  and  should  have  of  the  glory  of  that  conflict.     It 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  327 

was  unconstitutional  taxation,  unjust  taxation,  that  roused  the  resistance 
of  which  so  prominent  a  scene  is  ahnost  within  reach  of  my  voice,  and 
which  continued  through  eight  years'  war  against  unjust  taxation,  against 
principles  which  tlireatened  to  lead  to  unconstitutional  taxation.  Charles- 
town  furnished  the  battle-ground  again,  and  nov*'-  the  struggle  is  over,  we 
meet  to  congratulate  one  another  upon  a  glorious,  and,  blessed  be 
Heaven,  a  bloodless  victory.  The  parallel  might  be  run  out  into  particu- 
lars, and,  in  abler  hands,  said  Mr.  R.,  it  could  not  fail  to  be  interesting.  But 
not  to  take  up  time  which  is  precious,  when  we  have  so  many  of  our 
friends  to  be  heard  from  here.  I  will  only  add  that  the  principle  of  free 
competition  between  great  public  improvements  as  between  individual 
enterprises,  being  now  established,  an  obstacle  is  removed  from  under- 
takings to  promote  social  and  business  intercourse,  which  otherwise  have 
proved  most  baneful  to  the  general  interest,  if  not  fntal  to  their  pro- 
gress. I  propose  as  a  sentiment,  the  two  leading  ej)Ochs  in  the  history 
of  Charlestown  :  — 

"  The  17th  of  June,  1775,  and  the  2d  of  March,  183G.  IMay  Charles- 
town,  which  rose  like  a  phoenix  from  the  ashes  of  the  17th  of  June, 
flourish  and  prosper  more  abundantly  after  the  glorious  2d  of  March." 

Mr.  Solomon  Parsons,  one  of  the  marshals,  gave :  — 

"  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr. ;  his  able  and  indefatigable  exertions  in  the 
cause  of  the  "Warren  Bridge,  entitle  him  to  the  warmest  thanks  of  the 
people  of  Charlestown." 

Sir,  said  Mr.  R.  in  reply,  that  I  fought  in  the  battle  of  liberty  and  had 
a  part  in  the  victory  which  rejoices  all  our  hearts,  *  *  *  *  The  princi- 
ple we  have  established  is,  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts  have  a  right 
to  build,  with  their  own  money,  their  own  bridges  and  highways ;  and 
when  built  and  paid  for,  to  travel  them  without  asking  leave  of  any 
corporation.  This  principle  has  set  out  on  its  triumphant  march.  It 
will  go  on  conquering  and  to  conquer.  It  will  pass  through  the 
State.     I  give  you  :  — 

"  The  triumph  of  principle." 

Mr.  Rantoul  remarks,  on  the  motion  to  refer  to  the  next 
general  court  the  remonstrance  against  the  passage  of  Mr. 
Cambreleng's  bill,  February  14,  1837  :  — 

Mr.  Speaker,  —  Sir  :  I  rise  to  support  the  motion  of  my  friend  from 
Nev/ton,  to  postpone  the  subject-matter  of  this  debate,  and  refer  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  next  legislature.  That,  I  beUeve,  is  the  best  disposition 
that  can  be  made  of  it.     If  it  be  necessary  to  adopt  a  creed  in  poHtical 


328  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   AVRITINGS 

economy,  by  yeas  and  nays,  to  be  solemnly  proclaimed  to  the  world,  great 
and  careful  deliberation  is  requisite  in  drawing  up  the  confession  of  faith. 
Every  word  should  be  weighed  ;  every  principle  reduced  to  a  mathemat- 
ical certainty,  both  in  substance  and  form.  For  this  scrupulous  precision, 
we  have  now  no  time.  The  fourth  of  March  is  close  at  hand.  There 
is  no  need  of  hurrying  through  this  legislative  anathema,  unlicked  and 
misshapen  as  it  is,  for  nobody  supposes  the  bill  to  be  anathematized  will 
pass  at  this  session.  Let  us  lay  the  paper  on  the  shelf,  then,  till  wiser 
men  than  we  are  come  here  next  year,  to  discuss  its  mysteries.  They 
can  begin  the  first  day  of  their  session,  if  they  like,  when  they  have 
plenty  of  leisure  ;  in  the  meantime,  the  gentleman  from  Boston  (Park) 
can  write  a  pamphlet  to  enlighten  them.  But  let  us  go  about  our  own 
business,  —  the  business  for  wdiich  the  people  sent  us  here. 

Sir,  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket,  in  his  ornithological  disquisitions, 
has  laid  down  some  broad  distinctions  between  dung-hill  cocks  and  eagles, 
has  made  that  point  of  natural  history  so  clear,  that  one  would  have 
imagined  there  could  be  no  mistaking  the  one  for  the  other.  Yet  the 
gentleman  has  taken  this  white-feathered  fowl,  wdiich  we  all  know,  from 
the  egg,  under  his  special  protection  and  patronage,  and  his  wanton 
imagination  has  metamorphosed  it  into  a  soaring  and  terrible  eagle,  with 
beak  and  talons  like  the  bird  of  Jove.  If  I  strip  the  creature  of  his 
borrowed  plumage  and  false  spurs,  and  show  it  to  be  what  in  very  truth 
H  is,  a  mere  dung-hill  craven,  crowing  lustily  where  there  is  no  danger, 
but  fit  for  no  service  that  tries  the  mettle,  he  must  blame  those  that 
foisted  the  ignoble  bird  upon  him  for  a  true  thunder-bearer. 

Sir,  the  gentleman's  historical  recollections  are  even  worse  fitted  to 
his  purpose  than  his  ornithology.  With  such  a  purpose,  and  such  doc- 
trines as  he  has  advocated,  how  dare  he  waken  those  spirit-stirring  re- 
miniscences of  the  opening  period  of  the  revolution  ?  I  thank  him  for  it. 
Nothing  could  be  more  appropriate,  in  opposition  to  this  British  tory 
protest,  though  nothing  could  have  been  more  unfortunately  suggested 
for  its  supporters. 

-  In  what  cause  did  Samuel  Adams  and  John  Hancock  stand  up,  (not 
on  this  floor,  as  the  gentleman  supposes,  but  where  they  did  stand,) 
asserters  of  American  liberty  ?  Were  they  clamoring,  like  the  gentle- 
man from  Nantucket,  for  more  taxation  ?  Were  they  imploring,  as  he 
docs,  heavier  burdens  upon  themselves,  their  countrymen,  and  their 
posterity  ?  Was  their  constant,  eternal,  never-varying  cry,  tax  us 
heavily,  tax  us  thoroughly,  tax  us  universally,  in  all  j)laces,  at  all  times, 
on  all  articles,  on  all  luxuries,  comforts,  and  necessities,  but  most  on 
what  is  most  necessary,  —  on  raiment,  food,  and  fuel,  and  all  utensils  by 
which  we  earn  our  daily  bread  ?     Tax  our  raiment,  though  you  bring  us 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  329 

to  rags  ;  tax  tlie  tools  of  onr  trade,  though  you  grind  us  to  dust ;  tax  the 
fuel  that  warms  us,  though  we  perish  in  the  northern  cold  ;  tax  the  food 
which  sustains  us,  though  we  starve  for  want  of  means  to  purchase  what 
will  satisfy  our  hunger  ?  Tax  us  to  the  last  dollar.  Taxation  is  a  hless- 
ing.  The  removal  of  taxation  is  a  curse.  Tax  us  all ;  but  tax  the 
POOR  MAN  MOST  !  Were  these  the  doctrines  of  Hancock  and  Adams  ? 
Was  this  the  "  American  system "  from  sixty-three  to  seventy-Jive  and 
six  ?  I  had  never  read  it,  nor  heard  it ;  I  had  never  dreamed  until  the 
gentleman  announced  himself  as  the  successor  of  Samuel  Adams,  the 
Elisha  on  whom  had  fallen  the  mantle  of  that  Elijah,  that  the  grievance 
which  drove  our  fathers  to  rebellion  was  the  absence  or  removal  of  taxes, 
and  that  they  achieved  revolution  to  secure  to  their  posterity  forever, 
intolerable,  causeless,  unconstitutional  taxation.  That  is  altogether  a 
new  view  of  the  subject.  Oh,  no,  sir  !  If  tradition  be  not  delusion,  if 
history  be  not  a  fable,  if  authentic  records  be  not  false  forgeries,  the 
question  between  our  fathers  and  Great  Britain  was  identically  the  same 
that  is  now  arguing  between  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket  and  myself. 
The  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles  was  upon  this  issue.  Lives,  and  for- 
tunes, and  sacred  honor  were  staked  upon  it.  Tens  of  thousands  of  lives 
were  cheerfully  laid  down  to  decide  it ;  but  the  gentleman  from  Nan- 
tucket takes  the  tory  side. 

Sir,  I  stand  up  for  the  integrity,  for  the  republicanism,  for  the  patriot- 
ism, for  the  "  American  system "  of  Samuel  Adams.  He  was  on  our 
own  side.  Sir  :  would  that  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket  had  learned  in 
his  school.  All  the  holy  blood  of  the  revolution,  freely  poured  out  like 
w\Ttcr,  was  spilled  in  this  our  cause,  in  opposition  to  death,  to  the  favorite 
doctrine  of  a  majority  of  the  house,  in  opposition  to  unconstitutional 
taxation.  I  say  "  unconstitutional  taxation,"  because  I  mean  so.  The 
v\diig  party  in  this  house  takes,  as  usual,  the  old  tory  ground.  I  refer 
not  now  to  past  tariffs,  to  the  present  tariif,  to  any  action  of  congress, 
pending  or  possible,  on  this  subject :  T  refer  to  the  action  of  this  house 
last  week  and  now.  The  remonstrance  seems  to  deny  to  the  government 
the  power  of  reducing  the  taxes  of  the  people,  even  when  the  revenue  is 
superabundant.  To  remove  this  objectionable  feature,  or  at  least  to 
ascertain  if  this  was  the  meaning,  I  offered  an  amendment,  consisting  of 
five  resolutions,  the  first  of  which  was  in  these  words  :  "  Resolved,  that 
in  the  opinion  of  this  legislature,  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  purity  of 
republican  institutions,  and  dangerous  to  the  stability  of  the  Union,  to 
raise  from  the  people  by  any  form  of  taxation  a  revenue,  not  needed  by 
the  actual  wants  of  the  government,  for  the  purpose  of  distributing  the 
same  among  the  States  or  the  people."  That  amendment  the  house 
refused  to  print,  and  refused  to  allow  the  yeas  and  nays  to  be  taken  upon 

28* 


;^30  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WETTINGS 

it.  And  finally  rejected  it  by  a  strict  party  vote,  in  a  thin  house,  (272 
to  159,  Friday,  February  10).  The  objection  to  my  amendment  was 
mainly  directed  against  this  first  resolution.  The  gentleman  from  Wor- 
cester opposed  it  on  the  ground  that  if  such  a  doctrine  were  admitted, 
and  a  surplus  should  accumulate,  the  taxes  might  be  reduced.  Several 
gentlemen  from  Boston  made  the  same  objection,  and  argued  also  that 
the  income  from  the  public  lands  might  pay  all  the  expenses  of  the 
government,  in  wdiich  case  the  tariff  must  be  reduced  according  to  the 
amendment,  but  ought  not  to  be,  according  to  their  views.  For  this  very 
reason  the  amendment  was  rejected,  yet  it  has  not  been  pretended  that 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  directs  or  authorizes  money  to  be 
raised,  except  for  the  actual  wants  of  the  government. 

These  gentlemen,  then,  avow  their  determination  to  do  all  they  can  to 
continue  taxation  not  needed  for  the  actual  wants  of  the  government ;  in 
other  words,  they  avow  their  approbation  of,  and  desire  unconstitutional 
taxation. 

And  is  it  for  this  that  the  name  of  Samuel  Adams  is  invoked  ?  He 
and  the  whole  band  of  his  fellow  patriots  thundered  against  this  Yery 
heresy  unceasingly,  and  the  last  of  all  abuses  they  would  ever  have  ex- 
pected is  this,  to  be  quoted  for  that  which  their  souls  abhorred.  Sir,  the 
bones  of  Samuel  Adams  would  hardly  rest  in  the  grave,  should  he  hear 
this  profanation  of  his  name.  The  gentleman  from  Nantucket  has  allowed 
me  that  license  of  the  imagination  in  which  he  indulges  so  freely.  If  I 
take  him  at  his  word,  I  shall  imagine  while  I  listen  to  the  gentleman 
from  Nantucket,  some  thorough-bred  tory  of  the  ante-revolution  time, 
eloquently  expatiating  upon  the  blessings  of  British  taxation.  This 
empire  lives,  says  he,  by  taxes,  —  commerce,  manufactures,  agriculture, 
labor,  all  thrive  by  protection.  The  protective  taxes  reach  everywhere  ; 
the  colonies  feel  only  their  portion,  and  in  truth  less  than  their  portion, 
of  the  common  burden,  while  the  general  prosperity  pervades  the  v^diole 
empire  through  all  its  extremities.  Do  away  these  taxes,  and  the  glory 
of  the  empire  has  departed  forever,  her  sun  has  gone  down  in  eternal 
darkness  ;  you  here  in  America,  no  less  than  all  the  rest,  are  involved  in 
the  common  ruin. 

Such  is  the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket,  if  you  carry  its 
date  back  some  sixty  or  seventy  years.  It  is  the  very  toryism  which 
the  burning  indignation  of  Samuel  Adams  rebuked.  It  is  the  doctrine 
in  reprobation  of  which  the  tea  went  overboard.  Lexington  and  Concord 
drank  in  blood  of  the  first  martyrs  in  resistance  to  it.  Bunker  Hill 
thundered  against  it.  It  was  checkmated  at  Saratoga  and  Yorktown. 
Yet  the  gentlemen  from  Nantucket,  Worcester,  and  Boston  call  up  from 
the  tomb  the  revolutionary  relics  of  the  heresy  on  which  United  Amer- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  331 

ica  has  set  the  seal  of  condemnation  ;  and  because  toryism  is  in  digrace, 
they  baptize  it  whiggery.  In  vain  :  no  borrowed  name  can  shield  it 
from  detection  ;  no  cloak  of  hypocrisy  can  conceal  its  inherent  defor- 
mity. This  legislature  may  resolve  whatever  they  please,  but  the  people 
of  Massachusetts  will  never  join  in  any  prayer  for  the  imposition  or 
perpetuation  of  unconstitutional  taxation. 

The  great  Telamonian  Ajax  of  this  new  American  system  told  us 
once,  in  his  better  days,  that  it  deserved  to  be  called  the  British  system, 
because  it  was  borrowed  from  the  long  established  practice  of  Great 
Britain,  and  was  in  all  respects  the  reverse  of  our  own  established  prac- 
tice. Sir,  this  is  true.  The  genuine  old-fashioned  American  system  is 
freedom.  Restriction  was  and  is  the  British  system.  The  gentleman 
from  Worcester  fairly  takes  his  stand  upon  this  ground.  He  appeals 
boldly  to  the  example  of  Great  Britain.  He  tells  us  that  the  greatness 
and  glory  of  Great  Britain  are  the  fruits  of  her  restrictive  policy.  This 
I  deny.  Sir.  Iler  greatness  to  her  insular  position,  to  her  coast  in- 
dented with  harbors,  to  her  mineral  treasure,  to  her  agricultural  wealth, 
to  the  freest  government  of  the  old  world,  to  the  ingenuity,  enterprise, 
perseverance,  and  indomitable  spirit  of  her  sons,  and  to  that  general  con- 
stitutional superiority  of  the  Saxon  race  which  we  share  in  common  with 
her.  Much  of  her  poverty,  much  of  her  suffering,  she  owes  —  it  can 
be  mathematically  demonstrated  that  she  owes  it  —  to  the  curse  of  une- 
qual taxation,  to  the  restrictive  system.  But  suppose  I  grant  to  the 
gentleman,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  the  present  condition  of 
that  island  is  all  owing  to  those  heavy  taxes  which  he  eulogizes.  What 
then  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in  her  condition  which  a  republican  nation 
envy?  Where  thousands  groan  in  misery  that  one  may  wallow  in 
wealth ;  where  the  tears,  and  the  sweat  and  blood  of  the  laborer,  distilled 
through  the  alembic  of  the  gentleman's  "system,"  fertilize  the  broad 
domain  of  privileged  luxury ;  where  the  palace  rises  in  insulting  con- 
trast beside  the  hovel ;  where  squalid  want  gazes  despairingly  at  the 
pampered  lord,  as  he  rolls  by  in  his  chariot;  where  this  very  same  infer- 
nal system  grinds  the  bones  of  the  poor  to  make  bread  for  the  rich  ;  is  it 
there  that  the  gentleman's  fondest  anticipations  for  his  country  are 
already  realized  ?  Is  that  the  altar  of  his  political  worship  ?  Borne 
down  to  the  earth  with  the  crushing  weight  of  a  debt  which,  though  the 
gold  of  both  Indies  swell  her  coffers,  she  cannot  pay  ;  convulsed  and 
looking  forward  to  convulsions  more  terrible,  perhaps,  than  the  agonies 
of  revolutionary  France,  why  should  American  statesmen  counsel  for  us 
the  course  that  brought  her  to  this  plight?  How  can  repubhcan  states- 
men admire  "  the  pilot  that  weathered  the  storm,"  and  threw  the  ship 
into  the  trough  of  the  sea  to  roll  away  her  masts  as  soon  as  the  storm 


332  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

was  over,  and  become  the  water-logged  and  unmanageable  hulk  that  she 
now  is  ?  A  bad  pilot  he  :  and  long  will  the  crew  regret  that  they  did 
not  throw  him  overboard.  Yet  gentlemen,  jocosely  calling  themselves 
whigs,  stand  upon  this  floor,  British  tories  of  the  Pitt  school,  advocating 
to  the  utmost  the  tory  policy  of  protection,  at  all  costs  and  all  hazards, 
even  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  natural  interests  of  the  country,  of  all  sorts 
of  artificial  and  hot-bed  interests. 

The  gentleman  from  Nantucket  mounted  the  resolution  upon  the 
pinions  of  an  eagle,  commissioned  to  bear  the  lightning  of  his  wrath  to 
Washington,  having  indued  himself  in  the  patriotism  of  Samuel  Ad- 
ams, to  which  I  hope  h6  has  better  claims  than  this  British  policy  will 
ever  establish  for  him,  next  falls  upon  the  unoffending  Mr.  Cambrcleng, 
with  a  view  to  prejudice  us  against  its  author.  This  is  no  legitimate 
argument.  We  do  not  oppose  this  argument  on  account  of  the  quarter 
whence  it  comes.  We  try  it  on  its  merits,  and  condemn  it  on  its  demer- 
its. So  let  us  deal  with  the  act.  It  is  neither  better  nor  worse  because 
it  is  Mr.  Cambreleng's  bill.  But  lest  a  prejudice  may  have  been  excited, 
let  us  look  a  moment  at  the  charges  which  are  preferred.  First,  the 
gentleman  tells  us,  "  Mr.  Cambreleng  has  always  been  consistent  in  his 
views  and  conduct ! "  To  this  allegation  Mr.  Cambreleng  must  plead 
guilty,  and  he  has,  alas !  but  few  companions  in  his  guilt.  Had  our 
great  New  England  senator  been  "  consistent" — a  sin  of  which  no  sane 
man  will  accuse  him  —  he  would  have  been  found  side  by  side  with  Mr.  C, 
writhing  under  the  denunciation  of  the  gentlemen  from  Nantucket  and 
Worcester.  But  this  inconsistency  has  saved  him,  and  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  of  ways  and  means  must  suffer  alone.  But,  Sir,  besides 
his  consistency,  he  bears  a  mighty  "spear,  which  thrusts  through  and 
through  the  manufacturing  interests."  I  must  beg  pardon  of  the  gentle- 
man from  Nantucket ;  though  "  consistency "  does  not  belong  to  Mr. 
Webster,  yet  the  '•'- sipear^''  does,  and  I  cannot  allow  his  hard-earned  hon- 
ors to  be  transferred  to  Mr.  Cambreleng.  About  the  year  1824, 1  believe 
it  was,  a  public  dinner  was  given  to  a  part  of  the  Massachusetts  delega- 
tion in  congress,  at  Salem,  in  honor  of  their  opposition  to  what  is  now 
called  the  American  system.  The  leader  of  the  anti-tariff  party  of  that 
day  was  toasted,  and  the  sentiment  ran  somewhat  after  this  fashion : 
"  Daniel  Webster,  the  staff  of  whose  spear  is  stronger  than  a  iveaver's 
heam^  Most  richly  did  he  then  deserve  the  compliment ;  I  will  not  sit 
by  silent  and  see  it  taken  from  him,  even  if  he  has  taken  a  weaver's 
beam  for  a  weapon,  and  thrown  down  his  trusty  spear,  it  shall  be  laid 
aside  for  its  right  owner ;  the  time  will  come  when  he  will  use  it  again. 
The  gentleman  from  Worcester  is  even  more  severe.  He  is  not  content 
to  charge  him  with  borrowing  Daniel  Webster's  spear,  and  with  consis- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  333 

tency,  which  he  did  not  borrow  from  that  gentleman,  but  he  tells  us  further 
that  nobody  is  in  favor  of  Mr.  Cambreleng's  bill,  or  opposed  to  the  princi- 
ples of  this  remonstrance,  but  those  who  are  "afflicted  with  the  monomania 
of  free  trade,"  and  that  "  Mr.  C.  is,  and  always  has  been  the  great  prince 
■  of  lunatics  on  this  subject."  The  monomania  of  free  trade  !  Sir 
this  nation  w^ent  to  w^ar,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  for  free  trade  and 
sailors'  rights.  We  disputed  the  empire  of  this  mistress  of  the  ocean,  we 
encountered  that  navy  of  a  thousand  frigates, — inheritors  of  the  glories 
of  Copenhagen,  and  the  Nile,  and  Trafalgar;  we  encountered  them, 
and  covered  ourselves  with  imperishable  fame,  in  that  unequal  contest 
for  FREE  TRADE.  And  wc  that  in  our  youth  and  boyhood  beheld  the 
shock  of  the  two  nations  tilting  on  the  Atlantic  plain  for  free  trade, 
have  but  just  grown  to  manhood  when  we  hear  this  free  trade  sneered 
at,  in  our  public  councils,  as  a  monomania  !  Oh,  glorious  madness 
indeed,  the  love  of  freedom  be  a  passion  transcending  the  cold  reason 
which  sees  only  the  privileged  interest !  I  envy  not  that  cold  and  nar- 
row reason  which  only  reckons  dividends,  and  forgets  the  contributions 
from  which  they  were  accumulated.  The  people  of  this  Union  have  paid 
seven  hundred  millions  of  dollars  to  the  government,  and  more  than 
twice  that  sum  to  the  protected  interests,  yet  the  gentleman  from  Wor- 
cester forgets  the  poverty  from  which  the  surplus  of  these  treasures  has 
been  wrung,  and  remembers  only  the  heaps  into  which  they  have  been 
collected.  If  he  takes  not  a  more  comprehensive  view  than  this  of  tax- 
ation and  its  effects,  he  will  never  go  mad  with  the  monomania  of 
freedom. 

Sir,  this  monomania  of  free  trade  was  the  most  prevalent  disease  in 
this  part  of  the  country  a  few  years  ago.  The  free  trade  party  embodied 
the  learning  and  talent  of  this  city,  and  of  the  State  generally.  The 
North  American  Review,  edited  by  Edward  Everett,  was  one  of  the 
organs  of  that  party,  and  a  noble  organ  it  was ;  the  Massachusetts  dele- 
gation in  congress  was  possessed  with  the  monomania,  and  Daniel  Web- 
ster, then  the  champion  of  correct  principles  in  political  economy,  was 
"  the  great  prince  of  the  lunatics,"  if  the  gentleman  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  lunatic  hospital  (Mr.  K.)  is  correct  in  his  use  of  that  ex- 
pression. 

The  gentleman  from  Nantucket  entertains  the  opinion  that  the  ob- 
jections against  the  remonstrance  are  chiefly  against  its  'phraseology. 
Indeed,  Sir,  its  phraseology  is  very  objectionable.  In  the  time  of  Harry 
the  Eighth,  the  university  of  Oxford  issued  an  edition  of  the  Bible  in 
which  the  word  "?io^"  w^as  omitted  from  one  of  the  commandments. 
The  omission  was  supposed  rather  to  favor  some  of  the  characteristic  pro- 
pensities of  the  father  of  the  Protestant  reformation  in  England,  yet  the 


334  MEJ^IOmS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

phraseology  became  thereby  so  objectionable  that  his  majesty  imposed 
upon  the  university  a  fine  of  ten  thousand  pounds.  The  phraseology  of 
this  remonstrance  is  objectionable  precisely  in  the  same  way,  because  it 
contains  propositions  which,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of  us,  are  directly 
the  reverse  to  the  truth.  This  is  our  objection  to  the  phraseology,  —  we 
cannot  vote  for  w^hat  we  believe  to  be  false.  Those  who  believe  it  to  be 
true,  doubtless  can  vote  for  it  with  a  clear  conscience ;  hut  I  have  not 
heard  any  man  avoiu  yet  that  he  believes  it.  The  gentleman  from  Boston, 
(Mr.  Gray,)  whose  exemplary  candor  I  always  admire,  tells  us  frankly 
that  in  voting  for  this  extraordinary  document  he  allows  himself  a  cer- 
tain latitude  of  expression. 

We  do  not  go,  says  he,  into  a  nice  arithmetical  calculation.  And  why 
not  ?  The  gentleman  may  well  feel  an  antipathy  to  mathematics,  since 
no  calculation  can  be  made  which  will  not  show  that  if  any  business 
cannot  live  under  a  virtual  protection  of  forty-five  per  cent.,  the  cost  of 
further  protection  must  be  ten  times  greater  than  the  profit.  But,  says 
the  gentleman,  we  do  not  deal  in  lady-like  and  holiday  terms,  —  we  do 
not  ask  if  every  sentence,  taken  separately,  is  literally  true ;  we  judge  this 
paper  as  a  whole.  But  who  compels  the  gentleman  from  Boston  to  take 
it  as  a  whole,  bolting  without  mastication  the  sentences  which  he  does 
not  profess  to  believe  ?  There  is  no  haste  about  this  matter.  Why  not 
postpone  it,  till  there  is  time  to  modify  and  amend,  until  every  sentence 
shall  be  literally  true  ? 

Such  a  course  would  be  more  satisfactory  to  some  tender  consciences, 
perhaps  too  tender,  wdio  cannot  vote  for  separate  sentences  which  they 
do  not  believe,  even  though  they  should  occur  in  the  general  effect  of  the 
whole  paper.  The  gentleman  maintains  that  we  must  allow  ourselves 
the  latitude  which  an  ardent  lawyer  assumes  in  addressing  a  jury.  Sir, 
the  ardent  lawyer  is  expected,  by  the  jury,  to  use  strong  language,  and 
there  is  another  ardent  lawyer  on  the  other  side  to  counteract  any  un- 
due impression  it  may  make,  after  which  the  cool-headed  judge  takes  off 
the  coloring  that  the  two  ardent  lawyers  have  laid  on,  and  exhibits  the 
facts  naked.  But  is  it  becoming  the  dignity  of  Massachusetts  in  a 
solemn  and  deliberate  State  paper  to  indulge  in  all  the  latitude  of  a  par- 
tial advocate  ?  When,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  are  we  to  speak  the  literal 
truth,  if  not  when  acting  as  grave  legislators  for  this  Commonwealth,  in- 
terposing as  a  sovereign  State  to  advise  the  general  government  of  the 
whole  country,  with  the  sanction  of  the  oath  of  God  upon  us  ?  Is  this 
a  time  for  flighty  rhetoric  ;  for  wild  exaggerations,  the  truth  of  which 
every  friend  of  the  remonstrance  has  thus  far  declined  to  vindicate  ? 

But,  Sir,  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket,  in  tlie  fury  of  his  zeal  for 
unconstitutional  taxation,  goes  a  little  beyond  the  ardent  lawyer,  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  335 

enters  on  the  domain  of  the  ardent  clergyman.  He  tells  the  gentleman 
from  Hingham,  (Mr.  Folsom,)  who  moved,  the  other  day,  to  strike  out 
"  the  death  warrant,"  that  this  language  is  figurative,  and  that  he  cannot 
conceive  how  one  should  object  to  it  who  is  in  the  habit  of  interpreting 
very  strong  figurative  language,  which  many  understand  literally  in  a 
different  sense,  to  mean  universal  salvation.  And  then  he  asks  the  gen- 
tleman from  Hingham  to  apply  the  same  principles  of  interpretation  to 
this  remonstrance,  that  he  would  to  certain  passages  of  Scripture.  Has 
the  gentleman  heard  my  friend  from  Hingham  preach,  or  does  he  judge 
of  his  mode  of  interpretation  only  from  common  rumor  ?  However 
that  may  be,  I  am  not  the  less  astonished  at  the  construction  which  the 
gentleman  proposes  to  put  upon  the  passage.  He  must  be  aware,  how- 
ever, that  congress  would  never  guess  at  it  w^ithout  a  clue,  —  and  I  pre- 
sume he  intends  to  add  a  note  after  the  words  "  death  warrant,"  saying, 
"  this  is  a  strong,  oriental  hyperbole,  signifying  universal  salvation."  I 
would  suggest  to  the  gentleman,  however,  that  if  he  means  so,  it  would 
be  much  better  to  say  so,  —  to  strike  out  the  "figurative  expression,"  and 
insert  the  "  literal  truth,"  —  to  strike  out  "death  warrant"  and  insert 
"  universal  salvation,"  so  that  it  shall  read  "  the  passage  of  the  aforesaid 
bill  into  a  law,  we  believe  would  be  the  universal  salvation  of  the  manu- 
facturing establishments  of  New  England."  May  I  ask  the  gentleman 
to  make  the  motion,  so  that  there  shall  be  no  mistake,  and  the  phrase- 
ology shall  become  less  objectionable  ? 

In  sober  seriousness,  I  cannot  think  it  any  thing  more  than  an  idle 
quibble,  to  pretend  that  the  phrase  proposed  to  be  stricken  out  by  the 
gentleman  from  Hingham,  means  any  thing  else  than  that  this  bill  would 
totally  ruin  our  manufacturing  establishments,  —  a  proposition  which  no 
man  in  the  house  has  yet  proposed  to  believe,  and  which  several  friends 
of  the  remonstrance  have  admitted  they  did  not  believe.  Sir,  when  the 
yeas  and  nays  are  taken,  if  it  should  turn  out  that  some  two  or  three 
"hundred  members  of .  this  house  do  believe  this  startling  proposition,  I 
shall  look  on  with  wonder  and  astonishment.  I  shall  be  unable  to  com- 
prehend how  it  is  that  they  have  kept  the  secret  so  long.  I  shall  ask 
myself  in  vain,  why  is  it  that  no  one  of  these  gentlemen,  unless  it  be  the 
committee  who  reported  the  remonstrance,  gave  us  any  intimation  before 
his  vote,  though  challenged  again  and  again  to  avow  it,  that  he  be- 
lieved in  the  literal  truth  of  the  creed  to  which  he  is  ready  to  set  his 
name  upon  the  record. 

Sir,  gentlemen  who  conscientiously  believe  the  remonstrance  to  be 
true,  can  conscientiously  vote  for  it.  I  should  sin  against  my  own  con- 
science, and  stand  self-condemned.  With  reference  to  my  own  vote,  and 
the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  declaration  which  that  vote  will  convey  to 


336  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

the  world,  I  may  use  the  ■words  of  Mr.  Grattan,  "If  I  should  vote  this 
measure,  I  should  vote  an  mipudent,  an  insolent,  and  public  lie." 

The  editor  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post  pays  a  high  com- 
pliment to  Mr.  Rantoul  in  the  following  remarks :  — 

Monopoly  ix  Massachusetts.  —  The  following  sketch  of  a  debate 
taken  from  the  columns  of  the  Morning  Post,  will  show  that  there  are 
some  fast  friends  of  equal  rights  in  Massachusetts,  and  that  they  are 
exerting  themselves  to  some  purpose.  Mr.  Eantoul  is  one  of  the  ablest 
antagonists  of  monopoly  in  that,  or  any  other  State. 

Tlie  debate  arose  on  a  motion  to  recommit  the  bill  to  incorporate  the 
Mansfield  Mining  Company,  which,  as  it  had  been  reported,  enabled 
the  company  to  purchase  and  hold  real  estate  without  limit  as  to  location. 

Mr.  Thomas,  of  Plymouth,  moved  that  the  bill  should  be  recommitted 
for  further  examination  and  inquiry. 

Mr.  Rantoul  agreed  with  Mr.  Thomas  that  the  present  was  a  suitable 
opportunity  to  recur  to  first  principles,  and  arrest  the  rage  for  incorpora- 
tions. The  house  could  not  proceed  with  too  much  deliberation  upon 
the  subject.  Individuals  were  constantly  giving  way  before  the  march 
of  corporations  ;  and  he  had  actually  heard  a  common  lawyer  say  he 
hoped  to  see  the  day  when  the  whole  State  would  be  inhabited  by  cor- 
porations. The  lawyer  was  replied  to  by  the  remark,  that  when  they 
did  so,  they  would  drive  out  all  the  ancient  inhabitants  ;  innuendo  —  that 
the  freemen  of  Massachusetts  would  never  submit  to  be  the  subjects  of 
the  corporations.  He  was  in  favor  of  re-committing  the  bill,  as  he  was 
utterly  opposed  to  its  principles,  —  it  gave  to  the  corporation  an  unlim- 
ited range  and  duration.  To  pass  it,  would  be  to  grant  an  eternal  and 
immortal  existence,  as  far  as  human  power  could  do  so,  to  a  creature 
without  a  soul,  with  the  privilege  of  roaming  at  large  through  the  Com- 
monwealth. If  we  were  to  have  such  a  soulless  monster,  he  would  pre- 
fer to  have  it  restricted  to  some  limits,  that  we  may  know  where  to  find 
it,  if  it  violates  the  charter  given  to  it  by  its  creator.  Mr.  Rantoul 
regarded  the  general  statute,  which  gives  to  the  legislature  a  power  to 
revoke  the  charters,  if  violated  by  corporations,  as  a  dead  letter,  and 
notoriously  inoperative.  You  may,  said  he,  walk  down  State  street  and 
hear  yourself  sneered  at,  for  supposing  that  the  legislature  can  control 
them  under  that  general  law.  Yes,  the  power  of  the  government  is 
daily  derided  in  State  street,  and  set  at  defiance  constantly  by  the  cor- 
porations. To  go  on  increasing  these  corporations  would  be  the  height 
of  madness,  unless  the  people  wished  to  be  ruled  by  them,  instead  of  the 
government. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  337 

The  following  are  Mr.  Rantoul's  views  respecting  Oaths :  — 

Every  attempt  to  discredit  a  witness  at  court  for  showing  his  char- 
acter for  truth  to  be  notoriously  bad,  seems  to  be  a  tacit  admission,  that 
a  man  who  cannot  be  believed  ivithout  an  oath,  cannot  be  credited  ^vith 
one.  If  we  could  place  no  confidence  in  the  witness's  word  out  of  court, 
we  should  be  slow  to  credit  him,  though  he  stood  unimpeached  upon  tlie 
stand.  If  a  man  were  giving  in  his  testimony  under  oath,  and  no  at- 
tempt were  made  to  impeach  him,  still,  if  he  were  known  to  be,  by  one 
of  the  jurors,  a  man  of  doubtful  veracity,  and  that  juror  could  discover 
any  motive  operating  upon  his  mind  to  make  him  swerve  from  the  truth, 
he  would  give  no  weight  to  his  testimony.  Two  classes  of  men,  then,  the 
notorious  liar,  and  the  man  of  doubtful  veracity,  are  not  to  be  believed 
under  oath.  For  whom  then  is  an  oath  necessary?  Not  for  the  man  of 
undoubted  truth  and  honesty,  for  it  is  superfluous  to  place  any  incentives 
before  him. 

On  no  class  then  do  they  operate.  They  do  not  create  uprightness, 
where  it  is  wanting,  nor  strengthen  it  where  it  already  exists  ;  and  we 
may  set  it  down  as  unquestionable,  that  where  there  is  no  abiding  prin- 
ciple of  honesty  or  integrity  in  a  man,  the  mere  administration  of  an 
oath  will  not  inspire  him  with  a  sacred  regard  for  truth.  If  the  pains 
and  penalties  of  perjury  have  no  terror  for  him,  if  the  loss  of  character 
and  respect  among  men,  and  the  disgrace  that  must  await  his  family  and 
friends  in  consequence  of  it,  does  not  affect  him,  and  he  can  still  the 
voice  of  conscience,  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  he  can  proceed  one 
step  further,  and  disregard  his  oath.  When  he  has  passed  all  these  ob- 
stacles on  the  road  to  falsehood,  is  it  not  absurd  to  suppose  that  an  oath 
will  arrest  his  steps,  and  recall  him  to  the  path  of  truth  ?  These  are  the 
great  and  primary  restraints,  and  when  a  man  has  broken  loose  from 
them,  all  the  oaths  you  can  impose  will  fail  to  bind  him,  if  he  be  under 
the  influence  of  any  motive  to  disregard  them. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  course  in  the  legislature  was  distinguished  not 
only  by  a  fearless  avowal  of  democratic  principles,  and  a  strenu- 
ous advocacy  of  democratic  measures,  but  also  by  a  liberality 
of  sentiment  which  overleaped,  in  many  instances,  the  bounds 
of  party  and  of  sect.  He  abhorred  the  spirit  of  religious  in- 
tolerance. In  an  article  in  the  Gloucester  Democrat  of  Janu- 
ary, 1835,  he  says  :  — 

Brutal  religious  bigotry  made  an  exhibition  of  its  true  character  a 
short  time  since  in  the  Charlestown  outrage,  (burning  of  the  convent). 

29 


338 

We  especially  abhor  that  narrow  spirit  of  sectarianism,  whether  in  reli- 
gion or  politics,  which  carries  division  upon  abstract  and  difficult  ques- 
tions into  the  intercourse  of  private  life.  If  one  line  carries  the  mail  on 
Sunday,  is  that  any  reason  why  you  should  not  ride  in  their  coaches  on 
Aveek  days  ?  If  one  man  sees  a  truth  which  you  cannot  see,  or  is  un- 
able to  discern  a  truth  which  is  plain  to  your  eyes,  is  that  a  reason  for 
shunning  his  society,  blackening  his  reputation,  or  discountenancing  his 
industry  ?  If  the  members  of  the  oldest  church  in  the  world,  who  be- 
lieve themselves  to  be  treading  in  the  steps  of  apostles,  saints,  and  mar- 
tyrs, cannot  look  with  the  same  dislike  that  we  do  on  a  certain  venerable 
institution,  even  if  we  are  sure  that  they  are  wrong  and  we  are  right, 
even  if  we  claim  to  ourselves,  as  many  of  us  practically  do,  that  infallibil- 
ity which  we  deny  to  the  pope,  still  this  cannot  be  a  valid  reason  for 
gathering  mobs  to  attack  them,  burning  down  their  houses,  and  threaten- 
ing their  lives. 

In  the  session  February  25th,  1835,  a  bill  was  reported  in  the 
house  recommending  the  payment  of  indemnity  to  the  proprie- 
tors of  the  Ursuline  Convent,  which  had  been  wantonly  de- 
stroyed by  a  mob.  The  discussion  of  this  bill  called  out  some 
of  the  ablest  talent  of  the  house.  Mr.  Rantoul's  speech  was 
one  of  the  best  of  the  session. 

His  presuming  to  make  this  eloquent  appeal  to  the  justice  of 
the  house  in  behalf  of  the  Catholics,  was  ungenerously  repre- 
sented in  a  partisan  paper  of  the  day  as  an  eflbrt  "  to  court  the 
applause  of  those  classes  of  the  people  who  were  influenced 
more  by  cant  and  declamation,  than  by  honest  principle  and 
sound  reasoning."  To  which  insulting  and  ridiculous  charge 
the  Gloucester  Democrat,  says :  — "  Mr.  Rantoul,  O  the  cow- 
ard! courts  applause  and  popularity,  by  voluntarily  connect- 
ing himself  with  a  small  minority,  on  the  very  question 
which  has  excited  more  popular  feeling  and  odium  against  the 
minority,  than  any  other  during  the  session." 

The  charge  against  which  Mr.  Rantoul  vindicated  the  Ca- 
tholics, was  that  of  not  bearing  true  faith  and  allegiance  to  the 
government  of  the  country  of  which  they  are  citizens.  This 
charge  he  proved  to  be  utterly  groundless  and  false,  not  by  cant 
and  declamation,  but  by  an  irresistible  accumulation  of  histori- 
cal testimony  and  undisputed  facts.  No  member  of  the  legis- 
lature was  probably  less  a  believer  than  Mr.  Rantoul,  in  the  dis- 


OF   KOBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  339 

tinctive  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  church.  The  question  upon 
which  he  spoke  was  one  not  of  theology,  but  of  civil  right  and 
justice ;  and  in  that  cause  he  knew  no  fear.  He  proved  this 
not  only  by  this  speech  on  the  convent  indemnity  question,  but 
by  every  thing  he  advanced  on  various  topics  touching  liberty 
of  conscience.  He  had  no  faith  that  a  sound  and  healthy  mo- 
rality could  be  established  in  the  sentiments  of  the  public  by  a 
vote  of  the  house.  This  is  evident  from  what  he  said  on  the 
License  Bill,  already  referred  to.  It  is  further  manifest,  in  his 
remarks  on  a  proposition  in  a  report  of  the  committee  to  revise 
the  statutes  to  prohibit  travelling  on  Sunday,  unless  induced 
by  necessity  or  charity.  "  It  is,"  said  he,  "  rather  too  late  to  ad- 
vance a  doctrine  so  utterly  incompatible  with  liberty  of  action 
and  conscience.  The  wisdom  of  departed  legislators,  con- 
strained them  to  blot  from  the  records  of  civilization,  enact- 
ments at  which  every  sentiment  of  honor,  morality,  and  inde- 
pendence revolt,  and  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  an  attempt 
should  now  be  made  to  revive  doctrines,  the  suppression  of 
which  an  enlightened  people  have  approved.  It  would  seem 
w^e  have  some  men  among  us,  who  think  the  people  utterly  in- 
capable of  taking  care  of  themselves  or  their  consciences  with- 
out being  tied  to  the  apron  strings  of  the  legislature." 

His  moral  independence  is  signally  shown  in  his  rational 
views  on  the  subject  of  moral  reform.  As  temperance,  or  the 
subjection  of  the  appetites  and  passions  to  the  command  of 
reason,  is,  like  every  other  virtue,  in  a  great  degree  dependent 
on  education,  Mr.  Rantoul  believed  that  excess  in  drinking,  like 
any  other  sensual  excess,  was  to  be  prevented  or  corrected 
chiefly  by  moral  means.  In  reference  to  a  bill  regulating  the 
sale  of  liquors,  which  was  before  the  Massachusetts  house  of 
representatives,  in  1835,  he  said  :  — 

If  the  government  has  a  right  to  prevent  one  man  from  selling  it  for 
consumption,  it  has  the  right  to  prevent  the  manufjictnre  ;  but  as  it  can- 
not constitutionally  do  either,  \vc  hold  that  the  best  and  most  effectual 
plan  would  be,  to  make  intemperance  a  crime  and  punisli  it  as  such ; 
punish  tlie  retailer,  who  sells  to  every  person  who  it  is  known  makes  an 
improper  use  of  it.  In  this  w^ay  the  constitutional  doubts  w^ould  be  re- 
moved, and  the  desirable  object  would  be  attained  of  suppressing  intem- 
perance.    ^ye  believe  such  a  plan  would  remove  many  of  the  diiliculties 


340  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

under  wliicli  the  friends  of  temperance  labor,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
would  accomplish  the  double  purpose  of  suppressing  intemperance,  and 
securing  to  the  people  equal  rights  and  privileges.  Intemperance, 
like  all  other  follies  and  vices,  must  be  put  down  by  virtue  of  pub- 
lic opinion.  When  severe  and  unequal  restraints  are  imposed,  from  that 
moment  opposition  and  resistance  will  spring  up,  and  the  best  v/ishes  of 
the  friends  of  the  cause  will  be  defeated.  It  is  an  evil  that  cannot  be 
rooted  out  in  a  month  or  a  year,  and  if  its  friends  pursue  a  straightfor- 
ward course,  using  no  other  means  than  example,  reason,  and  argument, 
their  most  sanguine  hopes  will  be  realized.* 

In  accordance  with  these  opinions  he  moved  an  order  in  the 
house  "  that  the  judiciary  committee  report  a  law  for  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  crime  of  drunkenness." 

As  a  further  illustration  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  reliance  upon  the 
beneficent  influences  of  intellectual  and  moral  culture,  for  the 
advancement  of  temperance,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  the  Gloucester  Democrat,  expressive  of 
sentiments  similar  to  those  above  stated. 

We  will  not  see  a  righteous  cause  brought  into  disrepute,  and  the 
steady  and  sure  advancement  of  a  great  reform  checked  or  stopped  by 
the  rash  and  injurious  policy  of  professed  friends.  If  the  real  friends 
of  temperance  wish  to  see  the  cause  advance,  they  must  set  their  feces 
against  every  attempt  to  coerce  honest,  upright,  good  citizens,  who  think 
differently  from  them,  of  a  traffic  which  the  federal  government  sanc- 
tions, which  has  been  carried  on,  with  some  few  restrictions  to  be  sure, 
ever  since  the  landing  of  our  Puritan  fathers,  and  to  which  some  of  the 
strongest  advocates  of  temperance  owe  their  fortunes. 

No  lasting  or  permanent  good  can  come  of  any  reform,  unless  it  be 
brought  about  by  calm  appeals  to  the  heads  and  hearts  of  men,  —  by 
conviction,  —  by  moral  influences. 

It  is  as  idle  to  attempt  to  drive  men  to  do  this  or  that  thing,  as  it 
would  be  to  undertake  to  shut  out  from  the  earth  the  light  of  heaven. 
IfCt  justice  be  done  without  fear  or  favor. 

In  the  Democrat  of  March  28th,  1837,  occur  the  following  re- 
marks on  an  article  in  a  warrant  for  a  town  meeting,  propos- 
ing to  choose  a  committee  to  prosecute  all  violations  of  the 
license  laws  :  — 

*  Gloucester  Democrat,  April  7th,  1835. 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  341 

What  more  Inquisitorial  or  arbitrary  measure  can  be  conceived,  than 
the  appointment  of  a  committee  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  getting  up 
prosecutions  and  plunging  their  fellow-citizens  into  vexatious  and  ruin- 
ous lawsuits  ?  In  what  code  of  morals  do  the  advocates  of  this  measure 
find  authority  for  such  a  scandalous  project  ?  If  they  should  search  the 
annals  of  despotism  back  to  the  bloody  laws  of  Draco,  they  could  find 
nothing  more  arbitrary  or  despotic.  They  would  see  nothing  in  all  the 
dark  details  more  abominable  than  the  sending  of  spies  and  agents  to 
draw  their  chosen  victims  before  judicial  tribunals. 

Is  it  by  prosecutions,  fines,  and  imprisonment,  that  the  public  are  to 
be  enlightened,  or  the  errors  in  public  opinion  eradicated  ?  We  believe 
it  is  rather  by  mild  expostulation.  Persuasion  must  be  used.  Argu- 
ments must  be  commended  to  the  people  with  the  kindness  of  charity, — 
supported  by  reason,  and  urged  with  the  most  scrupulous  regard  to  the 
rights  and  feelings  of  all  men.  But  if  we  appoint  a  board  of  inquisitors 
to  prowl  about  and  shake  the  terrors  of  a  public  prosecution  over  the 
heads  of  the  people,  we  banish  all  kindly  feelings,  and  arouse  at  once  all 
the  bad  passions  of  our  nature. 

Whenever  an  evil  of  great  magnitude  appears  in  the  community,  or  a 
great  nuisance  exists,  it  will  always  arouse  those  on  whom  it  operates, 
so  soon  as  it  becomes  intolerable,  and  therefore  is  a  fit  subject  for  prose- 
cution. We  may  set  it  down  as  an  axiom,  that  a  public  prosecution  is 
unnecessary  while  the  individuals  affected  by  the  evil  are  not  provoked 
to  get  it  up  and  carry  it  forward.  To  appoint  a  committee  for  such  an 
object,  would  be  officiously  endeavoring  to  draw  down  upon  individuals 
the  vengeance  of  the  State.  The  innocent  as  well  as  the  guilty  might 
suffer.  Any  man  might  be  accused  ;  and,  hoAvever  innocent,  would  be 
subjected  to  the  pains  and  expenses  of  a  lawsuit,  before  he  could  make 
his  innocence  apparent.  Furthermore,  if  there  should  be  a  standing 
committee  for  prosecutions,  it  would  furnish  a  temptation  for  the  litigious 
and  quarrelsome  to  hunt  each  other  doAvn  with  indictments.  It  would 
be  found  a  convenient  mode  for  revenge.  Every  man  in  the  community 
would  be  in  danger ;  and  thus  we  should  establish  an  inquest  in  this  en- 
lightened age,  for  which  we  could  find  no  parallel,  except  in  the  doings 
of  the  odious  star  chamber,  or  the  still  more  tyrannical  achievements  of 
the  Irish  informers. 

These  opinions,  so  clearly  expressed,  antl  so  accordant  with 
his  general  political  principles,  and  his  convictions  that  moral 
means  were  to  be  chiefly  depended  on  to  promote  the  great  ob- 
jects of  moral  reform,  are  all  in  substance  that  he  has  left  us  in 
writing  to  indicate  his  views  of  so  interesting  a  subject. 

29* 


842  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

In  relation  to  religious  toleration,  his  course  on  the  convent 
question  was  not  more  philosophical  or  independent  than  in 
the  debate  on  the  Witness  Bill.  Mr.  Blake,  having  remarked 
that  the  administration  of  oaths  was  a  Christian  institution,  Mr. 
Rantoul  replied  that  it  was  of  heathen  origin;  and  that  for  the 
first  three  hundred  years  of  the  Christian  era,  the  Church,  giving 
to  the  text,  "  swear  not  at  all,"  a  literal  interpretation,  refused 
to  take  the  oaths  required  by  the  Koman  laws  ;  and  for  resisting 
their  administration,  they  had  been  persecuted  and  put  to  death. 
They  would  not  swear  by  gods  in  w^hich  they  had  no  belief, 
and  by  persecuting  them,  and  by  depriving  them  of  their  rights 
and  lives  for  that  refusal,  the  Roman  emperor  did  precisely  the 
same  as  our  courts  do  now,  by  outlawing  a  witness  because  he 
docs  not  believe  as  Christians  do.  Mr.  Rantoul  said,  that  Chris- 
tians did  not  adopt  the  ceremony  of  the  oath  until  the  Empe- 
ror Constantine  espoused  the  Christian  religion. 

Mr.  Rantoul  gave  way  to  a  motion  to  adjourn,  and  gave  the 
conclusion  of  his  remarks  on  the  Witness  Bill,  in  answer  to  Mr. 
Blake,  February  23,  1837,  as  follows  :  — 

My  main  objection  to  this  amendment  is,  that  I  am  in  favor  of  the  whole 
bill  as  it  now  stands.  The  object  of  a  judicial  inquiry  is  to  ascertain  truth, 
in  order  to  do  justice.  Why,  then,  shut  our  eyes  to  any  of  the  sources  of 
truth?  In  every  other  inquiry  we  examine  all  the  witnesses,  and  give 
them  all  the  weight  they  seem  to  deserve.  Much  more  should  we  do 
this  in  a  court  of  justice,  where  the  exclusion  of  a  single  witness  often 
reverses  tlie  appearance  of  the  case,  and  works  gross  and  manifest 
injustice. 

This  disqualification  seems  to  be  persisted  in  from  a  feeling  of  hatred 
to  the  infidel.  Not  that  he  is.  disqualified  from  telling  the  truth, 
which  all  men  tell  naturally,  but  he  is  excluded  from  court  to  punish 
him.  On  whom  then  does  the  punishment  flill  ?  Generally  upon  the 
party  who  calls  the  witness,  and  who  is  guiltless  of  the  sin  of  not 
believing.  He  is  made  to  suffer,  although  he  hears  for  the  first  time  of 
this  defect  after  the  witness  is  on  the  stand. 

But  suppose  you  could,  in  all  cases,  punish  the  unbeliever  himself, 
wdthout  harming  any  innocent  person,  what  is  the  crime  for  which  you 
punish  him  ?  Belief  is  involuntary.  It  is  therefore  no  merit ;  nor  is 
disbelief  a  demerit.  To  one  mind  certain  evidence  is  conclusive ;  to 
another  it  carries  no  conviction.  Let  any  man  try  to  believe  that  a  tri- 
angle is  a  circle,  and  if  he  were  to  gain  the  wealth  of  worlds  he  cannot. 


or   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  343 

So  the  man  who  sees  the  existence  of  the  Deity  written  as  it  were  with 
a  sunbeam  on  every  page  of  the  great  volume  of  nature,  cannot  disbe- 
lieve. Should  he  punish  the  man  who  is  blind  to  that  sublime  truth? 
As  well  might  the  majority,  who  possess  a  healthy  vision,  punish  the 
jaundiced  because  they  cannot  see  objects  in  their  true  colors. 

But  if  we  are  to  assume  to  ourselves  that  infallibility  which  Protestant 
Christians  deny  exists  on  earth,  —  if  we  are  to  create  ourselves  into  six 
hundred  popes,  and  determine  by  a  major  vote  whose  belief  is  sufficient 
before  God,  and  who  is  to  be  spurned  and  trampled  on  like  a  worm,  be- 
cause he  does  not  profess  the  established  religion  of  the  State,  upon  what 
principle  shall  we  draw  the  line  ?  Why  not  banish,  and  scourge,  and  hang 
Quakers  and  Baptists,  as  our  pious  fathers  did,  within  sight  of  the  spot 
on  which  this  state-house  stands  ?  Or,  if  you  have  both  the  right  and 
the  power  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  soul,  why  not  bring  to  trial  and 
execute  men  for  a  solemn  compact  with  the  devil,  according  to  the  wis- 
dom of  our  ancestors  ?  Sir,  if  the  government  is  to  meddle  with  a  man's 
rehgion,  his  conscience,  his  private  thoughts,  I  know  not  where  they  are 
to  stop.  The  union  of  Church  and  State,  heathen  persecutions,  Spanish 
inquisitions,  —  the  intolerance  which  drove  the  pilgrims  from  their  native 
island  to  the  inhospitable  coast  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  the  more 
cruel  intolerance  of  those  pilgrims  themselves,  which  drove  Roger 
Williams  through  the  winter's  snow  to  Providence, — these  and  all  kindred 
enormities  may  be  defended  and  justified  by  the  logic  which  gives  to 
government  the  power  to  adjudicate  upon  men's  creeds,  and  allow  to  one 
advantages  which  it  denies  to  another. 

Frail,  erring,  and  presumptuous  man  !  Why  undertake  to  be  wiser 
than  your  Maker?  He  has  made  no  outward  and  visible  distinction  be- 
tween the  unbeliever  and  his  fellows.  He  has  not  stamped  upon  the 
visage  of  the  atheist  the  seal  of  his  reprobation.  Are  not  all  men  breth- 
ren, childen  of  a  common  Parent,  created  in  the  same  image  ?  Do  they 
not  all  breathe  the  same  air,  enjoy  the  light  of  the  same  sun,  exist  upon 
the  same  bounty  of  the  Giver  of  good?  God  governs  all  by  equal  laws, 
by  laws  which  in  this  mortal  state,  and  as  far  as  human  eyes  can  reach, 
reward  or  punish,  not  speculative  belief,  but  moral  conduct.  Shall  we 
exempt  from  the  protection  of  our  laws,  which  profess  to  protect  all, 
certain  individuals  for  their  religious  sentiments,  when  we  have  sworn 
that  no  man  shall  be  hurt  or  molested  for  his  religious  sentiments  ?  God 
admits  the  atheist  into  the  temple  of  nature,  and  invites  him  to  worship 
there  ;  let  us  hope,  that  though  now  blind  to  the  presence  of  the  presiding 
deity,  the  scales  may  one  day  fall  from  his  eyes,  and  that  he  may  joyfully 
accept  the  gracious  invitation.  Let  us  not  confirm  him  in  his  error  by 
closing  against  him  the  doors  of  the  temple  of  justice.      Let  us  not,  by 


344  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

persecution  and  outrage,  kindle  in  his  breast  a  fanaticism  in  error,  a 
furious  zeal  of  proselytism,  which  may  prove  the  prolific  source  of  more 
atheism  than  cold-blooded  speculation,  uninspired  by  the  suffering  of 
wrong,  could  produce  to  the  end  of  time.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is 
not  only  the  seed  of  the  church,  but  the  blood  of  the  heretic  is  the  seed 
of  heresy.  If  you  would  propagate  atheism,  then  do  the  atheist  a  great 
and  public  wrong,  and  let  him  hereafter  carry  on  his  crusade  against 
religion  under  the  banner  of  justice.  But  if  you  do  not  wish  the  athe- 
ist to  extend  his  principles  to  thousands  who  are  now  good  Christians,  by 
means  of  the  sympathy  your  laws  create  in  his  favor,  then  make  him 
free  and  equal  with  yourselves,  as  he  was  born ;  then  restore  to  him  the 
natural,  essential,  and  unalienable  rights  of  which  the  law,  without  war- 
rant frpm  the  Constitution,  has  deprived  him. 

The  Emperor  Julian,  the  apostate,  said  of  the  Christians,  Let  us  pity 
them,  not  hate  them,  for,  said  he,  they  are  already  si(fficiently  unfortunate 
in  being  in  error  in  such  important  matters.  It  would  be  well  for  Chris- 
tians to  learn  a  lesson  of  toleration  from  this  heathen.  We  may  compas- 
sionate the  condition  of  the  sceptic,  but  we  are  not  commissioned  to  inflict 
upon  him  retribution  for  his  blindness.  Why  then  exclude  him  from  all 
offices  of  trust  or  honor,  and  withdraw  from  his  property,  his  liberty,  and 
his  life  the  protection  of  the  laws  ? 

If  the  President  of  the  United  States,  chosen  by  the  unanimous  vote 
of  the  electors,  or  the  governor  of  this  Commonwealth,  unanimously 
elected,  were  challenged  as  an  atheist,  and  sufficient  proof  exhibited  of 
the  fact,  he  could  not  enter  on  his  office,  according  to  the  theory  of  the 
gentleman  from  Boston,  for  he  could  not  be  sworn.  Does  the  gentleman 
believe  the  express  will  of  the  people  could  be  defeated  ?  and  does  he 
approve  of  such  a  power?  Yes,  and  he  approves  also  of  his  outlawry. 
Interdiction  from  fire  and  Avater  could  hardly  be  more  fatal.  He  cannot 
give  his  books  in  evidence,  he  cannot  take  the  poor  debtor's  oath,  he  can 
have  no  redress  for  any  injury  done  to  his  person,  he  cannot  swear  the 
peace  against  the  man  who  should  threaten  to  shoot  him.  He  may  be 
plundered,  imprisoned,  assassinated ;  a  Christian  community  smiles  at  the 
idea  of  his  wrongs ;  the  laws  and  the  Constitution  are  not  for  him. 

Not  only  so,  but  the  most  exemplary  Christian  in  the  world  may  be 
murdered  in  the  presence  of  an*  assembly  of  sceptics,  all  willing  to  tes- 
tify and  submit  to  the  severest  cross-examination,  yet  the  crime  shall  go 
unpunished  ;  and  to  show  our  j^ious  hatred  for  our  unbelieving,  the  obli- 
gation of  society  to  do  justice  to  its  members  shall  remain  undischarged, 
rather  than  the  court  shall  hear  truth  from  the  lips  of  an  infidel.  Often, 
very  often,  is  the  Christian  punished  for  the  unbelief  of  the  infidel. 

If  all  this  were  just,  the  rule  would  still  be  absurd,  for  it  proposes  a 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  345 

test  which  cannot  be  applied.  There  are  abstruse  questions  of  theology 
to  be  settled  in  determining  what  an  atheist  is.  The  gentleman  from 
Boston  believes  there  never  was  such  a  being  in  existence.  The  best 
and  wisest  man  of  heathen  antiquity,  Socrates,  drank  the  hemlock  under 
a  charge  of  atheism,  —  that  charge  we  now  know  to  have  been  false. 
The  early  Christians  were  put  to  death  as  atheists,  because  their  ideas  of 
God  were  more  spiritual  than  those  of  their  persecutors.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton,  a  devout  worshipper,  was  assailed  with  the  same  imputation,  be- 
cause his  ideas  of  the  nature  of  matter  agreed  in  some  respects  with 
those  of  Epicurus.  Spinoza  has  always  been  looked  upon  as  an  atheist 
until  late  years,  yet  the  gentleman  from  Boston  thinks  it  is  proved  by 
writers  of  high  authority  that  he  was  not  so.  There  are  now  professed 
Christian  writers,  whose  expressions,  with  regard  to  the  nature  of  the 
Deity  are  very  much  the  same  as  those  of  Spinoza,  —  a  sort  of  modified 
pantheism.  Lord  Brougham  has  demonstrated,  says  the  gentleman,  that 
Mr.  Hume  was  not  an  atheist.  If  the  man  whom  all  the  world  believed 
to  be  an  atheist  is  now  demonstrated  not  to  have  been,  how  is  the  court 
in  any  given  case  to  settle  this  difficult  question  ?  Suppose  the  witness 
answers,  I  believe  as  Mr.  Hume  believes,  and  should  illustrate  his  mean- 
ing by  passages  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Hume,  —  if  the  gentleman 
from  Boston  were  the  judge,  he  would  admit  the  witness  to  be  sworn ; 
many  other  judges  I  think  would  exclude  him. 

Even  the  courts  of  Great  Britain  had  been  sorely  puzzled  with  whole 
classes  of  cases,  that  had  come  under  the  law  as  it  there  existed.  It  was 
at  length  admitted  there  that  every  man  should  be  sworn  according  to 
his  religion.  The  Hindoo,  the  Chinese  presents  himself,  and  his  testi- 
mony is  admitted.  A  Chinese  atheist  is  a  good  witness,  —  but  a  native 
atheist  is  not.  There  is  no  common  law  definition  of  a  deity,  and  yet 
the  law  says  that  a  man  must  believe  in  a  God.  The  question  arises, — 
what  sort  of  a  God  you  believe  in  ?  The  Hottentot  is  called  to  the  stand. 
Do  you  believe  in  a  God  ?  Yes.  And  in  what  sort  of  a  God  cfoes  the 
Hottentot  believe  ?  Why,  in  a  block  of  wood  carved  by  his  own  hands. 
He  wants  rain,  and  wdiips  his  god,  —  thinking  by  this  castigation  to  pro- 
cure the  desired  shower.  Thus  his  god  is  not  a  being  who  controls  him, 
but  one  whom  he  controls.  And  yet  the  Hottentot  is  a  good  witness. 
Where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn  that  shall  indicate  the  kind  of  deity  in 
which  a  witness  must  believe  ? 

But  suppose  the  rule  was  definite.  Suppose  that  the  common  law  had 
found  out  a  legal  deity,  and  fixed  the  nature  and  degree  of  belief  neces- 
sary to  qualify  a  witness.  How  are  you  to  get  at  the  fact  of  belief? 
There  is  no  way.  You  establish  a  conjectural  rule,  and  apply  it  by  con- 
jecture.    There  is  but  one  man  in  the  world  who  knows  the  facts,  and 


346  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

that  one  the  gentleman  from  Boston  would  exclude  by  his  amendment. 
The  case  mentioned  by  the  gentleman  from  Nantucket  deserves  con- 
sideration. A  witness  had  conscientious  scruples  about  taking  an  oath. 
The  court  did  not  believe  him.  The  gentleman  from  Boston  would  now 
introduce  the  evidence  of  third  persons  to  say  whether  or  not  he  enter- 
tained conscientious  scruples.  How  am  I  to  know  what  are  the  con- 
scientious scruples  of  another  man  ?  It  is  absurd  to  attempt  proof  of  a 
fact  by  witnesses  who  cannot  possibly  know  the  fact.  How  can  they 
swear  to  a  man's  belief?  On  loose  conversation,  on  vague  assertions, 
carelessly  made,  and  never  perhaps  seriously  intended  ?  What  fatal 
mischiefs  would  occur,  —  what  danger  to  life,  liberty,  property,  —  if  such 
charges  were  to  be  substantiated  by  such  testimony  !  Conspiracies  might 
be  easily  set  on  foot,  which  would  exclude  the  most  pious  believers  from 
our  courts  of  justice. 

I  stated  yesterday  that  the  law  divided  infidels  into  two  classes,  —  the 
honest  and  dishonest.  To  the  dishonest  infidel  who  would  not  avow  his 
infidelity,  it  is  said,  Go  on  to  the  stand  and  testify.  To  the  honest  infidel 
who  made  no  secret  of  his  unbelief,  who  might  yet  be  a  very  worthy, 
honest,  and  conscientious  man,  the  law  says,  You  're  a  truth-telling  rascal, 
and  must  not  open  your  mouth  in  a  court  of  justice. 

The  gentleman  from  Boston  was  delighted  w^ith  this  rule  of  the  com- 
mon law,  —  because  it  was  something  very  old,  —  it  was  a  relic  of  an- 
tiquity, and  was  therefore  attached  to  it,  and  therefore  did  not  wish  to 
see  it  abolished.  Now,  if  the  gentleman  is  really  so  fond  of  antiquity, 
and  will  cling  to  errors  because  they  are  old,  —  why  did  not  he  go  back 
to  the  very  dawn  of  time,  and  avow  his  love  of  other  horrible  usages 
because  they  are  old  ?  Cannibalism  is  something  very  ancient,  —  the 
most  devout  admirers  of  antiquity  can  with  difficulty  find  any  practice 
more  ancient  than  that  of  feeding  on  human  fiesh.  It  is  a  good  deal 
older  than  the  common  law.  Does  the  gentleman  approve  of  the  usage 
because  it  is  old  ? 

The  gentleman  had  alluded  to  the  exclusion  of  interested  witnesses, 
as  another  valuable  principle  of  the  common  law,  —  and  had  suggested 
to  the  gentleman  from  Maiden  to  read  us  a  homily  on  this  subject. 
Does  not  the  gentleman  know,  that  a  vast  proportion  of  the  chancery 
jurisdiction  of  England  has  grgwn  up  from  this  very  defect  in  the  com- 
mon law  ?  Are  interested  witnesses  less  likely  to  tell  the  truth  in  a 
court  of  chancery  ?  And  yet  it  is  now  laid  down  as  the  prevailing 
opinion  in  England,  that  there  is  less  perjury  in  the  courts  of  chancery, 
where  interested  witnesses  are  permitted  to  testify,  than  in  the  courts  of 
law  from  which  they  are  excluded. 

But,  says  the  gentleman,  oaths  are  abolished  by  this  bill.     I  do  not 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  347 

admit  It,  —  but  suppose  that  thej  were.  In  that  case  we  should  approach 
something  nearer  than  we  do  now  to  the  primitive  Christians.  We  should 
imitate  them  rather  than  the  heathens.  I  am  afraid,  however,  that  we 
shall  not  be  made  primitive  Christians  by  the  passage  of  this  bill.  This 
bill  does  not  abolish  oaths,  any  more  than  the  exception  in  the  present 
law  with  relation  to  Quakers,  abolishes  oaths.  Any  man  can  now  avoid 
taking  the  oath,  if  he  makes  the  necessary  declaration. 

The  credibility  of  a  witness  depends  on  his  character.  Those  who  will 
not  tell  the  truth  without  an  oath,  will  not  tell  the  truth  under  an  oath. 
If  a  man  is  known  to  be  an  habitual  liar,  the  jury  will  not  credit  him 
under  oath,  —  no  matter  what  may  be  his  professions.  He  may  be  a 
pious  frequenter  of  prayer-meetings,  but  the  jury  care  not  a  fig  for  his 
professions.  We  should  judge  of  men  by  their  works,  not  their  words,  — 
as  we  were  directed  by  the  founder  of  our  religion.  In  our  dealings 
with  the  world,  we  do  not  ask  what  church  a  man  attends,  in  order  to 
know  how  we  are  to  consider  him.  We  judge  by  his  conduct.  Is  he 
fair  and  honest  in  his  conduct  ?  If  he  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  so, 
we  deal  with  him  accordingly.  If  he  is  known  to  be  in  the  habit  of 
cheating,  we  watch  him  vigilantly,  in  spite  of  his  professions. 

This  discussion  may  be  considered  as  quite  thrown  away.  The 
question  is  settled  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  of 
Massachusetts,  both  of  which  we  are  sworn  to  support. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  recognizes  the  fundamental 
principle,  that  government  has  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  religion  of 
the  citizen,  which  is  a  matter  in  which  he  is  accountable  to  none  but  his 
God.  The  sixth  article  of  that  instrument  concludes  with  these  words  : 
"  No  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required,  as  a  qualification  to  any  office, 
or  public  trust,  under  the  United  States."  This  is,  of  itself,  an  answer  to 
the  remarks  of  the  gentleman  from  Boston,  touching  oaths  of  office.  In- 
capacity to  take  an  oath  could  not  exclude  the  candidate  elected,  for 
his  affirmation  must  be  received,  under  this  article.  There  can  be  no 
stronger  reason  for  such  a  test  under  the  government  of  Massachusetts, 
than  under  that  of  the  Union,  and  our  State  test  of  religious  belief  v/as, 
no  doubt,  intended  to  be  wholly  done  away  by  the  sixth  article  of  the 
amendments  adopted  in  eighteen  hundred  and  twenty-one,  which  dis- 
pensed with  the  profession  of  an  established  religion  of  the  State,  as  had 
been  before  required  by  the  first  article  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  the 
Constitution.* 


*  Mr.  Wintlirop,  of  Boston,  afterwards  argued  against  the  bill,  because  if  the 
Constitution  had  not  been  altered,  it  would  have  contained  a  religious  test.  True,  if 
America  had  not  been  discovered,  we  should  have  been  Englishmen,  under  a  men- 


348  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  AVRITINGS 

The  people  of  the  United  States  were  not  satisfied  with  the  simple 
exclusion  of  a  test  from  the  federal  Constitution.  The  first  article  of  the 
amendment  secures  the  first  principle  of  religious  liberty.  "  Congress 
shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting 
the  free  exercise  thereof."  The  reasons  of  this  restriction  on  the  powers 
of  Congress,  apply  in  all  their  force  to  prevent  a  State  legislature  from 
exercising  the  forbidden  power.  But  how  far  does  it  fall  short  of  an 
establishment  of  religion,  if  one  sect,  however  numerous,  are  alone  ad- 
mitted to  the  courts,  and  enjoy  the  protection  of  the  laws,  while  others, 
however  few,  are  outlawed,  and  deprived  of  the  benefits  of  good  govern- 
ment, without  indictment,  trial  by  jury,  hearing  by  counsel,  or  examina- 
tion of  witnesses  in  their  behalf,  and  often  are  even  compelled  to  be 
witnesses  against  themselves  of  the  very  crime  upon  which  the  outlawry 
follows. 

Our  fathers,  whose  wisdom  it  is  so  fashionable  to  extol  in  speeches, 
and  forget  in  practice,  intended  -that  grave  questions,  such  as  this, 
should  be  settled  not  with  reference  to  the  express  letter  merely,  but  to 
the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  Constitution.  This  they  enjoined  upon 
us  in  the  eighteenth  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights.  "  A  frequent  recur- 
rence to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Constitution,  and  a  constant 
adherence  to  those  of  piety,  justice,  moderation,  temj)erance,  industry, 
and  frugality,  are  absolutely  necessary  to  preserve  the  advantages  of 
liberty,  and  to  maintain  a  free  government ;  the  people  ought,  conse- 
quently, to  have  a  particular  attention  to  all  those  principles,  in  the 
choice  of  their  officers  and  representatives  ;  and  they  have  a  right  to 
require  of  their  lawgivers  and  magistrates,  an  exact  and  constant  obser- 
vance of  them,  in  the  formation  and  execution  of  the  laws  necessary  for 
the  good  of  the  Commonwealth."  Let  us  recur,  then,  to  these  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  Constitution,  as  illustrated  in  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
and  see  how  they  bear  upon  this  question.  The  twenty-ninth  article 
begins  with  these  words :  "  It  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the 
rights  of  every  individual,  his  life,  liberty,  prosperity,  and  character, 
that  there  be  an  im2:)artial  interpretation  of  the  laws,  and  administration 
of  justice."  IIow  can  justice  be  impartially  administered,  while  one 
class  of  citizens  are  shut  out  from  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,  by  a 
religious  test,  though  persecution  for  opinion's  sake  is  abhorrent  to  the 
genius  of  our  institutions,  and  disclaimed  in  terms  by  all  sects  and 
parties  ?     It  cannot  be  ;  for,  by  the  tenth  article,  "  Each  individual  of 


archy  which  unites  Churcli  and  State.     However,  the  revokition  has  severed  us  from 
monarchy,  and  in  fact  the  test  is  abohshed. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  349 

the  society  has  a  right  to  be  protected  by  it,  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  life, 
liberty,  and  property,  according  to  standing  laws." 

If  the  standing  laws,  by  a  religious  test,  deprive  individuals  of  that 
protection  which  is  their  birthright,  justice  is  not  impartially  adminis- 
tered. Tell  me  not  that  minors,  lunatics,  and  married  women  are 
deprived  of  liberty  by  standing  laws. 

No  laws  or  courts  can  give  the  lunatic  reason,  and  capacity  to  testify. 
Wives  and  children  are  under  the  care  of  their  natural  protectors,  but 
the  ordination  of  God  and  nature  are  antecedent  to  the  existence  of  civil 
society,  which  placed  them  under  guardianship,  affords  no  palliation  for 
an  infraction  of  the  rights  of  conscience.  Whatever  be  his  religious 
faith  or  scepticism,  by  the  eleventh  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  "  every 
subject  of  the  Commonwealth  ought  to  find  a  certain  remedy,  by  having 
recourse  to  the  laws,  f®r  all  injuries  or  wrongs  which  he  may  receive  in 
his  person,  property,  or  character."  Assault  him  with  intent  to  kill  him, 
rob  him,  maim  him,  and  the  atheist  has  no  remedy,  unless  a  believer 
looked  on.  Minors  and  married  women,  have  a  remedy  in  like  cases ; 
but  a  man  may  go  into  a  society  of  a  thousand  atheists,  if  there  should 
ever  be  such  a  society ;  he  may  kill  as  many  as  he  pleases,  and  there  is 
no  remedy,  no  redress. 

Though  the  Constitution,  w^hich  we  have  sworn  to  support,  declares 
that  there  should  be  a  remedy,  yet  we  all  know  that  there  is  no  remedy. 
Have  we  not  sworn  to  pass  this  bill  ?  Have  we  not  sworn  that  there 
shall  be  a  remedy  ?  There  will  be  none  till  this  bill  is  passed.  What 
says  the  Constitution,  of  the  atheist  as  well  as  the  Christian  ?  "  He 
ought  to  obtain  right  and  justice  freely,  and  without  being  obliged  to 
purchase  it,  completely,  and  without  any  denial ;  promptly,  and  without 
any  delay ;  conformably  to  the  laws."  Yet  the  rule  of  the  law  is,  that 
he  shall  not  enter  the  temple  of  justice  but  through  the  gate  of  false- 
hood ;  he  must  purchase  it  by  the  sacrifice  of  truth ;  if  he  will  not  lie, 
right  shall  be  denied  him ;  or,  if  his  heart  is  known  to  the  court,  and 
they  do  him  justice,  they  shall  do  it  in  violation  of  the  common  law. 
And  "though  no  subject  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  any  crime  or  offence 
until  the  same  is  fully  and  plainly,  substantially  and  formally,  described 
to  him ;  or  be  compelled  to  accuse,  or  furnish  evidence  against  himself," 
yet  he  is  held  to  answer  without  a  charge,  and  then  outlawed  upon  his 
own  compelled  testimony.  And  though  he  has  a  right  to  produce  all 
proofs  favorable  to  him,  yet  the  testimony  of  his  whole  sect  is  rejected 
at  once ;  he  is  despoiled,  deprived  of  his  immunities,  put  out  of  the  pro- 
tection of  the  law,  without  a  trial  by  jury,  and  under  a  pretence  of  a 
difference  of  opinion. 

Yet  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution  declares  it  to  be  the  end  for 

30 


850  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

whicli  government  is  instituted,  to  secure  and  protect  society,  "  and  to 
furnish  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  with  the  power  of  enjoying  with 
safety  and  tranquillity,  their  natural  rights,  and  the  blessings  of  life;" 
and  the  purpose  of  laws  is,  "  that  every  man  may,  at  all  times,  find  his 
security  in  them."  "  All  men  are  born  free  and  equal,"  is  the  sublime 
exordium  of  the  Bill  of  Eights,  "  and  have  certain  natural,  essential, 
and  unalienaUe  rights ;  among  which  may  be  reckoned  the  right  of  en- 
joying and  defending  their  lives  and  liberties." 

"  No  subject,"  says  the  second  article,  "  shall  be  hurt,  molested,  or  re- 
strained, in  his  person,  liberty,  or  estate,  for  worshipping  God,  in  the 
manner  and  season  most  agreeable  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience ; 
or  for  his  religious  professions  or  sentiments."  The  object  and  end  of 
government  and  laws,  security,  is  denied  to  the  atheist.  He  is  thrown 
back  upon  his  inalienable  right  to  defend  himself  by  his  own  arm,  for 
the  law  will  not  defend  him.     Is  he  not  hurt  and  molested  ? 

His  wife  and  children  may  be  murdered  before  his  eyes  with  impu- 
nity. Have  we  not  sworn  that  this  shall  not  be  so  ?  Let  us  support 
the  Constitution,  and  pass  this  bill. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  liberal  and  just  thoughts  of  this 
excellent  speech,  will  yet  meet  the  approval  of  every  commu- 
nity, and  men's  opinions,  like  their  looks,  come  to  be  consid- 
ered individual  personal  possessions,  with  which  it  is  not  the 
business  of  society  to  interfere  by  legal  pains  and  penalties. 

The  Ten  Million  Bank  question,  which  occupied  much  of 
the  attention  of  the  session  of  1836,  received  from  Mr.  Ran- 
toul's  hand  its  deserved  quietus.  Never,  perhaps,  did  such  a 
question  receive,  in  debate,  or  the  public  journals,  more 
thorough  discussion.  See  the  following  from  the  Gloucester 
Democrat:  — 

There  are  very  many  objections  to  the  proposition  now  before  the 
legislature,  to  charter  a  bank  with  a  capital  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  ! 
We  hope  and  trust  that  a  majority  of  the  legislature  will  not  sanction 
this  proposition  to  mortgage  the  property  of  the  State  to  no  good  pur- 
pose whatever.  Some  of  the  reasons  why  this  monstrous  proposition 
should  not  find  favor  with  any  true  friend  of  the  State,  and  the  happi- 
ness of  the  people,  are:  — 

Because  there  are  already  too  many  banks,  more  than  can  live  with- 
out violating  their  charters,  as  the  recent  investigation  has  demonstrated, 
and,  moreover,  we  firmly  believe  that  a  majority,  a  large  majority  of  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  35I 

citizens  of  this  Commonwealth,  would  reject  this  petition  for  an  institu- 
tion that  will  be  powerful  enough  to  make  and  unmake  governors,  and 
to  control  the  business  of  the  State  at  will. 

Because  experience  has  taught  us,  that  when  once  established  in 
power,  these  institutions  not  only  set  themselves  above  all  law,  but  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  government  itself;  and  the  panic,  rum,  and  dis- 
tress, produced  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  in  the  exercise  of  its 
power  but  a  few  short  months,  admonished  the  friends  of  liberty,  law, 
order,  peace,  and  constitutional  government,  to  pause  and  deliberate  be- 
fore they  intrust  any  class  of  individuals  with  power  equally  as  danger- 
ous, and  which  may  be  wielded  with  energy  sufficient  to  convulse  the 
State  and  shake  its  institutions  to  their  foundation. 

Because  the  more  banks  there  are  chartered,  the  more  unsteady  and 
fluctuating  the  currency  will  be. 

Because  the  effects  of  the  present  system  are,  when  business  is  good 
and  confidence  restored,  the  banks  loan  more,  —  money  being  plenty, 
speculators  are  induced  to  engage  in  great  and  hazardous  undertakings,  — 
a  system  of  overtrading  commences,  the  channels  of  business  will  be 
choked,  and  the  markets  overstocked, —  competition  will  begin, — 
goods  will  fall  as  rapidly  as  the  rise  has  been  sudden  and  general,  —  peo- 
ple who  have  made  large  purchases  while  prices  were  high,  find  their 
goods  falling  on  their  hands,  — one  thing  follows  another,  until  there  is 
a  general  prostration  of  business.  So  that  the  paper  issues  operate  in- 
juriously in  either  case ;  by  excessive  issues,  overtrading  is  invited, 
and  a  consequent  rise  of  prices  ;  on  the  other  hand,  when  business  is 
depressed  and  the  prices  low,  the  banks  are  obliged,  for  their  own  safety, 
to  contract  their  issues,  and,  consequently  aggravate  the  distress,  and 
lower  prices  more  than  they  would  otherwise  fall,  if  there  was  no  arti- 
ficial currency- 

Because  it  is  impossible  to  establish  a  specie  currency  as  long  as  the 
legislature  are  chartering  banks  by  hundreds,  conferring  upon  them  the 
privilege  of  lending  one  dollar  for  two,  and  investing  them  with  power 
to  make  money  plenty  one  day  and  scarce  the  next. 

If  an  association  of  individuals  wish  to  loan  money,  let  them ;  no  one 
wishes  to  prevent  it ;  but  it  is  wrong  and  unjust  that  a  set  of  individ- 
uals who  make  it  a  business  to  let  money,  should  be  allowed  to  enjoy 
privileges  which  would  be  denied  to  men  in  other  business.  Would  a 
grocer  be  allowed  by  the  legislature  to  sell  one  pound  of  any  article  for 
two  ?  Yet,  has  not  the  legislature  as  much  authority  to  grant  one  as  the 
other  ?  Let  banking  be  thrown  open  like  all  other  business.  Let  not 
the  government,  instituted  for  the  protection  of  the  whole,  protect  one 
class  more   than  another,   and   there  would   be   thousands  of  victims 


352  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

snatclied  from  ruin  and  bankruptcy.  Let  us  stop  here,  and  grant  no 
more  charters,  but  rather  retrace  the  steps  ah-eadj  taken,  and  punish 
those  wicked  and  disobedient  children  who  have  violated  the  obligations 
under  which  they  came  into  existence. 

In  the  house  of  representatives  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
on  the  22d  of  March,  1836,  the  question  being  upon  the  passage 
to  a  third  reading  of  the  bill  to  establish  the  State  Bank  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, Mr.  Lawrence  of  Boston,  in  behalf  of  the  commit- 
tee who  reported  the  bill,  explained  to  the  house  the  views  of 
the  committee.  No  one  rising  to  reply,  the  Speaker,  after  a 
silence  of  a  few  minutes,  stated  the  question,  and  was  about  to 
put  it,  when  Mr.  Rantoul  addressed  the  chair  as  follows  :  — 

Mr.  Speaker,  —  I  regret  exceedingly  that  I  should  be  compelled,  as 
it  were,  to  occupy  the  floor  at  this  time,  upon  this  question,  not  only  be- 
cause I  must  speak  without  a  moment's  time  for  preparation,  on  a  sub- 
ject which  requires  both  consideration  and  research  to  do  it  justice,  but 
because  I  do  not  know  that  I  ought  to  expect  the  house  to  listen  to  me 
with  patience,  upon  this  or  any  other  matter,  after  having  heard  my 
voice  for  so  many  hours  of  the  last  week  or  ten  days.*  But,  Sir,  a 
measure  such  as  this,  so  abhorrent  to  the  feelings  and  the  principles  of 
the  people  of  this  Commonwealth,  shall  not  be  suffered  to  pass  by  a 
silent  vote.  It  is  a  preposterous  proposition.  One  voice,  at  least,  shall 
be  raised  against  it.  That  voice  may  be  sufficient  to  break  the  sj)ell 
which  seems  to  bind  the  house  in  silence,  —  and  if  I  throw  no  light  upon 
the  question,  I  will  delay  its  decision,  till  others,  better  qualified  to  do 
justice  to  it,  have  had  time  to  arrange  their  ideas,  and  are  ready  to  step 
into  the  arena. 

Sir,  we  are  now  called  upon  to  reverse  the  ancient,  settled,  and  estab- 
lished policy  of  the  State,  to  venture  upon  a  radical  change,  —  to  try 
an  experiment  yet  untried  among  ourselves,  and  which,  where  it  has 
been  tried,  has  produced  sometimes  embarrassment,  sometimes  an  ex- 
cited and  feverish  overaction,  sometimes  ruin.  It  is  fifty-six  years  since 
our  present  State  Constitution  was  adopted  ;  for  that  whole  time  we 
have  left  the  business  of  borrowing  and  lending  money,  and  other  bank- 


*  On  the  question  of  Capital  Punishment,  in  three  speeches  of  great  length,  besides 
several  short  replies  to  Messrs.  Boyd,  Park,  Gray,  Rice,  Walley,  Knapp,  Richardson, 
Winthrop,  and  Emerson  of  Boston,  Austin  of  Lowell,  Williams  of  Salem,  Em- 
mons of  Hinsdale,  and  Stowell  of  Peru.  That  bill  passed  by  yeas  and  nays,  234 
to  171. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  353 

ing  operations,  to  individuals  or  corporations  formed  for  the  express  pur- 
pose. The  government  has  neither  gone  into  this  business,  as  a  partner 
with  citizens,  nor  on  its  own  account.  The  recollection  of  the  experi- 
ence of  the  colony  and  province  in  banks  and  paper  money,  may  have 
made  our  fathers  cautious.  Thirty  years'  suffering  from  the  land  bank 
down  to  1759,  and  the  calamities  of  a  rapidly  depreciating  currency  dur- 
ing the  revolution  and  after  it,  were  enough  to  open  their  eyes  to  the 
danger  and  mischief  of  tampering  with  the  medium  of  exchange.  Some- 
times, Sir,  I  admire  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors  quite  as  profoundly  as 
those  gentlemen  who  never  cease  to  express  their  admiration.  I  will 
always  adhere  to  the  established  policy  of  the  State,  where  I  can  see  no 
good  reason  to  change  it.  It  is  a  safe  rule  to  let  well  enough  alone.  I 
am  astonished  to  see  my  conservative  friends,  even  those  of  them  who 
are  readiest,  upon  every  proposal  of  improvement,  however  prudent,  and 
however  well  tested  abroad,  or  required  at  home,  by  constitutional  prin- 
ciples, to  cry  out  Jacobin,  leveller,  agrarian,  anarchist.  I  am  astonished 
to  see  them  rushing  headlong,  to  a  man,  into  this  new  career  of  mad  and 
reckless  experiment.  How  is  this  sudden  passion  for  novelty  among 
our  worshippers  of  things  as  they  are,  and  uniform  and  consistent  op- 
posers  of  all  improvement,  to  be  explained  ?  Ts  it  possible  that  "  settled 
policy  "  is  a  rampart  to  be  defended  to  the  last  drop  of  blood,  whenever 
it  protects  the  peculiar  interests  of  a  select  coterie,  but  that  it  becomes 
a  phrase  without  meaning  when  it  would  only  protect  interests  common 
to  the  whole  people  ?  If  it  be  not  so,  why  are  our  conservatives  crying 
out  for  a  change  ?  Why  not  practise  the  doctrine  they  preach  to  us 
every  day,  and  be  satisfied  with  a  system  which  satisfies  the  people, 
which,  by  their  own  showing,  works  well,  the  system  of  standing  aloof 
from  banking  speculations,  as  well  as  from  every  other  branch  of  trade  ? 
The  city  of  Washington,  by  bori-owing  money  in  Holland,  has  become 
miserably  poor,  crushed  to  the  earth  by  intolerable  taxes,  bankrupt. 
The  State  of  Massachusetts,  as  the  gentleman  from  Boston  has  just  told 
us,  was  never  before  in  so  prosperous  a  condition  as  at  this  moment.  It 
is  now  proposed  that  Massachusetts  should  imitate  Washington,  —  that 
she  should  abandon,  for  the  first  time,  her  time-honored,  and  long  and 
universally  approved  policy,  which  was  marked  out  by  her  patriots  and 
her  sages,  endeared  to  her  by  familiarity  for  half  a  century,  and  by  suc- 
cess, more  and  more  brilliant,  which  has  conducted  her  to  the  high  and 
palmy  state  of  prosperity,  in  which  the  gentleman  from  Boston  (Mr. 
Lawrence)  so  justly  rejoices  ;  and  that  instead  of  her  own  tried  wisdom, 
she  should  follow  bankrupt  Washington  to  the  money  markets  of  Hol- 
land, where  my  friend  from  Roxbury  imagines  he  can  make  excellent 
bargains,  if  he  can  be  allowed  to  mortgage  to  the  Dutch  the  hills  of 

30* 


354  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Berkshire,  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  thriving  Worcester,  active 
Middlesex,  sober  Essex,  the  farms,  the  factories,  the  warehouses,  wharves, 
shipping,  merchandise,  labor,  and  revenues  of  the  whole  Commonwealth. 

Perhaps  he  might  do  well ;  perhaps  he  might  not  do  better  than  most 
speculators  who  have  preceded  him  in  similar  adventures.  The  banking 
trade  might  be  profitable  to  the  government,  though  I  incline  to  think 
the  mackerel  business  might  be  more  so  ;  but  before  we  embark  in  either, 
for  one,  I  wish  to  know  why.  It  is  no  answer  to  tell  me  that  we  shall 
make  one  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  five  millions,  by  hiring  that  sum  at 
four  and  a  half  per  cent,  and  letting  it  at  six.  That  has  been  true  for 
many  years ;  but  when  Massachusetts  was  much  poorer  than  she  is  now, 
and  therefore  had  more  need  to  borrow,  she  wisely  relied  upon  her  own 
resources,  and  she  has  had  no  reason  to  repent  of  her  choice.  If  it  is 
necessary  for  her  at  last  to  open  shop,  it  should  not  be  a  broker's  shop, 
for  there  are  ways  innumerable  in  which  she  can  make  more  than  one 
and  a  half  per  cent,  out  of  five  millions  of  capital. 

Not  only  is  it  our  settled  policy  that  the  State  shall  not  go  into  busi- 
ness either  in  partnership  or  alone,  but  for  some  years  past  it  has  been 
our  policy  not  to  increase  the  bank  capital  of  the  Commonwealth.  Last 
year  the  committee  on  banks  reported  that  we  ought  not  to  make  any 
more  new  banks.  That  committee  consisted  of  merchants,  bankers,  and 
capitalists.  Their  report  was  accepted.  It  w^as  then  considered  settled 
that  w^e  had  pushed  the  banking  system  too  far ;  that  we  had  suffered 
great  evils  under  it,  and  that  it  was  best,  since  we  could  not  diminish 
the  bank  capital,  to  keep  it  stationary,  until  w^e  should  outgrow  it.  This 
was  not  the  view  of  a  party ;  it  was  the  deliberate  conclusion  of  a  de- 
cided majority,  after  some  weeks  of  animated  discussion.  The  people 
were  generally  satisfied  with  that  decision  ;  they  rejoiced  at  it.  Nothing 
has  occurred  since  that  time  to  shake  our  confidence  in  the  doctrine  then 
established,  but  much  that  ought  to  confirm  it.  This  session  opened 
with  heavy  charges  against  the  banks  in  this  city ;  upon  investigation 
those  charges  have  been  made  good ;  it  is  proved  that  many  of  these  in- 
stitutions have  habitually  transcended  the  law,  by  taking  usurious  inter- 
est, and  have  contributed  not  to  ease  the  money  market,  but  to  create 
and  increase  the  pressure.  Notwithstanding  this  known  delinquency  of 
the  existing  banks,  notwithstanding  the  determination  of  the  last  two  or 
three  years  that  our  banks  are  too  numerous  and  our  banking  capital  too 
large,  we  have  now  passed  through  several  stages  in  this  house,  without 
debate,  bills  to  increase  the  capital  of  several  existing  banks,  and  to 
grant  quite  a  number  of  new  charters.  There  are  petitions  for  new 
banks  in  this  city  with  the  committee,  iipon  which  they  have  not  yet  re- 
ported.    The  petitions  which  have  come  in  this  session,  ask  of  us,  if  we 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  355 

should  grant  them  all,  to  increase  the -capital  of  our  banks  from  tliirty 
millions  to  fifty-six  millions,  and  to  increase  the  bank  capital  of  this  city 
and  its  immediate  vicinity, /rom  eighteen  millions  to  double  that  amount. 
The  house  has  begun  by  granting  small  banks  first,  upon  the  principle  of 
rather  extending  a  little  further  the  present  system,  than  entering  upon 
a  new  policy.  Must  we  grant  all  that  is  asked  here,  or  may  we  exer- 
cise a  discretion  as  we  always  have  done  heretofore  ?  Suppose  it  to  be 
that  an  increased  business  requires  an  increased  bank  capital  to  accom- 
modate it ;  suppose  we  were  mistaken  in  believing,  last  year  and  the 
year  before,  that  our  bank  capital  was  already  too  great,  still  is  it  not, 
upon  the  first  blush,  and  without  need  of  argument,  absolutely  impossi- 
ble that  the  bank  capital  which  has  proved  sufiicient  to  hurry  the  busi- 
ness of  this  city  to  its  present  vast,  unprecedented,  and  critical  expan- 
sion, should  now  require  to  be  augmented,  suddenly  and  at  a  single  bound, 
one  hundred  per  cent,  beyond  its  former  limits  ?  Fain  would  I  learn 
how  such  a  necessity  can  be  substantiated.  There  is  nothing  in  the  lec- 
tures of  our  financiers,  thus  far,  whether  printed  for  the  study  of  the 
house,  or  delivered  here  for  our  instruction,  which  has  the  slightest  ten- 
dency towards  this  conclusion. 

But,  Sir,  the  anxiety  of  our  friends  here,  who  seem  to  regard  the  in- 
corporation of  banks  as  a  sort  of  modern  political  alchemy,  grows  out  of 
a  very  strange,  and  a  total  misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  wealth,  and 
the  nature  of  money.  The  creation  of  a  bank  creates  no  new  capital ; 
no,  not  a  dollar.  The  capital  must  exist  before  it  can  assume  that  form. 
Pieces  of  paper  are  not  wealth,  except  so  much  as  they  are  worth  by 
the  ream.  Promises  written  or  printed  on  paper  are  not  wealth,  unless 
the  promises  are  true  ;  and  then,  though  they  are  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
him  who  holds  them,  they  are  a  deduction  to  the  same  amount  from  the 
wealth  of  him  who  made  them,  and  consequently  they  neither  increase 
nor  diminish  the  wealth  of  the  community.  Two  men  cannot  increase 
the  amount  of  property  they  hold,  by  making  promises  to  each  other  to 
transfer  portions  of  it ;  the  quantity  of  pork  or  flour  they  own  will  be 
just  the  same,  though  the  one  should  promise  it  to  the  other,  and  the 
other  promise  it  back  again,  a  hundred  times  over.  If  two  men  are  no 
richer  in  the  aggregate  by  making  multiplied  and  complicated  mutual 
promises,  neither  are  two  millions,  nor  any  other  number  of  men. 

The  friends  of  this  new  project  will  agree  with  us  so  far.  They  will 
admit,  for  they  cannot  deny,  that  the  creation  of  a  bank  does  not  directly 
increase  absolute  wealth ;  but  they  insist  that  it  enlarges  the  circulating 
medium,  and  thereby  brings  into  the  market  "  cheap  capital"  which  bor- 
rowers can  trade  upon  and  increase  the  wealth  of  the  community  by 
their  speculations. 


356  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

What  is  the  meaning  of  "  cheap  capital  f  "  Capital  is  not  wealth,  for 
it  is  admitted  that  a  new  bank  makes  no  new  wealth ;  capital  then  is 
money,  and  what  is  cheap  money  ?  Money  is  the  measure  of  value. 
Compared  with  other  commodities,  money  is  very  cheap  now,  for  every 
thing  else  is  very  dear.  This  kind  of  cheapness  then  is  not  what  gen- 
tlemen want ;  if  they  did,  they  would  be  satisfied  with  affairs  as  they 
are,  for  money  has  reached  the  extreme  point  of  cheapness  already. 
Will  they  tell  us  they  would  measure  money,  not  by  comparison  with 
other  things,  but  by  itself?  This  is  absurd  ;  nothing  can  be  the  instru- 
ment to  measure  itself,  because  it  must  be  equal  to  itself.  What  sort  of 
a  yardstick  must  that  be  which  measured  by  itself  would  be  a  yard  and 
a  half  long  ?  Measured  in  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  measure  it, 
by  its  comparison  with  goods  bought  and  sold,  money  is  much  too  cheap 
already.  There  is  probably  a  confusion  of  ideas  in  the  minds  of  gen- 
tlemen, and  when  they  speak  of  cheap  capital,  they  mean,  not  a  depre- 
ciated currency,  but  a  low  rate  of  interest.  There  are  two  questions, 
then,  to  be  settled,  before  gentlemen  can  satisfy  us  that  the  proposed 
bank  will  answer  their  avowed  purposes,  to  lower  the  current  rate  of  in- 
terest. First,  will  this  bank  increase  the  circulating  medium  ?  Second, 
does  an  increase  of  the  circulating  medium  lower  the  rate  of  interest  ? 
If  both  these  points  could  be  placed  beyond  dispute,  it  would  then  re- 
main a  question  whether  a  high  rate  of  interest,  at  particular  short  pe- 
riods, is  not  on  the  whole  a  benefit,  rather  than  an  injury,  to  the  com- 
munity, by  dividing  among  a  greater  number  the  exorbitant  profits  of 
speculations  made  at  the  expense  of  the  community ;  and  by  checking, 
in  the  only  effectual  way,  the  spirit  of  ruinous  overtrading.  Behind 
this,  another  question  would  meet  us,  and  that  is  whether,  supposing  a 
low  rate  of  interest  might  be  in  itself  very  desirable  at  all  times,  and 
might  be  brought  about  by  such  machinery  as  that  now  under  considera- 
tion, whether  the  great  and  undeniable  evils  of  a  superabundant  and 
fluctuating  currency  would  not  be  too  high  a  price  for  this  advantage. 

How  far  will  the  establishment  of  this  bank  increase  the  circulating 
medium  ?  Not  so  much.  Sir,  as  some  gentlemen  seem  to  suppose,  — 
not  so  much  as  it  will  increase  the  call  for  more  money,  but  still  enough 
to  do  mischief.  The  bills  which  this  bank  will  crowd  into  circulation 
will,  for  the  most  part,  force  home  an  equal  amount  of  the  bills  of  other 
banks.  The  circulation  of  Boston,  and  of  the  State  will  be  but  very 
slightly  increased,  at  present,  by  granting  this  bank,  or  all  the  banks  that 
are  asked  for ;  though,  when  the  money  market  is  easy,  additional  banks 
would  considerably  increase  the  circulation.  The  business  of  the  com- 
munity will  take  up  a  certain  amount  of  currency ;  all  beyond  that 
amount  which  is  issued,  is  either  forced  back,  because  the  business  can- 


857 

not  take  it  up  ;  or  if  not  forced  back,  so  far  depreciates  itself,  and  the 
rest,  that  the  whole  mass  is  worth  no  more  than  it  was  before  the  addi- 
tion to  its  quantity.  Our  paper  being  redeemable  in  specie,  it  cannot  be 
depreciated  much  beyond  the  point  at  which  it  becomes  profitable  to  ex- 
port specie,  which  point  of  depreciation  it  has  already  reached,  and  some- 
what passed.  But  while  a  given  amount  added  to  the  currency  depre- 
ciates it  precisely  in  the  proportion  which  the  quantity  added  bears  to 
the  whole  mass,  it  nevertheless,  by  the  circumstances  under  which  it  is 
issued,  lays  the  foundation  for  speculations,  promises  interlaced  with  one 
another,  and  contracts  filed  upon  contracts,  vastly  beyond  that  propor- 
tion. When  these  contracts  come  to  be  fulfilled,  the  additional  currency 
does  not  afford  the  means  of  fulfilling  them,  and  of  course  the  effect  of 
its  issue  is  to  increase  the  pressure  in  the  money  market  rather  than  to 
relieve  it.  Nor  is  ihis  all,  or  even  the  worst  way  in  which  it  heightens 
the  evil.  The  contracts  made  in  a  depreciated  currency  remain  to  be 
discharged  after  the  price  of  money  has  risen  ;  so  that  he  who  promised 
to  pay  ten  thousand  dollars  when  flour  was  ten  dollars  a  barrel,  and  other 
things  in  proportion,  if  forced  to  perform  that  promise  when  flour  is  only 
five  dollars  a  barrel,  and  other  things  in  proportion,  must  sacrifice  double 
the  amount  of  property  he  received,  before  he  can  satisfy  the  demand 
against  him.  When  this  change  happens,  those  who  have  extended  their 
business  most  beyond  their  means,  fall  under  the  suspicion  of  inability 
to  fulfil  their  obligations,  and  the  general  want  of  confidence  growing  out 
of  such  suspicions,  greatly  enhances  what  we  call  the  scarcity  of  money, 
which  among  us  is  in  fact  no  more  nor  less  than  the  scarcity  of  credit. 
To  attempt  to  increase  the  circulating  medium,  therefore,  at  a  time  when 
it  is  unnaturally  distended  already,  would  be  both  foolish  and  wicked  : 
foolish,  because  it  is  impossible  that  any  specie  paying  banks  can  much 
increase  it,  and  because  the  attempt,  so  far  as  it  succeeds  for  the  mo- 
ment, only  makes  the  depreciation  of  our  whole  mixed  currency  more 
decided,  and  thereby  forces  the  specie  which  is  now  leaving  us,  to  flow 
out  of  the  country  in  a  broader  and  more  rapid  stream  ;  wicked,  because 
the  distrust  consequent  on  the  overtrading  which  this  attempt  produces, 
together  with  the  sudden  departure  of  specie  from  the  country,  driven 
out  by  the  depreciation  of  the  whole  currency,  will  infallibly  compel  the 
banks  to  curtail  their  discounts  ;  the  circulating  medium  will  then  con- 
tract itself,  and  rise  in  value  ;  every  debtor  will  be  obliged  to  pay  a 
greater  value  than  he  received,  in  proportion  to  the  contraction,  perhaps 
to  his  total  ruin  ;  the  prices  of  all  articles  will  fall,  the  holders  of  goods 
must  sacrifice  them,  and  in  the  common  calamity  of  all  the  business 
classes,  nobody  will  gain  but  the  owners  of  money,  —  that  is  to  say, 
capitalists.     It  is  perfectly  plain  that  this  headlong  and  mad  career  of 


358  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

over-banking,  with  its  necessary  effects  to  shake  and  almost  destroy  con- 
fidence and  credit,  can  have  no  tendency  to  lower,  but  will  certainly 
heighten  the  rate  of  interest,  already  exorbitant,  from  over-banking  and 
its  consequences,  more  than  from  any  other  causes,  —  indeed,  I  may  say, 
more  than  from  all  other  causes. 

To  depreciate  the  currency  for  the  sake  of  having  "  cheap  moneyed 
capital "  would  be  a  sad  mistake,  and  if  pushed  to  the  extent  proposed 
by  our  friends  wlio  labor  under  the  bank  mania,  no  man  can  predict  how 
calamitous  will  be  the  consequences,  no  man  can  set  bounds  to  the  ruin 
that  will  ensue.  The  fashionable  doctrine  seems  to  be,  that  the  more 
banks  and  the  greater  the  circulating  medium,  the  better.  We  are  told 
in  the  Exposition  (page  37)  that  "  the  public  exigencies  require  the 
establishment  of  an  institution  that  will  possess  the  power  of  increasing 
the  existing  moneyed  capital  of  the  community,"  On  the  thirty-fourth 
page  we  are  told  that  "  it  is  obvious  to  all  practical  men  that  business 
must  be  reduced,  or  there  must  be  an  addition  made  to  our  moneyed  cap- 
ital and  circulating  medium."  On  the  thirty-third  page  we  are  told,  to 
the  no  small  astonishment  of  those  of  us  who  have  studied  the  history 
of  our  commerce  and  navigation,  from  the  arrival  of  the  Mayflower  to 
the  magnificent  navies  that  now  issue  from  the  harbors  of  Massachusetts 
and  Maine,  that  our  shipping  "cannot  be  extended  to  the  increasing  de- 
mand for  employment  of  our  increasing  population  ;  nor  perhaps  be 
maintained  on  its  present  high  level  without  a  further  supply  of  capital." 
On  the  twenty-eighth  page,  we  read  that  to  increase  the  fishing  business 
"we  require  more  capital  " — which  we  are  advised  to  obtain  by  running 
in  debt  wherever  we  can  get  trusted ;  in  other  words,  by  using  "  our 
credit  at  home  and  our  credit  abroad  to  the  manifest  benefit  of  the  whole 
community,  and  above  all  to  the  poor  and  middle  classes,  whose  wages 
and  whose  profits  must  always  dejiend  on  the  abundance  and  chea{)ness 
of  capital.  This  is  a  truth,"  says  the  Exposition,  "  wdiich  admits  of  no 
more  doubt  than  that  the  sun  is  the  principal  source  of  light  which 
shines  upon  the  earth."  As  if  the  great  obstacle  in  the  way  of  increasing 
the  fishing  business  were  not,  at  this  moment,  the  abundance  and  cheap- 
ness of  money  —  in  other  words,  the  high  prices  of  every  article  required 
to  fit  out  the  vessels !  As  if  the  great  cause  of  the  high  rate  of  interest 
were  not  that  we  have  run  so  much  in  debt  in  various  ways  already  ! 
As  if  "  the  poor  and  middle  classes  "  did  not  always  suffer  fir  st,  suffer 
longest,  and  suffer  most  severely,  in  their  wages  and  profits,  from  any  in- 
crease in  the  amount  and  depreciation  in  the  value  of  moneyed  capital ! 
As  if  the  assertion  that  "the  poor  and  middle  classes"  derive  a  manifest 
benefit  from  such  abundance  and  cheapness,  were  not  as  palpable  an 
absurdity  as  to  imagine  that  the  July  sun  rays  out  nothing  but  visible 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  359 

darkness  from  the  noon-day  heavens  !  Such,  however,  is  the  popular 
doctrine  of  the  borrowers,  thrust  forward  at  this  moment  to  effect  a  par- 
ticular purpose,  well  suited  to  that  purpose,  and  urged  with  great  ability 
and  eloquence. 

The  bank  advocates  on  this  floor  do  not  shrink  from  the  full  develop- 
ment of  their  theory.  On  the  question  of  postponement  the  other  day, 
they  assured  the  petitioners  for  small  banks,  that  the  ten  million  bank 
should  not  stand  in  their  way,  —  they  even  resented  with  some  indigna- 
tion the  hint,  that  if  the  great  bank  was  chartered  the  small  ones  could 
not  be.  They  said  it  was  a  most  ungenerous  insinuation ;  that,  in  foct, 
the  friends  of  the  one  were  the  friends  of  the  other  also ;  that  they  would 
grant  all  where  a  case  was  made  out  of  want  of  capital,  —  which  means, 
if  it  means  any  thing,  that  they  would  create  banks  wherever  people  had 
already  gone  beyond  their  means,  without  the  stimulus  to  overtrading 
which  banks  will  administer.  They  propose,  therefore,  consistently  with 
the  principles  of  the  Exposition,  to  grant  all  the  banks  that  are  asked 
for,  for  there  are  none  who  cannot  make  out  a  case  upon  such  principles. 
They  propose  to  double  the  bank  capital  of  Boston,  and  very  nearly  to 
double  the  bank  capital  of  the  State.  I  beseech  the  house  to  pause  before 
they  rush  into  this  ruinous  career.  Let  us  have  reasons,  good  and  suf- 
ficient reasons,  before  we  exchange  our  ancient  prudent  policy,  for  a 
course  calculated  only  to  encourage  a  feverish  excitement,  gambling 
speculations,  and  general  overtrading,  leading  to  disastrous  fluctuations, 
if  it  should  not  terminate  in  the  entire  prostration  of  credit.  There  is 
no  necessary  connection  between  an  increased  circulating  medium  arid  a 
lower  rate  of  interest ;  if  there  were,  this  application  for  so  large  a  bank 
■^ould  be  a  little  more  plausible.  Money  facilitates  exchanges  as  oil 
facilitates  machinery,  and  more  money  than  is  necessary  for  that  effect  is 
useless  and  injurious  when  introduced,  and  flows  off  as  soon  as  it  can 
make  its  escape  as  naturally  as  too  much  oil  from  an  engine.  Just  so 
much  money  is  wanted  for  the  business  of  any  country,  as  that  business 
will  keep  at  a  par  value  with  money  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  If 
there  is  less  than  we  want,  its  value  rises,  and  it  flows  in  as  it  did  in 
1834 ;  if  there  is  more  than  we  want,  its  value  falls,  and  it  flows  out  as 
it  is  now  flowing  out  in  1836.  The  amount  in  existence  is  of  no  conse- 
quence, if  it  does  not  vary  suddenly,  and  if  we  have  our  share.  If  there 
were  fifteen-sixteenths  of  the  currency  of  the  whole  world  struck  out  of 
existence  to-day,  an  ounce  of  silver  to-morrow  would  perform  the  same 
office  that  an  ounce  of  gold  performed  yesterday ;  the  only  inconvenience 
would  be  in  adjusting  the  new  prices;  but  after  they  were  adjusted, 
business  would  go  on  and  the  rate  of  interest  would  be  precisely  the 
same  as  before.      So  if  these  petitioners  could  succeed  in  their  efforts 


360  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

even  so  far  as  to  double  the  circulating  medium,  and  to  prevent  the  spe- 
cie from  flowing  off  and  the  paper  from  contracting,  so  as  to  keep  it 
double,  after  the  prices  had  adjusted  themselves  a  man  must  borrow  two 
thousand  dollars  to  make  the  same  purchase  which  he  would  have  made 
with  one  thousand  :  of  course  money  would  be  as  scarce  and  command 
as  high  interest  as  before.  But  another  important  consequence  must  not 
be  overlooked;  —  though  it  would  require  double  the  money  to  make 
the  same  purchase,  many  more  purchases  would  be  made  while  the  expan- 
sion was  going  on,  and  from  the  enlarged  amount  of  speculations  pending 
when  the  process  of  expansion  came  to  stop,  money  would  be  scarcer, 
that  is,  interest  would  be  higher  than  it  was  before.  But  this  does  not 
complete  the  solution  of  the  problem.  In  fact,  the  more  numerous  con- 
tracts at  double  prices,  would  not  be  discharged  in  so  cheap  a  currency 
as  they  were  founded  on,  for  the  specie  would  flow  off  like  water,  and 
the  paper  vanish  like  smoke,  until  the  currency  had  shrunk  to  its  proper 
volume.  Then  a  promise  to  pay  made  when  the  sum  promised  consti- 
tuted a  hundred-thousandth  part  of  the  currency,  must  be  met  when 
that  sum  is  the  fifty-thousandth  part  of  the  whole  ;  and  as  more  promises 
had  been  made  from  the  stimulating  effect  of  the  expansion,  the  diffi- 
culty of  obtaining  funds  to  discharge  them  would  be  more  than  doubled. 
The  Exposition  and  the  argument  of  the  committee  both  proceed 
upon  the  confusion  of  two  very  different  things  —  cheap  money  and  cheap 
use  of  money  —  a  depreciated  currency  and  a  low  rate  of  interest. 
These  seldom  exist  together  for  any  length  of  time,  though  the  Expo- 
sition treats  of  them  as  necessarily  co-existing,  or  identically  the  same. 
On  the  contrary,  a  depreciated  currency,  if  it  does  not  find  the  rate  of 
interest  high,  inevitably  soon  makes  it  so.  A  high  rate  of  interest  grows 
out  of  urgency  of  demand  among  borrowers,  and  a  distrust  of  their 
credit  among  leaders,  —  both  of  which  circumstances  a  depreciation  of 
the  currency  must  naturally  produce.  It  must  produce  an  urgent  de- 
mand, because  it  raises  the  prices  of  all  articles,  and  while  prices  are 
rising,  every  man  sells  for  more  than  he  gave,  and  of  course  imagines 
he  is  growing  rich,  and  is  tempted  to  rush  into  these  profitable  specula- 
tions to  the  utmost  extent  to  which  he  can  obtain  the  means.  At  the 
same  time,  the  number  of  lenders  is  diminished,  and  the  number  of  bor- 
rowers increased ;  for  he  who  has  money,  if  he  lends  it  on  short  time, 
must  expect  to  be  paid  in  money  worth  less  than  what  he  lent ;  whereas, 
if  he  employs  his  funds  himself  by  investing  them  in  goods  or  land,  he 
gains  by  the  rise  of  prices  just  as  much  as  he  would  lose  if  he  lent  his 
funds.  The  man,  therefore,  who  would  lend  his  surplus  funds,  even  at 
a  low  rate  of  interest,  when  prices  were  steady  and  the  money  market 
easy,  refuses  to  lend  even  at  a  high  rate  of  interest,  and  perhaps  becomes 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  3(31 

himself  a  borrower,  when  prices,  rapidly  rising,  hold  out  to  him  the 
promise  of  an  enormous  profit.  Let  but  a  few  lenders  thus  become  bor- 
rowers, and  it  adds  much  to  the  urgency  of  a  demand  already  too  great. 
In  this  state  of  things  a  distrust  springs  up  among  the  lenders.  The 
shrewd  and  clear  ca2)italists  first  perceive,  what  soon  becomes  appa- 
rent to  everybody,  that  borrowers  are  involving  themselves  beyond 
their  means,  and  may  not  be  able  to  fulfil  their  engagements.  They  sec 
that  speculators,  stimulated  by  tiie  rapid  rise,  have  overstocked  the  mar- 
ket with  every  thing  that  can  be  brought  into  it,  and  that  this  excessive 
supply  is  held  at  excessive  prices,  which  of  course  must  fall  the  moment 
the  reaction  begins,  forcing  holders  to  make  immediate  sacrifices,  and 
rendering  it  impossible  for  those  who  have  extended  most,  to  realize,  by 
any  sacrifice,  funds  to  take  up  all  their  notes.  Entertaining  these  appre- 
hensions, the  money  letter  must  be  insured  against  losses  which  may 
result  from  such  cases,  by  a  higher  rate  of  interest,  which  is  thus  the 
direct  effect  of  an  increase  of  the  circulating  medium,  or  cliea'p  capital. 
In  reasoning  upon  the  present  state  of  things,  however,  it  is  best  to 
look  at  things  as  they  really  are,  and  not  as  they  are  represented  by  the 
speculators.  If  their  statements  were  strictly  correct,  they  would  present 
an  appalling  picture  of  the  evils  of  our  over-banking,  and  an  impressive 
warning  not  to  rush  blindfold  and  headlong,  through  the  same  course, 
into  general  bankruptcy.  It  is  not  to  be  disguised,  however,  that  these 
gentlemen  have  exaggerated  the  miseries  which  their  mistaken  policy 
has  brought  upon  them,  and  which  they  are  laboring  with  such  misguided 
zeal  to  augment  and  perpetuate.  We  are  told  in  the  Exposition,  (page 
29,)  of  "  the  now  existing  rate  of  nine  to  tivelve  per  cent."  That  docu- 
ment is  dated  February  G,  183G.  AYe  are  assured  that  the  pressure  has 
been  constantly  increasing  since  that  time,  and  might  infer  that  the  rate 
w^as  by  this  time  as  high  as  eighteen  or  twenty-four  per  cent. ;  indeed 
the  rate  spoken  of  upon  this  floor  was  from  one  to  one  and  a  half  a 
month,  —  that  is,  tivelre  or  eighteen  per  cent.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that 
notes  have  been  shaved,  —  they  always  have  been,  and  ahvays  will  be. 
It  is  also  true  that  there  has  been  more  and  closer  shaving  of  late  than 
is  usual.  But  it  is  equally  true,  that  of  all  outstanding  credit  of  every 
sort,  in  this  State,  much  more  than  nine  tenths  is  at  this  moment  at  six 
per  cent,  per  annum,  or  below  that  rate.  Can  any  man  believe  that  the 
existing  rate  of  interest  is  twelve  per  cent.,  as  a  general  fact,  when  stock, 
paying  an  interest  of  five  per  cent.,  and  having  twenty  years  to  run  at 
that  rate,  is  selling  in  the  market  at  five  or  six  per  cent,  above  par  ? 
Bank  stock,  upon  an  average,  pays  less  than  six  per  cent,  for  any  number 
of  years  ;  yet  here  we  have  petitions  for  twenty-six  millions  additional 
bank  capital.     Is  it  possible,  that  while  money  is  Avorth  twelve  per  cent> 

31 


862  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

persons,  not  capitalists,  but  business  men,  are  anxious  to  place  twenty- 
six  millions  \Yhere  it  will  yield  them  less  than  six  per  cent.  ?  But  the 
petitioners  say  this  stock  is  all  taken  up,  —  and  this  while  the  stock  of 
the  Western  Railroad,  on  which  the  prosperity  of  the  city,  and  of  large 
sections  of  the  country,  so  much  depends,  after  indefatigable  exertions^ 
cannot  be  taken  up  !  It  is  not  patriotism,  therefore  ;  it  is  the  expecta- 
tion of  gain,  which  causes  twenty-six  millions  of  bank  stock  to  be  sub- 
scribed for ;  and  the  money  proposed  to  be  invested  in  these  banks  is 
not  worth  twelve  per  cent.,  nor  seven  per  cent.,  —  no,  r^or  yet  six  per 
cent.,  on  any  long  time,  and  with  good  security,  in  the  money  market. 

Suppose  a  capitalist  worth  his  round  million  falls  off  the  head  of  Long 
Wharf.  He  cannot  swim,  he  sees  nothing  to  catch  at,  he  gives  up  hope, 
when  with  joy  he  discovers  a  man  on  the  wharf  with  a  rope  in  his  hand, 
who  cries  out.  What  will  you  give  for  the  end  of  this  ?  A  thousand 
dollars.  No  !  Ten  thousand.  No !  A  hundred  thousand.  No !  Give 
me  half  your  fortune,  and  you  shall  have  it.  Any  thing,  every  thing  I 
promises  the  drowning  man  :  the  rope  is  thrown  to  him,  and  his  life  is 
saved.  Suppose  now  he  keeps  hig  word,  and  shares  his  fortune  with  the 
individual  who  took  advantage  of  his  necessity ;  would  this  instance  of 
half  a  million  given  for  two  minutes'  use  of  a  rope,  be  quoted  in  the 
price  current  to  show  how  cordage  stands  in  the  Boston  market,  and 
should  we  have  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-six  citizens,  all  liable  to 
fall  off  Long  Wharf,  forthwith  petitioners  to  the  legislature,  praying  the 
Commonwealth  to  go  into  partnership  with  them  in  a  rope-walk  ten 
times  longer  than  any  in  existence,  the  Commonwealth  to  send  to  Holland 
after  the  hemp,  in  order  to  secure  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap  cord- 
age ?  I  think  these  seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-six  citizens,  instead 
of  putting  in  such  a  petition,  would  rather  learn  the  lesson  that  those 
who  walk  on  a  slippery  brink  should  be  careful  not  to  fall  overboard 
unless  they  can  swim ;  a  lesson  it  might  be  well  to  carry  with  us  into 
the  money  market.  The  high  rate  of  interest  paid  in  particular  cases,  for 
a  very  short  time,  and  just  before  two  o'clock,  when  there  is  an  urgent 
demand,  and  he  who  lends  knows  that  he  who  borrows  must  have  it,  but 
perhaps  does  not  know,  sometimes,  with  the  perfect  certainty  he  could 
wish,  whether  it  will  ever  be  repaid,  is  no  indication  whatever  of  the 
prevailing  current  rate  of  interest  paid  in  solid  business  throughout  the 
Commonwealth. 

Perhaps  we  can  trace  more  satisfactorily  the  effects  of  over-banking, 
and  of  that  spirit  of  speculation  and  overtrading  which  over-banking 
fosters,  by  taking  a  historical  view  of  the  fluctuations  they  have  produced 
in  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  more  particularly  in  that  of  the  United 
States.    Fluctuations  in  business  occur  everywhere,  but  among  an  enter- 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR,  353 

prising  people,  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  they  are  of  course  greater 
than  among  people  of  an  opposite  character.  Whenever  the  demand 
exceeds  the  supply  of  those  goods  which  can  be  brought  into  the  market 
in  a  short  time  in  greatly  increased  quantities,  as  of  all  imported  and 
manufactured  articles,  business  feels  the  effect  of  the  stimulus,  and  is 
carried  on  briskly  until  the  supply  is  carried  so  far  beyond  the  demand, 
that  prices  fall  and  business  is  checked  again.  Then  for  a  little  while 
enterprise  languishes,  and  business  suffers  a  general  depression,  till  the 
excess  of  supply  is  exhausted  by  the  consumption  of  the  country,  when  a 
new  impulse  is  given  to  the  energies  of  trade  and  industry,  which  con- 
tinue active  and  prosperous  till  the  supply  again  overtakes  and  outstrips 
the  demand,  and  brings  on  another  reaction.  These  alterations  are 
natural  and  necessary,  and  every  business  man  foresees  them,  and  makes 
allowance  for  them  in  his  calculations.  "With  a  currency  which  should 
be  an  unvarying  standard  of  value,  the  check  would  seldom  be  very 
severe,  but  our  currency  is  so  contrived  as  to  make  that  an  intolerable 
calamity,  which  otherwise  would  only  constitute  pause  enough  to  take 
breath  in  our  career  of  prosperity,  almost  unmingled.  A  mixed  medium 
of  specie  and  paper,  redeemable  in  specie,  is  highly  elastic,  and  the  most 
remarkable  and  deleterious  characteristic  of  such  a  medium  is,  that  it 
expands  when  it  ought  to  contract^  and  contracts  ivhen  it  ought  to  expand. 
It  not  only  contracts  and  expands  when  it  ought  not  to,  but  precisely  in 
the  proportion  in  which  it  ought  not  to.  When  the  market  is  scantily 
stocked,  and  prices  having  gone  to  the  lowest  point  are  beginning  to 
revive,  confidence  returns,  and  a  competition  begins  among  those  dis- 
posed to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity.  They  enlarge  their  opera- 
tions rapidly,  and  soon  push  them  to  the  verge  of  prudence.  If  the 
circulating  medium  could  then  be  contracted,  a  wholesome  and  timely 
check  would  be  applied  to  the  disposition  to  overtrade  ;  but  it  is  just  at 
this  point  that  it  expands  itself  suddenly,  and  irresistibly  stimulates  the 
propensity  to  overtrading.  Business  being  brisk  and  profitable,  banks  are 
not  afraid  to  discount  freely  ;  the  loans  which  are  obtained  enable  more 
buyers  to  go  into  the  market,  which  of  course  runs  up  the  prices  faster. 
This,  again,  making  business  more  profitable,  increases  confidence,  and 
encourages  the  banks  to  issue,  with  more  and  more  facility,  vast  quan- 
tities of  paper,  which  they  can  do  the  m.ore  readily  and  safely  because, 
while  the  currency  was  contracted,  specie  has  been  flowing  into  the 
country,  and  because,  the  same  causes  affecting  all  the  banks  simulta- 
neously, no  one  checks  the  issues  of  th^  others  by  curtailing,  as  in  a  time 
of  scarcity.  The  quantity  of  paper  thus  thrown  into  circulation,  by 
cheapening  the  value  of  money,  raises  the  prices  of  every  thing  else  still 
higher,  induces  bolder  speculations  ;  the  flood  of  paper  from  the  bank  is 


364  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WEITINGS 

swelled  to  the  utmost  limits  of  their  power  to  issue,  and  prices  are  carried 
to  the  maximum.  The  market  is  overstocked  with  goods  bought  at  these 
unnatural  prices,  yet  wild  and  improvident  enterprises  are  set  on  foot 
for  further  supplies.  Articles  which  our  country  is  better  fitted  to  pro- 
duce, are  imported  for  the  artificial  price  ;  our  own  ordinary  articles  of 
export  cannot  be  purchased  to  be  sent  abroad,  on  account  of  their 
nominal  prices.  Such  has  been  the  effect  of  an  expansive  currency,  but 
it  is  a  state  of  things  that  cannot  last.  Now  comes  the  crisis,  and  the 
current  turns.  Exchange  gets  above  the  real  par ;  specie  is  exported, 
because  it  is  the  cheapest  article  in  the  country,  and  the  currency  of 
other  nations  has  not  depreciated  with  ours.  The  glut  in  the  market 
becomes  apparent ;  first  buyers,  and  then  sellers,  discover  that  prices 
must  fall.  Lenders  tremble  for  their  outstanding  loans,  and  hesitate  to 
enlarge  or  renew  them.  Speculators,  with  large  stocks  on  hand  beyond 
their  real  capital,  find  their  credit  beginning  to  totter,  and  hasten  to  get 
rid  of  them,  which  runs  the  prices  down.  The  more  prices  decline,  the 
more  they  are  pushed  to  meet  their  payments,  the  greater  is  their  eager- 
ness to  make  sales,  and  the  greater  sacrifices  will  they  submit  to  in  rais- 
ing money.  The  competition  is  now  between  sellers,  and  not  between 
buyers,  who  fold  their  arms  and  wait  for  a  further  reduction  ;  it  is  be- 
tween borrowers,  and  not  between  lenders,  who  are  anxious  to  get  their 
funds  out  of  danger.  Mutual  confidence  ceases,  and  the  depressed  state 
of  the  market  brings  on  a  stagnation  of  all  kinds  of  business.  If  now 
the  currency  could  be  enlarged  so  as  to  check  the  declension  of  prices, 
as  soon  as  they  had  gone  low  enough  for  an  average  between  the  highest 
and  lowest  extremes  of  the  fluctuation,  much  misery  might  be  prevented ; 
but  it  is  at  this  stage  of  downward  progress  that  the  currency  contracts. 
Distrusting  their  borrowers,  banks  become  more  sparing  of  their  accom- 
modations, and  when  one  bank  holds  up  but  a  little,  it  forces  home  upon 
them  the  bills  of  other  banks  and  compels  them  to  curtail,  and  in  their 
turn  cripple  each  other's  power  to  extend  relief.  The  specie  basis,  upon 
which  their  circulation  rested,  having  to  a  great  extent  passed  away  from 
under  it,  they  are  embarrassed  to  redeem  the  bills  that  come  in,  and  of 
course  dare  not  trust  out  any  thing  more.  Every  man  having  resources 
at  hand,  instead  of  assisting  his  neighbor,  husbands  them  grudgingly  to 
meet  his  own  payments,  because  he  might  not  find  the  means  when  he 
came  to  want  them.  The  amount  of  active  circulation  being  much 
diminished,  money  in  consequence  rises  in  value,  and  nominal  prices  fall 
far  lower  than  they  would  have  dOne  from  the  mere  reaction  in  business 
under  a  steady  currency.  The  distress  and  pressure  terminate  in  a  con- 
vulsion. Property  is  sacrificed  to  raise  funds,  and  numerous  bankruptcies 
break  up  all  who  have  launched  into  extensive  operations  without  a  solid 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  365 

capital  to  fall  back  upon.  The  victims  of  the  elastic  credit  which  tempted 
them  by  the  fictitious  creation  of  imaginary  wealth,  which  shrunk  and 
withered  to  nothing  in  their  grasp,  curse  their  seducer,  paper  money, 
whose  excessive  issues,  urging  them  onward  when  too  impetuous,  but 
failing  to  sustain  them  when  most  they  needed  support,  have  proved  the 
fruitful  source  of  ruin  to  thousands  upon  thousands.  Such  are  the  effects 
of  a  contracting  currency,  as  all  acknowledge  while  the  tornado  is  pass- 
ing over  them.  After  the  storm  has  spent  its  rage,  we  view  with 
melancholy  emotions  the  wrecks  it  has  scattered  along  the  shore,  but 
those  who  rode  it  out  in  safety  soon  set  all  sail  again,  and  those  who  now 
put  to  sea  for  the  first  time,  crowd  every  inch  of  canvas  they  can  spread 
to  the  flattering  gale  of  a  deceitful  and  short-lived  prosperity,  forgetting 
that  the  tempest  only  sleeps,  in  whose  awakened  fury  they  may  founder, 
or,  dashed  on  hidden  dangers,  be  stranded  and  bilged  like  those  who 
before  them  as  gaily  commenced  a  voyage  of  disaster. 

That  such  has  been,  and  necessarily  must  be,  the  effect  of  a  fluc- 
tuating currency,  and  that  a  mixed  currency,  composed  mostly  of  pajjcr, 
is  in  its  nature  fluctuating,  cannot  and  will  not  be  denied.  How  then  do 
gentlemen  propose  to  escape  the  conclusion,  that  it  is  the  height  of  mad- 
ness to  build  up  an  institution  that  shall  increase  the  fluctuation,  over- 
banking  itself,  and  with  a  tenfold  power  stimulating  other  banks  to  ex- 
cessive issues,  when  the  community  are  overtrading;  contracting  itself, 
and  with  tenfold  power  compelling  other  banks  to  curtail,  after  the  re- 
action has  begun  and  the  crash  is  imminent?  AYhy  double  the  plagues 
with  which  we  are  cursed  already  ?  It  is  no  answer  to  show,  as  the  Ex- 
position shows,  that  specuktion  has  already  pushed  business  far  beyond 
its  legitimate  limits.  It  is  no  answer  to  show  that  our  business  is  already 
greater  than  our  capital  and  our  credit,  built  up  into  an  airy  fabric  of 
promises  upon  promises,  is  equal  to,  —  so  much  the  worse  for  the  insan- 
ity that  would  add  fuel  to  the  flame  of  the  burning  fever.  It  is  no  an- 
swer to  urge  that  other  States  are  over-banking  with  unprecedented 
recklessness,  —  so  much  the  more  certain  is  the  impending  calamity;  so 
much  the  more  heavily  will  it  fall,  and  so  much  the  more  imperative  our 
duty  to  do  nothing,  and  suffer  nothing  to  be  done,  to  make  a  crisis  terri- 
ble which  at  best  must  be  trying  and  severe.  It  is  no  answer  to  insist 
that  the  Western  Railroad  must  be  built,  —  if  so,  then  build  it.  If  the 
great  interests  of  the  Commonwealth  require  that  avenue  to  be  con- 
structed, and  it  is  not  likely  to  be  accomplished  without  our  aid,  let  the 
State  put  her  shoulder  to  the  w^ork. 

But  do  not,  as  a  preliminary  step,  increase  the  periodical  derange- 
ment of  the  currency  and  the  market,  —  make  trade,  even  more  than  it 
is,  a  lottery  ;    and  impoverish  many  of  those  whom  you   purpose   to 

31* 


366  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  AVRITINGS 

benefit,  merely  because  we  can  pay  ourselves  a  bonus  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  this  monstrous  bank,  as  if  we  must  needs  cheat  ourselves 
of  our  own  money,  out  of  one  pocket  into  the  other,  before  we  can  use 
it.  Excess  of  our  business  beyond  our  capital,  over-banking  in  other 
States,  and  the  Western  Railroad,  —  these  are  the  only  arguments  yet 
brought  forward  in  favor  of  this  bank.  Neither  of  them  answers 
my  objection,  but  each  sustains  and  strengthens  it.  How,  then,  shall 
it  be  answered?  It  has  not  been,  it  will  not  be,  it  cannot  be  an- 
swered, 

I  have  described  the  general  character  of  the  fluctuations  in  business, 
not  because  they  are  unknown,  but  because  their  history  is  familiar  to 
all,  and,  therefore,  the  force  of  the  argument  to  be  drawn  from  it  must 
be  felt  by  all.  It  cannot  be  resisted  or  evaded.  It  may,  perhaps,  be 
made  more  impressive,  by  the  consideration  of  particular  instances ;  and 
I  will  go  over  a  period  of  twenty  years  to  exhibit  the  certainty  and  reg- 
ularity with  which  the  influences  I  have  been  discussing,  operate.  It 
would  be  easy  to  go  back  to  the  history  of  the  colonies,  of  the  revolu- 
tion, and  of  the  stagnation  after  the  war,  and  before  the  adoption  of  the 
federal  Constitution,  the  revival  of  credit  and  commerce  after  the  Con- 
stitution, the  pressure  of  1797,  and  so  on,  through  the  embargo,  non-in- 
tercourse and  war,  and  demonstrate  the  action  of  these  influences 
throughout  the  whole  of  our  existence.  But  great  political  revolutions, 
military  operations,  and  sudden  changes  in  our  foreign  relations,  make 
the  inquiry  more  complicated,  and,  for  the  present  purpose,  less  instruc- 
tive.    Wc  will  begin,  Sir,  after  the  close  of  the  late  war. 

1.  In  1816,  over-banking  arrived  at  its  highest  point.  The  banking 
capital  of  the  United  States  had  been  increased  from  $52,010,000,  Jan- 
uary 1st,  1811,  to  $89,820,000,  January  1st,  181G.  The  increase  in 
bank  note  circulation  has  been  estimated  at  a  vastly  greater  proportion, 

.i\om  ixhoui  tiventy-eight  millions  in  1811,  to  ixhout  one  hundred  and  ten 
millions  in  1816.  The  sudden  contraction  of  this  circulation  by  the  re- 
sumption of  specie  payments  in  1817,  reduced  it  to  about  sixty  millions. 
Such  an  expansion  and  contraction  will  sufficiently  account  for  all  the 
disasters  of  that  gloomy  period. 

2.  In  1819,  came  on  a  very  serious  crash.  The  United  States  Bank 
had  commenced  operations  in  1817,  and  was  by  this  time  in  full  blast. 
It  had  drained  the  whole  Western  country  of  its  specie,  broke  the 
Western  banks,  and  then  closed  its  Western  offices,  and  left  them,  with- 
out specie  or  paper,  to  recover  as  they  could.  This  is  what  is  called 
regulating  the  currency,  and  it  is  to  be  one  of  the  principal  objects  of  our 
ten  million  monster  to  regulate  the  currency.  So  terrible  was  the  regu- 
lation that  the  United  States  Bank  itself  was  brouofht  to  the  brink  of 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  357 

bankruptcy.  In  the  words  of  its  energetic  president,  Mr.  Clieves,  "  all 
the  resources  of  the  bank  would  not  have  sustained  it  in  this  course 
another  month:  such  was  the  prostrate  state  of  the  bank  of  the  nation, 
which  had  only  twenty-seven  months  commenced  business,  with  an  un- 
trammelled capital  of  twenty-eight  millions  of  dollars."  The  effect  of 
this  first  regulation  of  the  currency  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
was  a  ruinous  fall  of  prices,  enormous  sacrifices  of  property,  and  calam- 
itous failures  almost  innumerable.  A  chaos  of  tender  laws,  stop  laws, 
and  relief  laws,  grew  out  of  it  in  the  west,  to  aggravate  the  distress  and 
prolong  the  confusion. 

o.  In  1822,  after  business  had  extricated  itself  from  the  derangement 
of  1810,  and  got  under  way  again,  with  that  spirit  of  enterprise  which 
leaves  but  a  short  space  for  pauses,  a  course  of  overtrading  commenced, 
stimulated  as  before  by  bank  facihties,  and  giving  birth  to  another  re- 
vulsion, just  three  years,  or  a  little  less,  from  the  preceding.  In  Boston 
alone,  one  hundred  and  sixty  failures  occurred,  mostly  in  less  than  two 
months,  and  similar  disasters  visited  other  cities. 

4.  But  this  did  not  prevent  another  rush  into  the  wildest  speculations; 
and  in  another  three  years,  in  1825,  a  reaction  resulted  which  prostrated 
credit,  and  swept  the  whole  coast  of  the  Athantic.  It  fell  with  a  tre- 
mendous and  crushing  force  on  tlie  commerce  of  the  country,  and  mark- 
ed its  path  with  wide  spread  devastation,  not  only  of  the  uncertain  gains 
of  adventurers  without  capital,  but  of  the  accumulations  of  prudent  and 
well  conducted  industry.  Its  consequences  were  only  less  appalling 
than  those  which  in  England,  at  the  same  time,  followed  similar  extrava- 
gant commercial  operations. 

5.  In  1828,  after  three  years  more,  the  money  market  was  again 
thrown  into  disorder,  and  the  utmost  consternation  pervaded  the  whole 
business  community.  Manufacturing  had  been  most  overdone, —  that 
interest,  therefore,  was  most  exposed,  and  suifered  most.  All  confidence 
in  manufiicturing  operations  seemed  to  be  annihilated,  and  the  stock  was 
for  some  time  almost  literally  worthless.  There  were,  also,  numerous 
commercial  failures ;  trade  was  brought  to  a  stand,  and  stagnated  for 
that  year,  and  great  part  of  the  next.  This  long  continued  pressure 
ceased  in  1829,  after  the  surplus  stock  had  been  worked  off,  and  the  in- 
dustry of  the  country  had  time  to  recover  from  the  shock,  and  adjust 
itself  under  the  new  restrictions  of  the  tariff  of  1828. 

6.  Four  years  of  unexampled  prosperity  succeeded.  As  the  resources 
of  the  country  were  developed,  and  new  facilities  were  added  every  day 
to  the  cheapness,  extent,  and  rapidity  of  intercourse,  the  proceeds  of 
productive  industry  were  augmented,  and  a  healthy  commerce  expanded 
itself  wonderfully.     The  wisdom  which  presided  over  our  foreign  rela- 


368  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tions,  provided  the  opportunity  for  a  safe  and  substantial  expansion,  by 
oj^ening  new  avenues  to  commerce,  by  giving  it  additional  facilities  and 
security,  by  bringing  capital  into  the  country,  in  the  shape  of  indemni- 
fication for  foreign  spoliations,  by  the  free  admission  of  goods  which 
had  formerly  paid  duties,  and  by  the  confidence,  altogether  unfelt  before, 
in  the  soundness  and  stability  of  the  existing  prosperity,  which  a  bold, 
but  firm,  judicious,  and  above  all,  a  steady  policy,  everywhere  inspired. 
These  causes  combined  to  keep  off  the  evil  day.  Tliey  satisfactorily 
explain  the  fact,  that,  for  the  first  time,  more  than  four  years,  instead  of 
less  than  tliree^  intervened  before  the  next  revulsion.  It  might  be  de- 
layed, but  as  it  grew  out  of  the  nature  of  things,  sooner  or  later  it  must 
come.  Symptoms  of  overtrading  began  to  be  manifested.  The  imports, 
which,  in  1830,  amounted  to  seventy  millions,  had  risen,  in  1833,  to  one 
hundred  and  nine  millions,  an  advance  of  about  fifty-six  per  cent.,  in 
three  years.  Bank  facilities  administered  all  possible  stimulus  to  the 
disposition  to  speculate  and  overtrade.  The  United  States  Bank  may 
be  referred  to  as  a  specimen,  the  more  so,  as  it  is  the  regulator ;  and 
when  it  enlarges  its  discounts,  all  the  other  banks  enlarge  theirs.  In 
1831,  the  mammoth  bank  extended  its  loans  more  than  twenty  millions 
of  dollars,  an  advance  of  about  fifty  'per  cent.,  in  a  single  year,  upon  its 
previous  accommodations.  In  the  first  five  months  of  1832,  it  extended 
seven  millions  more,  swelling  its  loans  to  the  amount  of  $70,428,000. 
The  banks  generally,  of  course,  followed  to  the  limit  of  their  means ; 
there  then  v\'as  an  adequate  cause  for  the  pressure  of  1833  and  1834,  and 
men  of  ordinary  sagacity  foresaw  its  approach.  The  country,  however, 
was  better  prepared  than  ever  before  to  sustain  it,  from  the  solid  acces- 
sions to  its  wealth,  gathered  from  four  years  of  successful  and  highly 
lucrative  enterprise.  The  distress,  therefore,  was  comparatively  slight, 
—  it  was  slight  beyond  all  former  precedent,  either  in  1817,  or  1819,  or 
1822,  or  1825,  or  1828  and  1829.  It  may  be  favorably  contrasted  with 
either  of  those  periods,  but  it  would  have  been  still  slighter,  if  some 
peculiar  causes  had  not  combined  to  aggravate  it.  In  August,  1833,  the- 
great  bank  suddenly  began  to  contract  v>^ithout  any  apparent  necessity  ; 
before  the  first  of  October,  their  curtailments  amounted  to  $4,166,000, 
while  the  public  deposits  in  their  vaults  were  increased  $1,582,000  ; 
thus  diminishing  the  accommodations  almost  six  millions  of  dollars  in 
tivo  months,  and  compelling  other  banks  to  a  still  further  diminution. 
This,  of  course,  produced  some  embarrassment,  and  would  have  caused 
much  more,  but  after  the  first  of  October,  deposits  of  the  public  money 
w^ere  made  in  other  banks,  which  discounted  upon  them  as  far  as  they 
safely  could.  This  measure  immediately  alleviated  the  distress,  as  those 
who  have  contrived  to  forget  the  circumstance,  may  ascertain,  by  turn- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  369 

ing  to  the  opposition  papers  of  that  month.  It  broke  the  force  of  the 
blow  which  the  bank  had  prepared  to  inflict  on  the  country.  Though 
the  bank  exerted,  with  terrible  energy,  its  destructive  power,  curtailing, 
from  August  to  December,  almost  ten  millions,  and  curtailing,  in  Boston 
alone,  four  millions  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  six  months,  it  could 
not  increase  the  pressure,  and  could  hardly  keep  it  up  to  the  standard  of 
September,  until  congress  came  together  in  December.  Several  gentle- 
men, of  the  highest  order  of  talent,  seconded  the  war  of  the  bank  upon 
the  prosperity  of  the  country,  by  a  fierce  attack  on  confidence  and 
credit,  which  raged,  with  unmitigated  fury,  through  a  six-month's  session. 
The  panic  which  they  originated  and  sustained,  restored  the  pressure  to 
its  former  force,  and  it  was  heightened  by  an  extraordinary  demand  for 
several  millions  to  meet  the  joayments  for  cash  duties,  and  on  short 
credits,  under  Mr.  Clay's  bill.  In  the  city  of  New  York,  three  millions 
and  a  half  were  required  for  this  purpose  in  a  single  week,  in  January, 
and  large  sums  in  all  the  great  cities.  But  the  panic  ceased  in  June, 
instantaneously  upon  the  adjournment  of  congress,  and  the  pressure 
passed  away  with  it,  though  the  bank  continued  its  contracting  operation 
through  the  summer.  From  the  first  of  August,  1833,  to  the  first  of 
August,  1834,  the  bank  curtailed  its  discounts  about  seventeen  millions 
of  dollars,  or  more  than  one-fourth  of  their  whole  amount.  It  withdrew 
from  our  general  circulation  about  three  millions  of  its  bills,  and  about 
three  and  a  half  millions  of  specie.  The  forced  curtailments  of  other 
banks,  and  the  compulsory  diminution  of  their  circulation,  must,  of 
course,  be  estimated  at  vastly  greater  sums.  The  last  pressure,  there- 
fore, was,  hke  former  cases,  merely  a  reaction,  and  ligliter  than  usual, 
after  overtrading,  stimulated  by  an  extravagant  expansion  of  bank  dis- 
counts, to  which  reaction  there  was  added,  by  the  United  States  Bank,  a 
convulsion  in  the  money  market,  and  by  certain  political  leaders,  an  arti- 
ficial panic  created  for  electioneering  purposes. 

The  general  law  of  fluctuations  seems  to  be  well  ascertained  and 
established.  It  occupies  periods  of  about  three  years  each,  rising  and 
falling  within  that  space,  with  as  much  regularity  as  the  billows  of  the 
ocean,  and  from  causes  as  infallible  in  their  operation.  I  have  enume- 
rated six  of  these  fluctuations ;  nobody  denies  that  we  have  passed 
through  them,  through  every  one  of  them  ;  yet.  Sir,  men  are  found  to 
deny  that  the  seventh  will  ever  come.  Proudly  arrogating  to  them- 
selves the  title  of  practical  men,  they  sneer  at  this  statement  of  facts 
and  call  it  theory.  Confident  in  their  own  instructive  sagacity,  they  de- 
cline to  render  a  reason  for  their  opinions,  delivered  with  dogmatical 
authority,  but  would  have  it  quite  sufficient  that  they,  practical  men, 
guess  that  it  will  be  so.     And  if,  Sir,  I  should  show  these  gentlemen,  as 


370  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

I  might  do  so  easily,  how  regularly  and  infallibly  they  have  been  mis- 
taken in  all  their  conjectures  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  that  the 
surest  guaranty  of  any  event  has  been,  during  all  that  time,  their  pre- 
diction that  it  would  not  happen,  this  would  not  for  a  moment  shake 
their  confidence  in  that  judgment  which  rests  on  no  foundation,  in  those 
conjectures  that  oppose  themselves  to  all  experience.  Oh  no !  Being 
practical  men,  they  have  a  right  to  sneer  at  all  observation  and  its 
results.  Because  they  are  matter-of-fact  men,  they  scorn  to  look  at  facts 
before  their  eyes,  lest  they  should  be  led  to  draw  an  inference,  —  an 
operation  unbecoming  matter-of-fact  men.  Shakspeare  considered  it  the 
prerogative  of  man  to  look  before  and  after,  but  these  gentlemen,  in 
their  hatred  of  all  theory,  will  neither  regard  the  experience  of  the  past, 
nor  heed  the  plainest  indications  of  the  future.  They  see  that  the  pen- 
dulum, which  has  vibrated  so  long,  is  raised  above  its  resting  place,  but 
they  deny  that  it  will  ever  swing  back  again.  They  have  marked  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  tides,  and  they  believe  the  tradition  of  their  uniform 
ebb  and  flow,  from  time  immemorial,  yet  they  say  because  it  is  rising 
now  it  will  never  fall  again.  They  stand  on  the  shore  and  count  the  waves 
as  they  break  in  perpetual  succession  ;  and  as  each  rolls  back  discom- 
fited, they  exclaim,  their  motion  has  ceased ;  another  will  never  come. 

To  those  who  do  not  choose  to  look  at  the  general  fact  of  these  peri- 
odical revulsions  returning  with  such  uniform  regularity,  a  narrower 
view  may  be  exhibited,  leading  to  the  same  conclusion  with  the  same 
unerring  certainty.  If  overtrading  has  always,  after  short  intervals, 
brought  business  to  a  stand,  is  there  not  overtrading  now  ?  Our  imports 
for  the  year  1830,  were  seventy  millions,  and  for  the  years  1830,  1831, 
1832,  and  1833,  in  which  last  year  business  was  over  done,  the  average 
of  imports  was  about  ninety-six  millions;  yet  in  1835,  they  are  sup- 
posed to  have  exceeded  one  hundred  and  Jifty-one  millions ;  more  than 
double  the  amount  five  years  before.  Manufacturing  has  also  expe- 
rienced a  wonderful  increase  of  activity  during  the  same  time.  Specu- 
lations in  land  have  been  carried  even  further  beyond  the  bounds  of 
prudence  than  commerce  or  manufactures.  To  say  nothing  of  the  im- 
mense sums  invested  in  timber  lands  in  Maine,  at  prices  so  much  above 
all  former  precedent,  which  obviously  have  contributed  much  to  the 
local  pressure  in  this  section  of  the  country,  look  only  at  the  prodigious 
and  incredible  enlargement  of  the  government  sales.  They  had  never 
amounted  to  a  million  of  acres  before  1815  ;  but  in  1817,  the  year  of 
the  first  pressure  I  enumerated,  they  rose  to  more  than  two  millions ; 
and  in  1819,  the  year  of  the  second  of  those  pressures,  they  rose  to  Jive 
and  a  half  millions  of  acres.  This  was  because  "  the  temptations  of  the 
credit  system,  and  the  great  rise  in  the  price  of  cotton,  induced  larger 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  37X 

purchases."  But  the  fall  of  cotton  in  1820,  left  the  purchasers  in  debt 
to  the  government,  over  twenty-two  millions  of  dollars  ;  the  sales  were 
reduced  to  much  less  than  a  million  of  acres  a  year,  and  kept  below 
that  point  till  the  rise  of  cotton  in  the  speculations  of  1825,  gave  a  new 
impulse,  and  in  1829,  they  again  reached  a  million  of  acres.  In  1834, 
they  exceeded  four  7nillions  of  acres,  and  in  1835,  nine  7iiilUons  of  acres, 
and  the  mania  still  rages  undiminished.  This  cause  alone  would  bring 
on  a  reaction.  The  creation  of  fancy  stocks  of  every  possible  descrip- 
tion is  still  more  extravagant.  lias  this  rush  into  speculation,  of  all 
sorts,  been  stimulated,  as  in  all  former  instances,  by  overbanking  ?  Un- 
doubtedly ;  as  a  moment's  consideration  will  show.  In  1830,  the  bank 
capital  of  the  United  States  was  one  hundred  and  forty-jive  millions,  dis- 
tributed among  three  hundred  and  twenty  banks,  having  a  circulation  of 
sixty-one  millions.  In  1835,  five  hundred  and  fifty-eight  banks  wielded 
a  capital  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-one  millions  of  dollars,  and  enjoyed 
a  circulation  of  one  hundred  and  three  millions.  Adding  the  banks 
created  within  the  year  past,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our  bank- 
ing capital  exceeds  three  hundred  millions,  and  the  bank  note  circulation 
amounts,  probably,  to  considerably  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  millions. 

In  1830,  the  wdiole  specie  in  the  country  was  estimated  by  Sandford  at 
twenty-three,  and  by  Gallatin  at  thirty-three,  millions ;  the  average  may 
be  near  the  truth,  —  say  twenty-eight  millions  of  dollars.  In  1834,  it 
had  risen  to  fifty-five  miUions  ;  specie  during  and  after  the  pressure  na- 
turally flowed  in  rapidly  :  from  the  date  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits, 
October  1st,  1833,  to  December  4th,  1834,  there  arrived  in  specie  twenty 
millions  of  dollars  beyond  wdiat  was  exported.  January  1st,  1835,  there 
were  forty-four  millions  of  specie  in  the  vaults  of  the  banks ;  suppose 
twenty-six  millions  more  to  be  in  circulation,  and  we  have  an  aggregate 
of  seventy  millions.  The  aggregate  loans  of  the  banks  in  1835,  were 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  millions  in  January,  and  may  have  been  ex- 
tended in  the  past  fifteen  months  a  hundred  millions  more. 

Has  the  great  increase  of  the  circulation  produced  its  natural  effect  of 
raising  the  prices  of  all  articles,  and  depreciating  the  value  of  money  ? 
He  must  be  blind  who  does  not  see  it.  The  prices  of  real  estate  have 
experienced  an  enormous  rise,  both  in  the  city  and  in  the  country,  in 
timber  land,  in  new  land  for  settlement,  or  held  on  speculation.  All  ar- 
ticles in  market  feel  the  effect.  Flour  is  double  what  it  was  in  1830  ; 
mackerel  is  double  ;  pork  is  more  than  double.  Agricultural  products, 
generally,  it  has  been  stated,  are  full  fifty  per  cent,  above  their  average 
prices.  Imported  articles  are  much  higher  than  a  fair  average,  notwith- 
standing the  double   importations ;  notwithstanding  the  great  reduction 


372  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

of  duties,  which  has  saved  the  peoj^le  of  the  United  States  eighty-five 
millions  of  dollars,  on  articles  imported  for  their  use,  within  the  last  five 
years.  With  the  richest  virgin  soil  in  the  w^orld,  in  inexhaustible  mil- 
lions of  acres  lying  uncultivated,  we  are  now  importing  wheat  and  other 
breadstuffs,  just  as,  in  1819,  we  imported  fifteen  millions  of  pounds  of 
cotton.  The  exportation  of  specie  has  commenced,  as  it  would  have 
done  long  ago,  had  not  an  unusually  large  cotton  crop,  at  unusually  high 
prices,  paid  for  much  of  the  surplus  importations.  The  average  price 
of  cotton,  for  seven  years,  from  182G  to  1832,  inclusive,  was  ten  cents  a 
pound.  In  1833,  it  averaged  eleven  cents,  —  in  1834,  thirteen  cents, — 
in  1835,  a  fraction  short  of  seventeen  cents.  In  1830,  the  crop  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  pounds,  at  ten  cents,  amounted  to  thirty- 
five  millions  of  dollars  ;  but  in  1835,  the  crop  of  four  hundred  and  eighty 
millions  of  pounds,  will  sell,  at  sixteen  and  two  thirds  cents,  for  eighty 
millions  of  dollars,  —  more  than  double  the  former  sum.  The  crops  of 
1833  and  183-1,  were  both  immensely  large,  as  well  as  high  ;  but  on  the 
last  crop,  the  exports  ascertained  on  the  Atlantic  down  to  February  17, 
1836,  were  377,420  bags,  —  while  to  the  same  date,  in  1835,  they  were 
only  340,379,  and  in  1834,  only  309,976.  The  excess  in  quantity,  and 
the  enhanced  price,  have  prevented  specie  from  flowing  out  of  the  coun- 
try, so  fast  as  it  w^ould  have  been  expected,  and  kept  down  the  rate  of 
exchange.* 

Allow  me.  Sir,  to  recapitulate  the  signs  of  overaction  in  our  business, 
and  see  whether  there  is  room  to  doubt  the  fact.  Setting  out  from  the 
year  1830,  as  a  point  of  dej)ression,  —  for  the  last  pressure  was  not 
severe  enough  or  long  enough  to  afford  a  starting  point,  —  we  find  that 
the  value  of  our  cotton  crop  has  more  than  doubled,  and  yet  we  are  ex- 
porting specie.  Our  imports  have  more  than  doubled,  yet  the  prices  of 
imports  are  higher  from  twenty  to  more  than  fifty  per  cent.,  though  \Ye 
have  been  relieved  from  the  payment  on  them  of  eighty-five  millions  of 
dollars  in  duties.  Manufactured  goods  have  also  risen,  in  spite  of  the 
great  increase  of  the  business,  and  the  diminished  protection,  to  say 
nothing  of  improved  machinery  and  maturer  skill.  Agricultural  pro- 
ducts have  risen,  some  fifty,  some  a  hundred  per  cent.,  and  we  buy  bread 
cheaper  abroad  than  at  home.  Corporations,  for  various  speculations, 
have  been  increased  to  five  times,  or  perhaps  ten  times,  their  aggregate 
amount  five  years  ago.  The  public  lands  are  selling  with  ten  times  the 
rapidity  with  wdiich  they  had  sold  at  any  time  for  ten  years  previous  to 
1830.     Speculation  in  other  lands  have  been  scarcely  less  excessive. 

*  Erom  March  1  to  March  28, 1836,  $216,000  in  specie  were  exported  from  Boston, 
over  the  imports.  It  was  also  shipped  from  New  York,  in  the  same  month,  and  else- 
where. 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  373 

We  look  for  the  immediate  stimulus  of  all  this  amazing  overaction 
and  we  find  it  in  the  diseased  state  of  the  currency  and  in  over-bankino-. 
The  specie  in  the  country  having  been  doubled  since  1830,  the  banking- 
capital  has  been  more  than  doubled,  bank  facilities  have  been  more  than 
doubled,  and  the  bank  note  circulation  has  been  more  than  doubled,  and 
the  whole  currency  was  more  than  doubled. 

Population  may  have  increased  eighteen  per  cent,  in  the  meantime, 
but  if  wealth  had  increased  twice  as  fast,  say  thirty-six  per  cent.,  this 
would  afford  no  justification  for  such  an  immense  expansion. 

A  community  drunk  with  this  factitious  prosperity,  calls  aloud  for  more 
stimulus,  as  naturally  as  a  man  exhilarated  with  brandy  demands  another 
glass.  We  are  suffering  under  a  scarcity  of  money,  cry  seventeen  hundred 
and  thirty-six  petitioners,  just  as  the  man  intoxicated  to  insanity  will  swear 
he  practices  total  abstinence.  The  check  just  now  experienced  is  a  whole- 
some preventive.  Let  it  have  its  perfect  work,  and  it  may  save  us  from  a 
terrible  catastrophe.  But  if  we  give  way  to  the  entreaties  of  the  pa- 
tient, and  feed  his  fever  with  superadded  excitement,  we  shall  be  answer- 
able to  our  country,  to  our  own  consciences,  and  before  God,  for  the 
melancholy  consequences  that  must  ensue  from  such  mad  and  wicked 
folly. 

[Mr.  Rantoul  then  went  on  to  examine,  at  length,  the  objections  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  proposed  bank  and  to  the  details  of  the  bill.  Mr. 
Robinson,  of  Marblehead,  also  opposed  the  project  with  great  energy 
and  eloquence.  Sixteen  gentlemen  made  twenty-four  speeches  in  favor 
of  the  bank,  including  the  speaker  of  the  house,  and  all  the  principal 
leaders  of  the  whig  party.  On  the  question  of  the  third  reading  the 
yeas  and  nays  stood,  for  the  bill  two  hundred  and  fifteen,  against  it  two 
hundred  and  sixteen.  Next  day  the  vote  was  reconsidered  two  hundred 
and  forty-two  to  two  hundred  and  forty-one.  Sixty-six  of  the  majority 
were  the  whig  delegation  of  the  county  of  Suffolk,  and  two  thirds  of 
the  absentees  were  probably  opposed  to  the  bank.  The  news  of  the 
position  of  the  bill,  (which  was  expected  to  pass,)  would  have  brought 
them  all  in.  It  was,  therefore,  after  a  desperate  resistance  from  a  part 
of  the  delegation  from  Boston,  with  Mr.  Billings  of  Conway,  and  Hon. 
Isaac  C.  Bates  of  Northampton,  indefinitely  postponed  by  a  very  de- 
cided majority. 

It  is  thus  referred,  as  its  friends  remarked,  to  the  decision  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  will  take  care  that  their  representatives  in  the  next  legislature, 
shall  be  instructed  of  the  sentiment  of  their  constituents  upon  so  mo- 
mentous a  question.] 

32 


374  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Mr.  Rantoul  was,  on  all  sides,  greeted  with  applause  for  his 
noble  and  successful  efforts,  in  debate,  to  defeat  a  measure  so 
fraught  with  evil  as  the  Ten  Million  Bank  project.  The  late 
Governor  Hill,  of  New  Hampshire,  in  a  letter  to  the  committee 
of  citizens  of  Worcester,  in  answer  to  their  invitation  to  be 
present  to  hear  Mr.  Rantoul's  oration,  July  4,  1837,  thus 
speaks  of  him  and  his  services  in  the  cause  of  democracy  :  — 
"  Your  Commonwealth,  the  whole  people  of  the  United 
States,  owe  to  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  a  debt  of  gratitude  which 
mere  partisans  will  not  be  willing  to  acknowledge.  *  *  *  *  I 
would  that  every  man  and  every  man-child  in  the  United  States 
would  read  the  speech  of  Mr.  Rantoul.  From  incontrover- 
tible past  occurrences,  he  inferred  that  precise  state  of  things 
which  has  since  happened ;  his  prophecy  has  proved  to  be  his- 
tory. The  Boston  merchants  who  petitioned  for  the  Ten 
Million  Bank,  will  admit  that  their  condition  would  have  been 
still  more  deplorable  had  they  gained  the  object  of  their  wishes." 

The  following  is  the  decision  of  the  speaker,  and  remarks 
of  Mr.  Rantoul,  in  the  house  of  representatives  of  Massa- 
chusetts, January  17th  and  18th,  1838,  "  That  a  stockholder 
in  a  bank  is  not  interested  in  the  laws  concerning  banking,  so 
as  to  exclude  him  from  voting  or  serving  on  a  committee  on 
those  laws  "  :  — 

Mr.  Rantoul,  of  Gloucester,  moved  to  excuse  Mr.  Mixter  of  Hard- 
wick,  from  serving  on  the  committee  on  a  memorial  of  the  associated 
banks  of  Boston,  to  whom  had  been  referred  so  much  of  the  governor's 
address  as  relates  to  banks  and  banking,  on  the  ground  that  Mr.  Mixter 
was  a  stockholder  and  director  in  the  Ware  Bank,  and  therefore  excluded 
from  the  committee  by  the  rule  of  the  house. 

A  great  number  of  gentlemen  having  spoken  for  ^ome  days  against 
the  motion,  Mr.  Rantoul  replied,  and  called  for  the  yeas  and  nays,  which 
were  ordered. 

Mr.  Park,  of  Boston,  who  was  in  favor  of  allowing  stockholders  to  sit 
on  the  committee  and  vote  on  the  question,  inquired  of  the  chair  if  bank 
stockholders  could  vote  on  the  question  of  excusing  Mr.  Mixter  from  the 
committee. 

The  chair  replied  that  they  could  vote  on  that  question,  and  also  serve 
upon  the  committee. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  375 

Mr.  Sturgis,  of  Boston,  who  agreed  with  the  decision  of  the  chair,  ap- 
pealed from  the  decision  of  the  chair. 

Mr.  Browne,  of  Boston,  who  was  in  favor  of  the  decision  of  the  chair, 
called  for  the  yeas  and  nays  on  the  appeal  from  the  chair,  which  were 
ordered. 

The  chair  then  read  an  elaborately  written  opinion  upon  the  point  of 
order  thus  suddenly  raised  by  its  friends,  resting  its  decision  ultimately 
on  the  case  of  the  Gold  Coin  Bill,  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  in 
July,  1811. 

The  question  being  on  sustaining  the  decision  of  the  chair,  —  no  one 
else  rising  to  reply,  and  the  gentleman  who  appealed  from  the  decision 
being  in  favor  of  it,  and  therefore  not  disposed  to  controvert  the  speak- 
er's argument,  Mr.  Hantoul  rose  and  said:  — 

That  the  question  before  the  house  was  a  very  simple  one.  It  was  a 
question  as.  to  the  construction  of  a  sentence  of  plain  English.  The 
house  had  adopted  an  absolute  rule  for  the  constitution  of  committees, 
and  that  rule  admitted  of  but  one  interpretation.  The  English  language 
did  not  furnish  terms  which  could  more  explicitly  express  the  intention 
of  the  house  than  those  employed.  It  is  not  proposed  to  repeal  the  rule. 
The  only  question  any  man  pretends  to  raise,  is  as  to  its  meaning ;  and 
its  meaning  is  unquestionable. 

The  rule  of  the  house  is  in  these  words  :  Rules  and  Orders,  Chapter 
II.,  Article  13.  "  No  member  shall  be  permitted  to  vote,  or  serve  on 
any  committee  in  any  question  wdiere  his  private  right  is  immediately 
concerned,  distinct  from  the  public  interest." 

The  chair  imagines  that  a  stockholder  and  director  in  a  bank  has  no 
private  right  or  interest,  distinct  from  the  public  interest,  and  immedi- 
ately concerned  in  the  various  questions  concerning  banks  which  are 
agitated  at  the  present  crisis,  and  which  have  been  referred  to  this  com- 
mittee. Indeed  !  Is  there  no  distinct  interest  here  ?  What  then  means 
the  zeal,  not  to  say  the  fury,  with  which  this  question  is  debated?  What 
generates  all  this  heat?  There  are  men  enough  in  this  house  who  do 
not  own  bank  stock  to  constitute  a  very  respectable  and  intelligent  com- 
mittee. If  the  owners  of  bank  stock  have  no  distinct  interest,  why  this 
determination,  at  the  expense  of  a  week's  debate,  to  keep  upon  the  com- 
mittee, apparently  against  their  will,  such  stockholders  and  directors  as 
have  accidentally  been  placed  there  by  the  chair  ?  What  has  produced 
so  much  excitement,  so  much  anxiety,  both  in  this  house  and  out  of  it? 
Can  any  man  shut  his  eyes  to  the  distinct  private  interest  which  he 
meets  when  he  walks  down  State  street  ?  Can  I  be  blind  to  the  expres- 
sion of  an  intense  interest  in  many  faces  around  me  ?  I  have  no  skill 
in  physiognomy  if  there  be  not  a  distinct   interest  working  itself  into 


376  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  AVRITINGS 

action  in  most  veliement  and  powerful  feelings.  That  it  is  so,  is  open  and 
notorious  as  noonday.  If  it  were  not  so,  we  should  discuss  the  question 
w^ith  as  much  coolness  as  any  mathematical  proposition  ;  yet  gentlemen 
march  up  to  it,  as  to  a  great  practical  question,  involving  vast  pecuniary 
consequences.  It  cannot  be  disguised,  —  the  great  banking  interest  is 
here,  fighting  hard  and  desperately  for  that  which  it  has  in  its  pock- 
ets, and  that  which  it  hopes  to  put  in  its  pockets.  Banks  which 
are  not  needed  for  public  accommodation,  are  7iuisances,  says  the 
gentleman  from  Boston,  (Mr.  Savage).  We  have  more  banks  than 
are  wanted,  —  too  many  for  the  public  interest,  cry  all  the  gentle- 
men from  Boston,  in  unison,  including  those  who  voted  for  tlie  last 
twenty  or  thirty.  The  whole  banking  system  is  rotten,  says  the  gentle- 
man from  Boston,  (Mr.  Brooks,)  it  is  like  a  bad  egg, — not  to  be  divi- 
ded into  good  and  bad,  but  all  thrown  upon  the  dunghill  together.  The 
owners  of  near  forty  millions  of  this  rottenness  are  represented  on  this 
floor  by  a  part  of  their  number.  Does  the  chair  suppose  that  they  will 
stand  by,  disinterested  spectators,  if  the  nuisance  is  to  be  abated?  This  is 
too  large  a  draft  on  our  credulity.  However  the  party  drill  may  make  men 
vote,  I  shall  still  be  unable  to  conceive  how  any  man  can  suppos6  that  gen- 
tlemen distinctly  interested  in  banks  have  not  a  distinct  interest  in  them. 

The  chair  has  remarked  that  the  w^ords,  "  or  serve  07i  any  committee  " 
are  new.  They  are  now  for  the  first  time  introduced  into  the  rule. 
True ;  they  were  introduced  by  this  house,  and  for  good  reasons.  So 
evident  is  the  justice  of  this  rule,  that  it  was  adopted  by  an  imanimous 
vote.  Not  one  man  could  be  found  to  lift  up  his  hand  against  it,  so  long 
as  it  was  a  mere  abstract  proposition.  If  the  banks  had  not  an  actual 
interest  in  the  question  now  pending,  if  members  did  not  feel  that  actual 
interest  pressing  upon  them,  it  would  still  remain  an  abstract  proposition, 
just  as  it  was  before,  and  the  house  would  apply  the  rule  with  the  same 
entire  unanimity  with  which,  in  an  uncommonly  full  house,  they  adopted 
it  a  few  days  ago. 

This  rule,  unanimously  adopted,  meant  something.  It  still  means 
something.  When  we  incorporated  into  our  rules  one  of  the  plainest 
dictates  of  propriety  and  decency,  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
natural  justice,  it  was  not,  I  trust,  a  solemn  foolery,  a  hypocritical  farce, 
intended  to  blind  the  eyes  of  the  public  by  professing  a  purity  they  never 
meant  to  practise.  Most  unwillingly  shall  I  yield  to  the  conviction,  if  it 
be  at  last  forced  upon  me,  that  the  pretended  purity  of  this  house  is 
nothing  but  a  humbug,  —  that  the  purity  is  on  paper,  in  the  abstract, — 
while  "  rottenness,"  as  the  gentlemen  from  Boston  (Mr.  Brooks)  calls  it, 
claims  a  majority  on  the  committee  on  rottenness. 

The  chair  has  remarked  that  these  new  words  are  without  precedent 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  377 

on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  that  he  should  find  occasion  to  notice 
the  extreme  ambiguity  which  their  introduction  has  occasioned.  Sir, 
the  circumstances  which  created  the  necessity  for  the  new  rule  are  un- 
precedented. The  venerable  gentleman  from  Boston,  in  front  of  the 
chair,  (Mr.  Blake,)  has  told  us  that  he  can  demonstrate  that  a  majority 
of  this  house  are  directly  interested  in  banks.  Was  it  ever  openly 
avowed  before  that  a  distinct  private  interest  could  control  the  vote  of  this 
house  ?  And  now  that  this  boast  is  made,  and,  as  we  have  reason  to 
fear,  with  too  much  truth,  is  it  not  time  to  inquire  whether  the  predom- 
inant interest  here  intends  to  legislate  for  itself,  to  take  its  own  affairs 
into  its  own  hands,  and  set  at  defiance  the  public,  whose  interest  is  of  an 
opposite  character?  A  new  state  of  things  imperiously  demanded  the 
new  rule,  and  demands  that  it  be  enforced.  If  there  be  virtue  enough 
in  this  house,  let  it  be  enforced  to  the  letter.  If  there  be  not,  in 
God's  name  repeal  the  rule.  Leave  not  these  words  of  rebuke  upon 
your  order-book  to  shame  your  practice.  Let  not  this  house  plunge  into 
a  course  of  prostitution  preluded  by  a  public  proclamation  of  chastity. 

Is  there  an  ambiguity  in  this  rule  ?  I  would  be  glad  to  learn  what 
words  could  have  made  it  plainer.  To  my  mind  it  admits  of  but  one 
construction.  The  rule  as  to  the  right  of  voting  is  more  than  two  hun- 
dred years  old,  and  the  construction  to  be  given  to  it  is  well  settled. 
The  chair  has  observed  with  truth,  that  the  new  words  in  the  rule  have 
*'  neither  increased,  nor  diminished,  nor  in  any  w^ay  altered  the  terms,  or 
the  meaning  of  the  terms,  in  which  the  nature  of  the  private  right  or 
interest  which  is  to  prevent  a  member  from  taking  part  in  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  house,  was  stated."  The  only  alteration  is,  that  where  a 
member  could  not  vote,  he  cannot  now  serve  on  a  committee.  Whence, 
then,  arises  any  new  ambiguity  ? 

The  chair  is  of  opinion,  however,  that  the  rule  is  extremely  ambig- 
uous, and  that  it  is  to  be  strictly  construed  to  favor  the  right  of  the  mem- 
bers to  serve.  The  character  of  the  rule  demands,  says  the  chair,  the 
closest  and  narrowest  construction  of  which  its  terms  are  capable,  for  it 
tends  to  deprive  the  people  of  their  rightful  representation. 

Does  the  chair  mean  to  intimate  that  this  rule,  in  its  natural  construc- 
tion, is  unconstitutional  ?  I  think  not.  The  gentleman  from  Taunton 
(Mr.  Colby)  broadly  asserted  that  a  man  sent  here  had  a  right  to  vote 
on  every  question,  that  he  was  expected  to  do  so,  and  that  the  constitu- 
tional rights  of  his  constituents  would  be  taken  away  if  he  were  not 
allowed  to  vote  and  act  on  committees  in  every  case.  A  little  more 
legislative  experience  will  teach  the  gentleman  not  to  be  quite  so  hasty 
in  expounding  constitutional  doctrine.  This  rule,  as  to  voting,  was  a 
rule  of  immemorial  observance  before  the  Constitution  was  adopted. 

32* 


378  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND  WRITINGS 

The  Constitution  allows  to  this  house  tlie  power  to  make  its  own  rules 
and  orders.  It  was  then  within  the  purview  of  the  Constitution  that 
this  ancient  rule,  required  by  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  social 
compact,  should  be  adopted  by  this  house  for  its  own  government.  The 
gentleman  from  Boston  ( ]Mr.  Sturgis)  had  said  that  if  the  rule  should 
be  applied  to  cases  like  this,  he  would  not  submit  to  it !  How  he  w^ould 
resist  it,  he  has  not  informed  us ;  nor  can  this  be  his  deliberate  intention  ; 
it  must  be  a  random  threat  thrown  out  in  the  heat  of  debate.  Neither 
of  these  gentlemen  (Messrs.  Colby  and  Sturgis)  has  proposed  to  repeal 
a  rule  wnich,  according  to  their  views,  would  seem  to  be  a  gross  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution;  and  when  the  gentleman  from  Pittsfield  (Mr. 
Hubbard)  suggested  the  other  day  that  the  rule  ought  to  be  repealed, 
because  of  its  inconvenience  in  the  present  case,  no  one  w^as  found  to 
follow  up  the  hint  he  gave. 

But  the  chair  is  too  well  read  in  parliamentary  law  to  run  into  any  of 
these  wild  vagaries.  The  chair  evades  the  rule,  but  does  not  ask  for  its 
repeal.  The  evasion  resorted  to  by  the  chair  is  singularly  ingenious  and 
original ;  such  as  was  never  heard  of  before,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think 
never  will  be  again.  The  chair  submits,  that  "  the  first  inquiry  should 
be,  not  how  deeply  the  private  right  or  interest  of  the  member  was  con- 
cerned, but  how  deeply  the  paramount  interest  of  the  public  was  at  stake 
in  the  question.  And,  in  the  opinion  of  the  chair,  any  important  public 
interest  would  so  overrule  and  cover  up  the  personal  interests  and 
private  rights  of  a  member,  which  might  be  concerned,  as  to  entitle  him 
at  once  to  his  vote  and  to  his  voice  on  committees,  or  in  the  house  as  one 
of  the  representatives  of  the  people."  From  premises  so  strangely  para- 
doxical, one  might  anticipate  the  startling  absurdity  of  the  conclusion. 
To  the  eye  of  unsophisticated  common  sense,  it  would  appear,  that  the 
more  important  the  public  interest  concerned  might  be,  the  more  neces- 
sary would  it  be  to  guard,  with  extreme  jealousy,  the  purity  of  the 
tribunal  who  are  to  adjudicate  upon  that  interest.  Not  so  is  the  opinion 
of  the  chair.  The  chair  gravely  decides,  that  though  in  a  matter  of  no 
importance  at  all,  he  would  remove  from  a  committee,  or  deprive  of  his 
vote,  a  member  having  a  distinct  private  interest,  yet  where  the  para- 
mount interest  of  the  public  was  deeply  at  stake  in  the  question,  and  the 
rights  of  the  member  seemed  to  come  into  conflict  with  the  interests  of 
the  people,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  chair  to  sit  by  silent,  and  see  the 
paramount  public  interests  of  the  whole  people  sacrificed,  and  leave  the 
interested  member  to  his  final  responsibility  to  his  immediate  constitu- 
ents, after  the  mischief  is  done.  Thus  the  Pharisees  of  old,  who  strained 
at  a  gnat,  could  swallow  a  camel. 

The  chair  is  certainly  perfectly  consistent  in  deciding  that  this  rule  is 


OF   EGBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  379 

to  be  construed  strictly  in  favor  of  private  rights,  and  against  the  public 
interest,  where  they  seem  to  conflict ;  and  that  the  narrowest  possible 
construction  should  be  adopted,  even  so  narrow  as  to  overlook  entirely 
a  private  right,  no  matter  liow  deeply  concerned,  in  the  very  case  where 
a  paramount  public  interest  being  in  jeopardy,  the  greatest  injury  would 
result  to  the  Commonwealth  from  the  refusal  of  the  chair  to  apply  the 
rule.  The  second  of  the  propositions  is  perhaps  as  defensible  as  the  first, 
and  may  naturally  flow  from  it,  and  in  advancing  them  both,  the  chair 
placed  itself  on  purely  tory  ground. 

Yes ;  the  chair  has  a  tory  precedent  for  preferring  private  right  to 
public  interest,  in  the  question  of  strict  construction.  But  though  the 
chair  and  British  tories  are  on  one  side,  I  must  be  allowed  to  stand  with 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  American  democrats  on  the  other.  The  immortal 
author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  apostle  of  American 
liberty,  has  expressed  himself  very  decidedly  upon  the  point.  He  has 
drawn  up  a  manual  of  rules  of  order  for  deliberative  assemblies,  which 
I  have  been  weak  enough  to  suppose  would  have  more  weight  in  the 
decisions  of  this  house,  than  any  misdeed  of  a  tory  House  of  Commons. 
Gentlemen  profess  great  respect  for  Thomas  Jefferson,  while  they  scoff 
at  the  principles  he  laid  down  ;  I  wish  they  would  show  their  reverence 
in  acts  instead  of  words. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  Thomas  Jefferson's  Manual,  which  has  long  been 
considered  the  best  authority,  after  our  own  rules  and  orders,  for  the 
general  regulation  of  the  business  of  the  house,  and  I  read  from  page 
54th  of  the  speaker's  copy. 

"  Where  the  private  interests  of  a  member  are  concerned  in  a  bill  in 
question,  he  is  to  withdraw.  And  where  such  an  interest  has  appeared, 
his  voice  has  been  disallowed,  even  after  a  division.  In  a  case  so  con- 
trary, not  only  to  the  laws  of  decency,  but  to  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  social  compact,  which  denies  to  any  man  to  he  a  judge  in  his  own 
cause,  it  is  for  the  honor  of  the  house  that  this  rule,  of  immemorial 
observance,  should  be  strictly  adhered  to." 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  of  opinion  that  the  honor  of  the  house  required  us 
to  adhere  strictly  to  the  rule,  and  exclude  all  members  where  their 
private  interests  are  concerned.  The  chair  believes,  that  the  nature  and 
effect  of  the  rule  require  of  him  the  narrowest  possible  construction,  and 
even  a  construction  narrower  than  any  man  would  have  believed  to  be 
possible,  if  the  chair  had  not  invented  and  announced  it.  For  the  chair 
virtually  nullifies  the  rule,  by  determining  that  in  matters  of  no  public 
consequence,  indeed,  it  may  apply;  but  that  in  questions  where  the 
paramount  interest  of  the  public  is  deeply  at  stake,  however  deeply  the 
private  right  or  interest  may  be  concerned,  and  seem  to  come  into  con- 


380  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

flict  with  the  interests  of  the  people,  the  rub  shall  be  a  dead  letter.  De 
minimis  non  curat  lex  ;  but  the  speaker's  law  cares  for  minimis  only. 

How  far  does  such  a  construction  protect  the  honor  of  this  house, 
which  this  rule  of  immemorial  observance  was  intended  to  protect  ?  The 
house,  like  Ccesar's  wife,  should  be  above  suspicion.  If  this  rule  is  to  be 
construed  strictly  in  favor  of  either  party,  plain  it  is  beyond  debate,  that 
the  laws  of  decency,  and  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  social  compact, 
denying  to  any  man  to  be  a  judge  in  his  own  cause,  and  the  honor  of  the 
house,  tarnished  and  obscured  if  its  committees  and  its  votes  be  subjected 
to  foul  imputations,  overrule  and  cover  up  not  only  the  private  right  and 
interest  of  the  incompetent  member,  but  any  local  or  temporary  interest 
which  his  immediate  constituents  may  have  in  the  question  in  which  he 
is  personally  concerned.  Their  stake  in  the  general  welfare,  imminently 
endangered  by  the  defiance  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  social 
compact,  their  interest  in  the  laws  6f  decency,  deeply  wounded  by  this 
gross  violation,  their  paramount  concern  that  the  fountain  of  law  should 
be  preserved  pure  and  unsullied,  and  the  honor  of  the  house  spotless,  all 
these  high  motives  demonstrate  that  there  is  not  a  town  in  the  Common- 
wealth that  would  not  rejoice  that  its  representative  should  be  excluded, 
whenever  the  old  Jeffersonian  rule  of  immemorial  observance  would 
exclude  him. 

The  gentleman  from  Taunton  (Mr.  Colby)  conjured  the  house  "not 
to  send  abroad  through  the  land  a  trumpet  voice  proclaiming  that  this 
house  is  interested,  and  cannot  do  justice."  "  Such  an  admission,"  said 
he,  "  would  bring  down  on  this  house  a  load  of  infamy."  Sir,  I  join 
most  heartily  in  that  gentleman's  conjuration.  If  in  the  plainest  possible 
case,  this  house  cannot  apply  the  plainest  possible  rule,  will  not  a  trumpet 
voice  ring  through  the  land,  proclaiming  the  fact  announced  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Boston,  (Mr.  Blake,)  that  the  majority  of  this  house  is 
directly  interested  in  the  banks,  and  will  not  all  the  land  infer,  that  there- 
fore it  is  that  the  house  cannot  do  justice,  cannot  obey  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  social  compact,  cannot  regard  the  laws  of  decency, 
cannot  remember  the  honor  of  the  house,  but,  casting  justice  and  the 
social  compact,  decency  and  honor  beneath  its  feet,  and  shutting  its  ears 
to  all  remonstrances,  pertinaciously  makes  men  judges  in  their  own 
cause  ?  Whether  such  a  suspicion,  flagrant  as  their  conduct  will  make 
it,  will  bring  down  infamy  on  this  house,  is  for  those  to  determine  who 
persist  in  placing  the  house  in  an  unenviable  position  before  the  world. 

The  chair  in  endeavoring  to  nullify  the  rule,  remarks,  that  each  of  the 
terms  employed  in  it  would  admit  of  a  separate  commentary.  It  is  true, 
there  are  four  specifications  in  the  rule,  each  of  which  deserves  a  parti- 
cular examination.     To  disqualify  a  member,  he  must  have  :  — 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  38 

1.  A  private,  not  a  public,  right. 

2.  A  private  right  the  word  is,  not  interest. 

3.  A  private  right  immediately  concerned. 

4.  And  distinct  from  the  public  interest. 

Tf  these  four  requisites  do  not  concur  in  the  present  instance,  then 
there  never  was  a  case  which  would  unite  them  all.     For, — 

1.  The  right  of  the  stockholder  to  his  stock,  and  in  the  profit  of  it, 
which  our  legislation  may  affect,  and  which  the  bank  stockholders  evi- 
dently fear  it  will  affect,  is  assuredly  a  private  right.  Do  the  public  own 
the  stock  ?  Are  the  public  entitled  to  receive  the  dividends  ?  The  chair 
does  not  profess  an  agrarianism  beyond  the  doctrine  for  which  Gracchus 
died.  The  rights  of  the  stockholders,  implicated  in  all  the  questions 
referred  to  this  committee,  are  all  of  them  private  rights.     And, 

2.  They  are  private  rights  within  the  meaning  of  the  rule.  Has  not 
the  stockholder  the  same  right  to  his  stock  that  he  has  to  any  other  pro- 
perty, except  so  far  as  public  interest  may  require  this  species  of  property 
to  be  regulated  or  modified  ?  Has  he  not  the  same  right  to  his  dividends, 
that  he  has  to  the  profit  of  any  other  property,  except  so  far  as  the  pub- 
lic interests  require  the  dividend  to  be  suspended  ?  Do  we  not  every 
day  listen  to  learned  lectures  upon  the  inviolable  sanctity  of  these  private 
rights,  whose  very  existence  seems  now  to  be  questioned  by  their  habitual 
champions  ?  Are  we  not  told  that  the  State  has  made  an  express  written 
contract  with  these  stockholders,  to  secure  their  private  rights  ;  that  their 
private  rights  cannot  be  touched  by  government,  except  according  to  the 
letter  of  that  contract ;  and  that  the  measures  proposed  by  his  excellency 
the  governor  are  not  within  the  letter  of  that  contract  ?  How,  then,  can 
any  man  pretend  that  stockholders  have  not  private  rights,  immediately 
concerned,  in  the  propositions  of  his  excellency  which  have  been  referred 
to  this  committee  ? 

The  gentleman  from  Taunton  (Mr.  Colby)  must  have  imagined  he 
had  made  an  astonishing  discovery,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  proud 
exultation  with  which  he  pointed  out  the  peculiarity  of  the  phrase, 
"  private  right,'^  —  and  not  private  interest.  Upon  this  distinction  the 
gentleman  expatiated  widely,  and  while  he  admitted  that  the  member 
might  have  a  private  interest  in  the  questions  before  the  committee,  con- 
tended that  he  had  no  such  private  right,  and  therefore  could  not  be 
excused.  \Ye  should  have  been  deprived  of  the  pleasure  of  listening  to 
the  latter  half  of  the  gentleman's  eloquent  declamation,  if  he  had  read 
three  hues  further  in  the  Rules  and  Orders  ;  just  as  he  would  have 
forborne  to  entertain  us  with  the  former  half,  if  he  had  previously  paid 
a  little  more  attention  to  the  Constitution.     The  very  next  article  in  the 


382  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

Rules  and  Orders,  which  the  gentleman  could  not  have  read,  settles  this 
point  against  him.     It  is  in  these  words  :  — 

Chapter  11.  art.  14.  "  Every  member,  who  shall  be  in  the  house  when 
a  question  is  put,  where  he  is  not  excluded  hy  interest,  shall  give  his  vote, 
unless  the  house  for  special  reasons  shall  excuse  him." 

The  member  whose  private  right  is  concerned  is,  then,  excluded  by 
interest,  for  all  others  are  required  to  vote.  Private  right,  spoken  of  in 
the  rule,  is  therefore  private  interest,  and  nothing  else.  The  old  rule  of 
the  house  is  undoubtedly  the  rule  of  immemorial  observance,  recorded 
and  sanctioned  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  his  expression  is,  —  "  Where  the 
private  interests  of  a  member  are  concerned  in  a  bill  in  question,  he  is  to 
withdraw."  That  those  interested  in  our  present  banking  system  have 
a  private  interest  in  the  continuance  of  its  abuses,  is  too  plain  to  be 
denied. 

3.  The  private  rights  or  interests  of  the  stockholders  are  immediately 
concerned  in  the  questions  referred  to  the  committee.  It  is  not  any  con- 
tingent or  remote  interest ;  it  is  an  interest  as  direct  and  immediate  as 
any  that  language  can  describe,  or  the  imagination  conceive.  -The  gen- 
tleman from  Boston  (Mr.  Brooks)  has  remarked  of  the  inquiry  pending 
under  the  memorial,  that  "  it  involves  the  very  existence  of  the  banks." 
The  gentleman  spoke  truly,  and  the  banks  so  consider  it  themselves. 
The  whole  of  their  memorial  is  an  argument,  adroitly  managed,  to  show 
that  their  charters  ought  not  to  be  taken  away  for  the  non-payment  of 
specie.  The  object  of  the  memorial  is  expressed,  on  the  tenth  page  of 
the  printed  copy,  in  these  words  :  "  Confidently  believing  that  the  legis- 
lature will  consider,  that  the  power  to  annul  the  charters  of  the  banks  is 
one  intended  to  be  exercised  only  in  cases  of  delinquency  arising  from 
wilful  mismanagement,  and  not  to  be  applied  to  a  condition  produced  by 
general  causes,  aifecting  the  country  throughout  its  whole  extent,  and 
in  which  the  hanks  had  no  pecidiar  agency,  (!)  your  memorialists  respect- 
fully leave  themselves  in  the  care,  and  under  the  superintendence,  of 
that  body,  to  whom  is  confided  the  charge  of  all  the  great  interests  of  the 
Commonwealth." 

It  plainly  appears  from  these  words  that  the  associated  banks  know 
very  well  that  one  of  the  questions  which  may  be  agitated  in  the  legis- 
lature is,  whether  their  charters  ought  not  to  be  taken  away.  However 
confident  the  belief  which  they  profess,  if  they  had  not  been  troubled 
with  unpleasant  doubts  upon  the  subject,  we  should  have  never  heard  of 
this  memorial.  Dreading  the  power  to  annul  their  charters,  they  "re- 
spectfully request  that  they  may  be  allowed  the-  satisfaction  of  appear- 
ing before  a  committee  of  your  honorable  body,  in  order  that  they  may 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  333 

have  an  opportunity  of  more  fully  explaining  the  course  of  their  pro- 
ceedings," —  instead  of  setting  at  defiance  the  power  that  created  them, 
as  banks  have  done  on  some  former  occasions.  The  question  is,  shall 
the  exclusive  privileges  of  the  stockholders  be  taken  away  by  annullino- 
their  charters,  and  in  this  question  each  individual  stockholder  has  as 
direct  and  immediate  an  interest  as  he  would  have  in  the  fruit  trees  in 
his  orchard,  if  the  county  commissioners  proposed  to  run  a  highway 
over  them. 

The  gentleman  from  Boston,  (Mr.  Blake,)  with  his  usual  sagacity, 
perceived  this,  and  to  avoid  the  unavoidable  inference  from  it,  he  grave- 
ly maintains  that  stockholders  have  no  interest  in  a  bank  charter,  because 
a  bank  charter  is  worth  nothing  !  Indeed  !  Why  have  they  been  sought 
with  so  much  pertinacity  ?  Why  is  the  bank  tax  paid  into  your  treasury 
of  nearly  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  ?  Why  is  the  whole 
bank  interest  in  arms  to  defend  these  charters,  if  they  are  worth  nothing? 
To  show  that  they  are  valueless,  the  gentleman  tells  us  that  he  had 
great  difficulty  in  persuading  the  board  of  directors  to  which  he  belongs 
not  to  surrender  their  charter !  He  did  so  persuade  them,  however,  and 
this  shows  that  the  gentleman,  who  is  a  good  judge  of  his  own  interest, 
attaches  some  value  himself  to  a  charter.  Let  us  judge  of  his  acts,  and 
not  be  misled  by  his  arguments.  But  if  the  State  Bank  has  surrendered 
its  charter,  does  the  fact  that  one  man  commits  suicide  show,  while 
others  cling  to  life,  that  life  is  worthless  ?  The  hold  of  the  banks  upon 
their  legal  existence  is  an  immediate  interest,  and  the  stockholders  have  also 
interests  immediately  concerned  in  every  one  of  the  recommendations  of 
his  excellency  which  have  been  referred  to  the  committee. 

4.  The  private  right  or  interest  immediately  concerned  must  be  dis- 
tinct from  that  of  the  puUic.  Is  it  possible  that  it  can  be  necessary  to 
argue  that  it  is  so  in  the  present  case  ?  As  well  might  it  be  contended 
that  the  interests  of  the  judge  and  of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  are  one 
and  the  same,  and  that  the  prisoner  ought  to  define  the  law  in  his  own 
case,  bring  in  a  verdict  on  the  facts,  and  then  pass  sentence.  Why  do  the 
banks  ask  for  a  trial  ?  They  profess  perfect  confidence  in  their  inno- 
cence, and  say  they  are  ready  to  exculpate  themselves  from  all  blame 
before  a  tribunal  to  be  named  by  us.  And  what  answer  are  we  to  give 
this  honorable  offer  ?  Search  yourselves,  gentlemen  !  Look  most  im- 
partially into  the  most  secret  acts  of  your  past  history.  Try  your  own 
heart  and  reins,  and  see  if  there  is  any  wicked  way  in  you.  If  you 
pronounce  yourselves  innocent,  we  shall  be  perfectly  satisfied ;  if  upon 
a  solemn  self-examination  you  confess  guilt,  be  so  kind  as  to  determine 
how  and  how  far  you  ought  to  be  punished.  Can  the  simplest  dolt  mis- 
take the  object  of  such  a  course  ? 


384  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

It  is  said  bank  stockholders  and  directors  have  no  interest  adverse  to 
that  of  the  public,  because  it  is  for  the  common  interest  of  all  that 
banks  should  be  well  managed.  It  is  not  required  that  an  interest  should 
be  adverse  to  exclude  the  member.  It  is  wisely  determined  that  a  dis- 
tinct interest  shall  exclude  him,  because  distinct  interests  are  always  lia- 
ble to  become  adverse  to  each  other.  Honesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  it 
is  for  the  interest  of  all  honest  men  to  pay  their  debts  and  to  perform  all 
their  promises  punctually,  but  never  was  there  a  man  mad  enough,  be- 
fore this  session  of  the  general  court,  to  declare  that  the  interests  of 
debtors  and  creditors  were  identically  the  same,  and  that  a  failing  debtor 
was  the  fittest  person  to  look  after  and  to  decide  upon  the  interests  of  his 
creditors.  The  stockholders  are  debtors  to  the  public  ;  the  bill  holders 
are  their  creditors ;  they  are  the  public  whose  hands  are  filled  with  dis- 
honored promises  to  pay.  Those  who  made  and  broke  them,  say  to 
those  who  trusted  in  them,  and  suffer  by  them,  —  gentlemen,  we  did  all 
this  for  your  good,  we  continue  to  make  and  break  promises  for  your 
good ;  it  would  be  very  ridiculous  in  you  to  examine  into  this,  especially 
as  we  are  very  expert  in  the  business  of  self-examination  :  a  man  not 
acquainted  with  banks  is  not  ftimiliar  with  the  beautiful  operation  by 
which  we  consult  the  interests  of  our  creditors  by  refusing  to  pay  our 
debts  ;  not  that  we  have  any  interest  in  refusing  to  pay  our  debts  ;  we 
swear  we  have  not  an  interest  to  the  amount  of  a  copper  in  refusing  to 
pay  the  debts  to  the  amount  of  ten  millions,  that  is  to  say,  no  interest 
distinct  from  that  of  our  creditors,  for  whose  sole  and  exclusive  benefit 
it  is  that  we  refuse  to  pay,  greatly  to  our  own  grief  and  mortification. 
People  who  are  not  interested  in  banks  find  it  difficult  to  comprehend 
this  mystery  of  mysteries,  but  appoint  a  select  committee  of  bank  stock- 
holders richly  seasoned  with  directors  and  presidents,  and  they  will  ex- 
amine with  wonderful  fidelity,  and  report  with  amazing  readiness  in  a 
manner  that  shall  make  it  clear  as  preaching.  Such  is  substantially  the 
language  of  the  banks  through  their  representatives  on  this  floor.  The 
public  out  of  doors,  the  country.  Sir,  will  know  how  to  understand  and 
appreciate  it. 

Sir,  ever  since  Esau  sold  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  the  two  sides 
of  a  bargain  have  had  distinct  and  indeed  adverse  interests.  The 
Romans,  if  I  read  right,  never  committed  lambs  to  the  keeping  of  wolves, 
but  now  it  is  thought  wolves  make  the  best  committees  on  sheep,  young 
or  old,  because  they  are  excellent  judges  of  mutton,  and  it  is  for  their 
interest  that  sheep  should  be  fat,  though  the  notion  that  they  ever  eat 
them  is  a  vulgar  prejudice.  The  most  ingenuous  advocates  of  self-ex- 
amination on  this  floor  are  not  content  with  maintaining  an  entire  com- 
munity of  interest  between  debtor  and  creditor.     They  go  further,  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  385 

by  a  sort  of  hocus  pocus,  make  them  change  places.  They  insist  that 
the  debtors  are,  and  always  have  been,  exceedingly  anxious,  ready,  and 
even  eager  to  pay  all  their  debts,  but  that  the  creditors  are  fully  sensi- 
ble that  it  would  be  ruinous  to  them  to  receive  them.  If  such  be  the 
fact,  the  debtor  has  still  a  distinct  interest.  It  will  be  important  not  to 
put  bank  directors  on  the  committee,  for  they  will  report  such  a  sudden 
resumption  of  specie  payments  as  will  be  very  painful  and  distressing  to 
the  bill  holders,  and  their  eloquence  in  support  of  their  paying  propensi- 
ties might  seduce  us  to  do  ourselves  a  harm. 

No  man  upon  this  floor  believes  in  his  conscience  that  the  interest  of 
the  bill  holder  to  have  security,  and  the  interest  of  the  stockholders  to 
withdraw  that  security  are  not  distinct  from  each  other,  or  that  the  in- 
terest of  the  public  holding  bills  to  make  a  director  personally  liable,  and 
the  interest  of  the  director  to  avoid  that  liability,  are  not  perfectly  dis- 
tinct from  each  other.  The  gentleman  from  TIardwick,  therefore,  has  a 
private  interest  as  a  stockholder,  and  also  a  private  interest  as  a  director, 
both  totally  distinct  from  the  public  interest. 

So  much  for  those  four  peculiarities  in  the  phraseology  of  the  rule,  to 
which  the  chair  has  directed  the  attention  of  the  house.  Common  sense 
construes  each  one  of  them  against  the  chair. 

The  chair  has  very  candidly  as  well  as  justly  remarked,  that  in  the  case 
of  a  private  petition  for  privileges  of  any  sort,  "  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  the  social  compact,  which  deny  to  any  man  to  be  a  judge  in  his- 
own  cause,  would  become  applicable,  and  should  be  enforced."  Indeed 
they  should  be  enforced.  And  where,  then,  is  the  difference  in  point  of 
principle  of  granting  privileges,  and  the  question  of  retaining  privileges 
already  granted  ?  The  chair  decides  in  effect,  that  if  these  very  stock- 
holders came  here  petitioning  for  the  very  privileges  which  they  now 
enjoy,  he  w^ould  not  allow  any  one  of  them  to  sit  upon  the  committee  on 
their  petitions.  They  now  come  here  protesting  that  they  have  not  for- 
feited those  privileges,  and  petitioning  to  be  heard  upon  that  protest,  and 
the  chair  makes  them  judges  in  their  own  cause.  His  excellency  the 
governor  proposes  to  take  away  some  of  their  privileges,  for  instance, 
the  privileges  of  dividing  their  profits  when  they  please,  and  the  chair 
appoints  them  to  report  whether  their  privileges  ought  to  be  taken  away  ; 
deciding,  wdth  a  grave  countenance,  that  they  have  no  interest  in  the 
question  distinct  from  the  public  interest.  Sir,  if  their  interest  to  ob- 
tain exclusive  privileges,  when  they  petitioned  for  them,  was  an  interest 
distinct  from  that  of  the  public,  at  what  precise  moment  of  time  did 
their  interest  to  have  and  to  hold  those  privileges  cease  to  be  distinct 
from  the  public  interest  ?  Is  it  not  clear,  as  if  it  were  written  witli  a 
sunbeam,  that  the  distinct  interest  continues  as  long  as  the  privileges  are 

33 


386  MEIMOIPvS,   SPEECHES  AND  WKITINGS 

questioned  ?  Yet  Mr.  Speaker  decides  that  tlic  petitioner  for  a  privilege 
has  a  distinct  interest  in  the  question  whether  it  shall  be  granted  or  re- 
fused ;  but  that  the  holder  of  the  same  privilege  has  no  distinct  interest 
in  the  question  Avhether  it  shall  be  retained  or  taken  away.  Was  there 
ever  a  more  bold  and  palpable  fallacy  ? 

The  most  ingenious  logician,  when  he  undertakes  to  support  an  evi- 
dent absurdity,  is  driven  to  great  extremities  for  plausible  reasons.  The 
last  resort,  under  the  present  desperate  circumstances,  is  the  position  of 
the  chair  that  "  it  was  obvious  that  there  was  no  distinct  and  special 
question  referred  to  that  committee."  Now  it  is  so  obvious  that  he  that 
runs  may  read  it,  that  there  are  several  distinct  and  special  questions  re- 
ferred to  that  committee. 

In  the  first  place,  the  memorial  of  the  Associated  Banks  itself,  presents 
two  distinct  and  special  questions. 

1.  Ought  the  charters  of  the  banks  to  be  taken  away  on  account  of 
their  suspension  of  specie  payments. 

2.  What  additional  securities  ought  to  be  provided  for  the  creditors  of 
failing  banks  ? 

In  the  next  place  the  address  of  his  excellency  presents  the  following 
distinct  and  special  questions  :  — 

1.  Is  it  not  inexpedient  to  repeal  the  two  per  cent,  a  month  penalty  ? 

2.  Ought  not  the  Associated  Banks  to  publish  a  weekly  statement  of 
the  condition  of  each  one  of  their  number  ? 

3.  Have  not  the  banks  incurred  a  forfeiture  of  their  charters  :  if  so, 
whether  any  of  them  should  be  required  to  wind  up  their  affairs  ? 

4.  Ought  not  dividends  to  be  postponed  until  specie  payments  are 
resumed  ? 

5.  Ought  not  banks  unduly  extended  to  be  required  to  reduce  the 
amount  of  their  obligations  ? 

G.  Ought  not  monthly  returns  to  be  made,  specifying  the  length  of  the 
loans,  and  the  nature  of  the  security  ? 

7.  Should  not  banks  be  required  to  keep  on  hand  a  certain  portion  of 
specie  ? 

8.  Ought  not  bank  commissioners  to  be  appointed  ? 

All  these  distinct  and  special  questions  have  been  referred  to  the  com- 
mittee. But  the  investigation  of  any  one  particular  bank  has  not  been 
referred  to  it. 

The  chair  asks  if  the  possibility  of  a  single  question  occurring  in 
which  the  private  right  of  a  stockholder  would  be  distinctly  concerned, 
ought  to  deprive  him  of  the  right  of  serving  on  all  other  questions,  &c., 
and  says  it  will  be  time  enough  to  prohibit  him  from  acting,  when  the 
question  should  have  actually  arisen. 


OF   ROBERT  RxiNTOUL,  JR.  3^7 

Sir,  why  talk  of  possibilities  when  we  have  certainties  before  ns  ?  We 
know  the  questions  before  the  committee.  I  have  just  enumerated  them. 
In  nine,  out  of  the  ten,  the  member  from  Harchvick  has  a  private  in- 
terest distinct  from  that  of  the  public.  The  tenth  is,  whether  the  associ- 
ated banks  ought  not  to  make  weekly  statements  ;  a  matter  in  which  the 
member  has  no  distinct  interest,  as  he  is  not  a  stockholder  in  those 
banks.  Nothing  else  of  any  importance  has  been  referred  to  the  com- 
mittee. What,  then,  are  those  other  questions  upon  which  it  is  so  im- 
portant to  retain  the  member's  services  ?  They  exist  only  in  the  imagina- 
tion. In  every  question  that  can  come  before  the  committee,  with  one 
or  two  very  slight  and  insignificant  exceptions,  the  member  has  as  direct 
a  pecuniary  interest  as  he  has  in  his  pocketbook. 

Sir,  the  amount  of  that  pecuniary  interest  I  neither  know  nor  wish 
to  know,  because  it  is  immaterial  in  the  present  issue.  Whether  it  be 
one  dollar  or  one  million  of  dollars,  can  have  no  bearing  on  the  decision, 
for  the  rule  regards,  not  the  degree,  but  solely  the  nature  of  the  interest. 
If  the  State  of  Massachusetts  had  delegated  to  one  hundred  and  thirty 
men,  instead  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  corporations,  the  power  to  cre- 
ate a  paper  currency,  with  certain  other  exclusive  privileges,  and  if 
those  one  hundred  other  exclusive  privileges,  and  if  those  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  men  held  seats  in  this  house,  would  the  chair  allow 
them  to  sit  on  committees  and  to  vote  upon  questions  concerning 
their  own  privileges  ?  It  is  the  same  thing  under  the  rule  whether 
the  member  from  Hardwick  owns  one  bank,  or  all  the  banks  in  the 
State,  or  only  the  tenth  part,  or  only  the  thousandth  part  of  a  bank ; 
for  the  question  is  not  how  far  he  is  interested,  but  whether  he  has  any 
interest  of  the  kind  described  in  the  rule.  The  circumstance  that  the 
one  hundred  and  thirty  principal  owners  of  banks  have  each  of  them 
partners,  and  that  these  partners  constitute  a  majority  of  tliis  house,  (if 
such  be  the  fact,)  constitutes  no  reason  for  setting  aside  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  social  compact,  and  making  them  judges  in  their  own 
cause.  If  the  bank  interest  be  indeed  in  a  majority  here,  then  it  is  more 
than  ever  necessary, /or  the  honor  of  the  house,  that  this  rule  of  immemo- 
rial observance  should  be  strictly  adhered  to,  and  that  those  whoso  pri- 
vate interests  are  concerned  should  withdraw.  Otherwise  the  government 
of  the  Commonwealth  is  vested  henceforth  in  the  representatives  of  the 
banks,  and  not  in  the  representatives  of  the  people. 

The  chair  declares  that,  in  determining  who  shall  vote  on  a  distinct 
question,  he  v/ill  be  governed  by  the  parlianientary  precedents  referred 
to  in  the  manual.  Not  by  the  express  text  of  the  manual  itself,  which  is 
as  explicit  as  words  can  make  it,  and  which  contains  the  opinion  of 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  highest  American  authority ;  but  by  British  pre- 


388  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

cedents.  And  upon  what  British  precedents  does  this  chair  rest  his  de- 
cision ?  Upon  a  decision  of  1811,  so  late  that  Mr.  Jefferson  could  not 
have  referred  to  it  in  drawing  up  his  manual.  Upon  the  strongest  tory 
decision  that  the  chair  can  find ;  which  does  not  surprise  me,  for  I  have 
long  known  that  the  rankest  and  bluest  torjism  extant  on  the  globe  is 
that  which  lingers  in  Massachusetts,  baptized  whiggery.  Yes,  Sir,  a  tory 
decision  of  a  tory  majority,  in  a  tory  house  of  commons,  backing  up 
the  opinions  of  a  tory  speaker,  pronounced  on  the  eve  of  the  late  war, 
is  the  precedent  quoted  by  the  speaker  of  the  house  of  representatives  of 
Massachusetts,  for  the  political  gospel  of  whom  ?  The  yeas  and  nays 
wdll  show,  Sir,  who  sail  under  the  tory  flag. 

Sail  under  the  tory  flag,  Sir !  The  chair  is  obliged  to  out-tory  the 
ultra-toryism  of  British  tories  of  1811,  when  imprisonment  of  American 
seamen  and  other  outrages  which  led  to  the  late  war,  were  in  high  credit 
W'ith  the  party  in  power  in  Great  Britain.  The  question  on  the  Gold 
Coin  Bill  does  not,  after  all,  sustain  the  chair.  That  case  was  as  follows : — 

July  17,  1811.  While  the  Gold  Coin  Bill  was  pending  in  the  house 
of  commons,  Mr.  Creevey  rose  and  moved  to  disallow  the  votes  of  forty- 
five  bank  proprietors  and  directors  in  the  further  stages  of  the  bill.  To 
justify  this  motion,  he  went  into  an  argument  to  show  that  these  persons 
had  an  interest  in  the  bill,  because,  as  he  said,  the  banks  would  derive 
an  immense  income  from  its  passage.  He  stated  the  consequences  of 
the  suspension  of  specie  payments  in  1797,  —  that  the  bank,  which, 
before  that  act  issued  notes  to  the  amount  of  eleven  millions,  after  that 
act  increased  their  issues  to  twenty-one  millions.  The  effect  of  which 
was  such  an  increase  of  interest  that  they  raised  their  dividends  from 
seven  to  ten  per  cent.,  and  divided  besides  a  bonus  of  six  millions  ster- 
ling in  fourteen  years;  so  that  their  stock  rose  in  the  market  from 
one  hundred  and  eighteen  to  two  hundred  and  thirty-six.  He  tlien 
asked,  "  Would  it  be  contended  by  any  one  that  it  was  right  for  the 
house  to  permit  them  to  douhle  their  fortunes  ?  "  He  said,  "  the  opera- 
tion of  the  bill  was  to  grease  the  wheels  of  the  bank,  and  set  them,  as  in 
1797,  a  coining  again.  They  might,  when  the  bill  passed,  turn  their 
rags  into  paper,  give  them  a  nominal  value,  whatever  value  they  chose, 
and  no  one  dared  refuse  to  take  them  as  coin ;  and  then  would  follow 
a  further  increase  of  dividends  and  bonuses,  and  a  note  might,  perhaps, 
eventually  be  sold  for  twopence,  which  passed  now  for  twenty  shillings. 
Under  these  circumstances,  those  members  composing  the  list  he  held  in 
his  hand,  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  vote.  Some  of  them,  without  men- 
tioning their  names,  were  bank  directors ;  others  were  proprietors  only  : 
when  he  approached  bank  directors  it  was  with  the  greatest  awe,  for  he 
knew  they  were  the  greatest  persons  in  the  country,  &c.    He  was  aware, 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  399 

that  in  naming  tliem  he  might  render  himself  open  to  be  assailed  with 
harsh  names,  but  still  they  possessed  great  powers ;  for  the  legislature 
protected  them  against  paying  their  creditors,  &c.  &:c.  In  fact,  the 
government  might  be  said  to  be  composed  of  three  estates,  —  the  King, 
the  Bank  of  England,  and  the  East  India  Company ;  and  they  would 
go  on  just  as  well  if  the  ministers  were  to  change  vv^ith  the  bank  direc- 
tors, and  go  out  by  rotation." 

Such  was  the  ground  taken  by  the  whigs  in  the  house,  on  the  occasion 
referred  to  by  the  chair ;  and  what  Avas  the  reply  of  the  tories,  under 
whose  broad  shield  the  chair  seeks  shelter  ? 

They  denied  the  fact  that  the  bank  itself  was  interested,  and  the  de- 
bate turned  on  the  question  of  fact.  Mr.  Manning  led  oif  the  tory  side  of 
the  house.  He  said  that  he  was  one  of  the  subscribers  to  the  loyalty 
loan  in  1797,  and  feeling  that  if  he  had  voted  for  Pitt's  bill  for  a  bonus, 
he  should  have  been  voting  a  thousand  pounds,  perhaps  into  his  own 
pocket,  he  felt  anxious  to  satisfy  his  mind,  and  on  the  opinion  of  the 
speaker,  he  did  not  vote.  "  With  respect  to  the  present  bill,  the  honora- 
ble gentleman  had  not  stated  any  ground  of  distinct  interest  to  disqualify 
him  from  voting,  and  he  must  deny  the  existence  either  in  bank  directors 
or  bank  proprietors.  Tlierj  ivoidd  not  he  henejited  hy  the  passing  of  the 
hill  one  half  croiun.  It  had  been  said  that  the  bank  directors  had 
brought  in  the  bill ;  they  had  not  had  any  communication  with  the  noble 
earl  who  brought  it  in,  —  had  neither  solicited,  desired,  nor  supported 
it.  He  could  put  it  to  the  house  whether  this  bill,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
loyalty  loan,  involved  any  pecuniary  interest.  If  it  did  he  shoidd  ivith- 
draw,  but  having  no  such  bearing,  he  conceived  that  the  proprietor  ought 
to  be  excluded  from  voting."  He  then  took  a  view  directly  the  reverse 
of  that  taken  by  his  followers  here,  for  he  contended  that  it  was  useless 
to  exclude  the  forty-five  stockholders,  because  there  would  be  so  many 
members  left  "to  give  their  free,  cool,  and  deliberate  judgments."  While 
those  who  follow  the  tory  precedent  here,  contend  that  stockholders 
ought  not  to  be  excluded,  because  they  are  so  numerous,  and  so  few 
members  would  be  left  to  exercise  "their  free,  cool,  and  deliberate 
judgments."  He  said  that  there  was  no  proof  that  the  bank  had  divided 
six  millions,  and  if  they  had,  other  stocks  had  been  rising  as  much ;  for 
instance,  the;Royal  Exchange.  Assurance  from  seventy-seven  to  nearly 
three  hundred  per  cent. 

Mr.  Dent,  who  spoke  next  on  the  tory  side,  denied  the  statement  of 
the-  profits  of  the  bank. 

The  next  tory  was  Mr.  Long,  who  said,  that  "  if  there  was  any  inter- 
est, it  was  the  most  minute  that  could  well  be  conceived.  A  number  of 
members  in  that  house  had  a  much  greater  and  more  direct  interest  in 

33* 


390  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

the  Distillery  Bill."  He  charged  the  whigs  with  inconsistency,  in  saying 
that  this  bill  would  aid  the  bank,  while  they  contended  it  would  cause  a 
further  depreciation  of  its  bills. 

Mr.  ^y.  Smith  spoke  on  the  whig  side,  and  said  the  question  "  was 
quite  distinct  in  its  nature ;  it  was  a  question  between  the  interests  of  a 
monopolizing  company  and  tlie  interests  of  the  'piihlic.  If,  in  1797,  a 
motion  similar  to  the  present  had  been  made,  he  could  not  believe  that  it 
would  then  have  been  resisted,  —  it  being  then  clearly  the  direct  inter- 
est of  the  proprietors  that  the  restriction  should  take  place."  *  *  *  * 
"  Their  evident  and  immediate  interest  in  the  question  ought,  however, 
lie  conceived,  to  have  prevented  them  from  publicly  voting  in  favor  of 
it."  Tie  then  attempted  to  prove  how  much  the  bank  had  gained  by  the 
suspension  of  specie  payments,  and  this  being  a  measure  of  the  same 
tendency,  he  rested  his  argument  against  the  propriety  of  the  stockhold- 
ers voting  on  that  proof. 

Mr.  Banks  took  the  tory  ground,  and  maintained  that  the  possessor  of 
landed  property  "  was  much  more  deeply  interested  in  the  question  than 
the  most  extensive  proprietor  of  bank  stock  in  existence." 

Mr.  Abercrombie  followed  on  the  whig  side.  He  said,  that  as  the  act 
suspending  cash  payments,  in  1797,  "was  of  great  service  to  the  propri- 
etors, they  should  not  have  been  permitted  to  vote  on  it ;  and  the  same 
argument  applied  to  the  present  case."  *  *  *  *  "  Of  course  every  stock- 
holder had  an  interest  in  the  authority  of  Parliament  being  pledged,  as 
it  would  be  if  the  bill  passed."  *  *  *  *  "  He  was  an  enemy  to  monopo- 
lies of  every  description,"  etc. 

The  tory  minister,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  said,  that  every 
member  "  who  possessed  bank  notes  was  as  much  interested  as  the  pro- 
prietor and  directors." 

Mr.  Tlibbet  spoke  on  the  tory  side.  He  considered  the  measure  as  one 
of  general  interest. 

Mr.  Creevey  replied,  he  found  Lord  Arden  (a  tory  of  the  reddest 
heat,  sometimes  called  Pepper  Arden,)  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  stock- 
holders, interested  to  the  amount  of  two  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and 
a  strong  advocate  for  the  preservation  of  his  fees. 

The  Speaker  (high  tory,)  then  gave  his  opinion,  and  said:  — 

*'  The  rule  was  very  plain.  If  they  opened  their  journals,  they  would 
find  it  established  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  then  spoken  of  as  an  an- 
cient practice,  that  personal  interest  in  a  question  disqualified  a  member 
from  voting.  But  this  interest,  it  should  be  further  understood,  must  be 
a  direct  pecuniary  interest,  and  separately  belonging  to  the  persons 
whose  votes  were  questioned,  and  not  in  common  with  the  rest  of  his 
majesty's  subjects,  or  on  a  matter  of  state  policy.     So  it  was  that  on  a 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  391 

canal  bill,  a  person  whose  name  was  down  as  a  subscriber  could  not  vote, 
etc.  etc.  Such  was  the  law  on  the  subject,  —  how  far  the  fact  applied  to 
the  present  case,  it  was  for  the  house  to  decide. 

The  question  was  then  put  and  negatived  without  a  division. 

This  is  the  history  of  Mr.  Creevey's  motion,  —  there  is  no  sophism  of 
a  paramount  public  interest  overruling  a  private  interest,  —  there  is  no 
mystification.  The  British  tories  admit  that  if  the  member  has  any 
private  interest,  he  cannot  vote,  and  they  deny  that  the  bank  has  any, 
even  the  slightest  interest  in  the  question.  It  w^ill  not  make  half  a 
crown  difference,  say  they,  to  Lord  Arden  with  his  two  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  of  stock,  whether  the  bill  passes  or  not.  On  this  denial  of 
the  fact  of  interest,  was  the  tory  precedent  based :  and  let  me  tell  you, 
Sir,  no  tory  speaker  of  a  British  house,  though  with  Perceval,  Yan 
Sittart,  and  Castlereagh,  to  keep  him  in  countenance,  and  an  insolent 
and  overwhelming  tory  majority  to  back  him,  would  have  dared  —  aye, 
Sir,  would  have  dared  to  justify  their  right  to  vote  on  any  other 
ground. 

In  this  house,  no  such  ground  can  be  set  up.  No  man  can  say  it  does 
not  make  half  a  crown's  difference  whether  the  recommendations  of  the 
governor  are  adopted  or  rejected.  Even  on  the  principles  of  the  Gold 
Coin  Bill  case,  the  member  from  Ilardwick  cannot  serve,  still  less  can  he 
by  the  laws  of  decency  and  for  the  honor  of  the  house.  He  has  a  direct 
pecuniary  interest,  separately  belonging  to  him  as  a  stockholder,  not  in 
common  with  the  rest  of  the  citizens,  nor  regarding  these  questions  as 
measures  of  State  policy.  A  tory  speaker  in  England  would,  therefore, 
exclude  him. 

The  whig  leaders  of  the  commons  in  1811,  were  Henry  Brougham, 
and  Sir  Francis  Burdett.  Brougham  said,  that  when  it  w\as  openly  con- 
tended that  the  bank  had  no  interest  in  such  a  bill,  he  felt  a  degree  of 
alarm.  Burdett  said,  it  w^as  unfair  in  the  bank  directors  to  say  they 
were  under  no  influence  except  the  stock  they  owned,  and  then  to  say 
that  influence  was  nothing.  How  great  would  have  been  the  astonish- 
ment at  the  ultra  toryism  of  the  decision  of  the  chair  this  day.  How 
great  will  be  the  astonishment  of  the  yeomanry  of  the  country  when 
they  hear  this  decision ;  and  how  deep  their  indignation  when  they  w^it- 
ness  the  effects  of  this  decision. 

Mr.  Cook  of  Boston,  moved  the  previous  question.  The  chair  signi- 
fied a  disposition  to  reply ;  but,  being  assured  by  the  friends  of  the  chair 
that  it  was  unnecessary,  withdrew  the  intimation,  and  the  previous  ques- 
tion prevailed. 

The  yeas  and  nays  being  taken,  there  Avere  for  affirming  the  decision 
of  the  speaker,  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven,  —  for  sustaining  the  ap- 
peal, ninety-seven. 


392  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


OEATIOX   AT  COXCOPtD.* 

The  law  by  wliicli  God  governs  the  universe  is  a  law  of  progress. 
The  undeveloped  capacities  of  the  human  intellect,  the  aspirations  of  the 
soul  after  a  higher  and  better  moral  state  of  being,  even  in  the  present 
life,  the  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  and  unrest,  sad,  but  not  without  hope, 
which  ever  urges  on  the  wise  and  good,  after  an  infinite  succession  of 
defeats,  to  new  efforts  to  remove  out  of  our  path  the  chief  evils  that 
continually  beset  us,  all  indicate,  that,  in  its  pilgrimage  through  weary 
ages  of  vicissitudes,  the  human  family  has,  as  yet,  no  abiding  place  ;  that 
its  course  is,  and  must  be,  onward  towards  the  true  destiny  in  which  its 
faculties  are  fitted  to  expand  themselves,  in  their  free  action  and  full 
enjoyment.  The  infancy  of  our  race  was  passed  in  struggling  to  escape 
from  physical  suffering,  while  groping  in  ignorance,  groaning  under  op- 
pression, and  shuddering  at  superstitious  terrors.  But  the  stern  teach- 
ings of  this  long  adversity  hardened  and  confirmed  the  vigor  which  they 
did  not  crush,  so  that  courage  and  strength  gradually  grew  out  of  the 
contest,  if  it  did  not  result  in  complete  victory.  We  are  now  in  the 
period  of  immature  youth,  and  the  wisdom  above  which  guides  us,  and 
which  has  led  us  through  many  grievous  trials,  from  evil  still  educing 
good,  has  doubtless  further,  and  perhaps  greater  trials  in  store  for  us. 
As  the  apostle  Paul  declared,  the  heavier  yoke  of  the  Mosaic  dis- 
pensation to  be  designed  for  the  office  of  a  schoolmaster,  to  bring  its 
pupils  worthily,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  into  the  light  and  liberty  of  the 
gospel;  so  the  toils,  and  hardships,  and  reverses  of  many  thousand 
years,  are  educating  mankind  for  a  nobler  exercise  of  God  given  powers, 
and  the  more  perfect  fruition  of  the  purposes  of  a  nature,  created  but  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  universe  that  is  not  subject  to  change.  The 
stars  in  their  courses  have  no  appointed  goal,  where  they  may  pause,  but 
in  secular,  and  as  yet  unmeasured  revolutions,  steadily  wheel,  obedient 
to  the  original  law  of  their  nature.  Great  moral  changes  are  like  the 
motions  of  these  enormous  masses  of  matter,  slow,  and  guided  by  unal- 
terable laws  ;  but  not  like  them,  steady  and  uniform  in  their  phenomena. 
Moral  advancement  proceeds  by  impulse  following  impulse,  like  the  sev- 
eral waves  of  a  swelling  tide.  Between  the  waves,  wide  spaces  inter- 
vene, but  no  impulse  is  lost  in  the  sum  of  contributions  to  the  general 
flood. 

*  Delivered  on  the  Celebration  of  the  seventy-fifth  Anniversary  of  the  Events  of 
April  19,  1775,  before  the  Massachusetts  Legislature. 


OF   EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  393 

To  know  what  jioint  we  have  reached,  to  know  whither  we  are  tend- 
ing, are  the  two  great  problems  of  absorbing  interest.  To  understand  and 
solve  them,  we  investigate  the  past.  No  eye  can  pierce  the  darkness  of 
the  future,  except  by  the  aid  of  those  rays  which  the  lamp  of  experience 
casts  forward  to  reveal  its  mysteries. 

So  inexhaustible  is  the  abundance  of  the  lessons  which  history  affords 
to  the  observer,  that  we  are  not  so  much  embarrassed  to  find  subjects 
which  deserve  and  reward  careful  examination  and  protracted  medita- 
tion, as  to  choose  among  those  which  obviously  jiresent  themselves.  The 
most  interesting  and  instructive  epochs  of  history  are  those  when  con- 
trolling influences,  which  have  governed,  or  seemed  likely  to  govern,  for 
a  considerable  period,  the  affairs  of  millions,  suddenly  terminate,  and  a 
new  order  of  things  begins.  Whether  it  be  the  catastrophe  of  some 
ancient  dynasty,  as  the  Persian  before  Alexander,  or  the  Bourbon  before 
awakened  France  ;  or  the  downfall  of  some  extensive  empire,  as  of 
Assyria,  or  of  Rome  ;  or  the  death  agony  of  national  independence,  rush- 
ing to  ruin  in  a  single  day  of  blood,  as  at  Babylon,  or  Carthage,  or  Con- 
stantinople, or  Warsaw  ;  or  the  struggle  of  conflicting  parties,  or  systems, 
decided  in  the  shock  of  some  great  battle,  and  determining  for  awhile 
the  political  aspect  of  the  world,  as  at  Pharsalia,  or  Actium,  or  Marengo, 
or  Waterloo  ;  or  if  it  be  the  introduction  of  some  agent,  working  effects 
unperceived  at  first,  but  afterwards  apparent  in  their  magnitude,  as  gun- 
powder, the  press,  the  compass,  the  cotton-gin,  the  use  of  coal  for  fuel,  or 
of  steam  for  motive  power  ;  we  are  irresistibly  impelled  to  inquire  into 
all  the  circumstances  of  the  change,  its  causes,  how  it  might  have  been 
hastened  or  postponed,  its  consequences,  how  far  it  was  unforeseen  and 
inevitable,  or  long  expected,  and  the  result  of  genius  and  energy  on  the 
one  hand,  or  folly  and  imbecility  on  the  other.  But  when  the  fortunes 
of  civilization  or  of  liberty  hang  doubtful  in  the  balance,  how  inconceiv- 
ably grand  is  such  an  issue  !  IIow  immeasurably  does  it  transcend  all 
ordinary  debate,  whether  of  the  academy,  the  forum,  or  the  battle  field  ! 
How  does  such  a  spectacle  rivet  the  attention  of  contemporaries ;  and 
excite  the  curiosity,  and  command  the  admiration  of  posterity  !  The 
poet  and  the  philosopher,  the  patriot  and  the  philanthropist,  the  warrior 
and  the  statesman,  all  turn  with  common  enthusiasm  towards  the  spot 
and  the  hour,  on  which  the  peril  passed  away,  and  the  salvation  of  all 
that  is  dearest  to  humanity  was  secured. 

When  we  hang  delighted  over  the  pictured  pages  of  the  father  of  story, 
and  drink  in  the  charm  of  that  old  Ionic  melody  which  will  never  cease 
to  fascinate  ingenuous  youth,  what  is  the  scene  at  which  we  pause  and 
linger  with  the  intensest  sympathy,  feeling  that  the  Greek  cause  is  indeed 
our  cause  ?     It  is  when  Ave  see  that  the  soldiers  of  the  city  states  are 


894  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WETTINGS 

our  champions  ;  that  in  their  discomfiture  our  liberty,  and  all  true  life, 
must  have  been  struck  down  forever ;  and  that  the  achievement  of  the 
all-daring- few  who  stood  at  Marathon,  not  only  brought,  for  them,  glory 
out  of  danger,  but  wrought  out  also  our  deliverance. 

The  great  king,  Darius,  the  compeller,  as  his  name  in  his  ow^n  language 
signified,  had  mustered  his  myrmidons  like  a  locust  cloud  :  the  Ionian 
colonies  Avere  overrun  :  Delos^  the  abode  of  the  •  prophet  Deity,  shook 
with  an  ominous  trembling.  An  empire,  that,  from  the  rising  to  the 
setting  sun,  overshadowed  with  its  greatness  all  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
launched  its  wdiole  power  upon  the  little  disunited  democracies  of  the 
Greek  peninsula.  In  vengeance  for  the  flames  of  Sardis,  shrines  were 
pillaged  and  temples  burned ;  havoc  swept  the  land,  and  the  fettered 
captives  were  consigned  to  Persian  slavery,  far  from  the  native  soil  they 
loved  so  well.  Eretria  had  fallen  ;  Marathon  was  not  far  from  Eretria, 
on  the  invader's  way  to  Athens.  Then  w^as  manifested  the  amazing 
transformation  which  self-government  works  W'hen  once  gained ;  for 
Vi^hile  the  Greeks  were  subject  to  tyrants,  they  excelled  not  their  neigh- 
bors in  renown,  but  when  they  w^ere  delivered  from  oppression,  they 
surpassed  them  all.*  Then  first  the  Greeks  beheld,  without  dismay,  the 
dress  and  armor  of  the  Modes  ;  for  before  that  time,  in  Greece,  the  very 
name  of  a  Mede  was  a  terror. f  But  now,  Datis,  with  the  hordes  of 
Parthia,  Babylon,  and  Egypt  swelling  his  array,  is  checked  in  his  career 
of  desolation  by  a  few  Athenians,  without  archers  or  cavalry.  Freedom 
had  made  them  heroes.  They  ran  to  the  charge  against  the  barbarians, 
and  victory  flew  with  them.  The  astonished  satrap  thought  them  mad  ; 
but  the  Athenian  and  Plateau  wings  closed  on  his  host,  and  drove  them 
with  slaughter  to  the  sea.  The  city  of  Minerva,  exulting  in  tumultuous 
triumph,  received  her  returning  Miltiades,  radiant  with  glory,  like  a  god. 
Not  to  her  alone  had  he  given  freedom,  and  strength,  and  prosperity,  and 
dominion  ;  he  had  vindicated,  for  countless  coming  ages,  the  possibility 
of  a  higher  and  purer  civilization.  Where  would  have  been  architecture 
and  sculpture,  the  miracles  of  genius  of  the  age  of  Pericles  and  Phidias, 
and  all  that  their  divine  simplicity  has  since  inspired  of  the  true  and  the 
beautiful,  if  Asia  on  that  day  had  prevailed  over  Europe  ?  Where  oratory 
and  the  drama  ?  W^here  history  and  philosophy,  and  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom that  pervades  Greek  letters,  and  from  them  informed  the  whole 
body  of  Roman  literature,  and  again  at  the  revival  of  learning  kindled 
in  the  heart  of  the  modern  world  the  long-forgotten  love  of  liberty  ? 
This  is  but  an  imperfect  inventory  of  the  richest  bequest  ever  left  by 
any  people  to  the  race  ;  yet  this,  the  heavy  levelling  wheel  of  Oriental 

*  Herodotus.    Terpsichore,  78.  t  Herodotus.    Erato,  112. 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  395 

despotism,  if  it  had  once  passed  over  it,  would  Iiave  crushed  and  buried 
in  obhvion. 

Twelve  hundred  years  rolled  away  after  that  golden  day  at  Marathon, 
and  again  Asia  pours  into  Europe  another  and  fiercer  barbaric  invasion. 
Again  she  threatens  to  extinguish  the  flickering  torch  of  science,  which, 
choked  by  the  deadly  exhalations  of  that  more  than  Egyptian  midnight 
that  had  settled  on  the  world,  threw  but  a  gloomy  and  uncertain  gleam 
over  tlie  ruins,  broken  and  scattered  by  the  destroyers  who  had  swarmed 
from  the  northern  hive.  The  disciples  of  the  Arabian  prophet  had 
propagated  his  religion,  and  extended  the  Moslem  empire  further  in  the 
first  century  after  his  decease,  than  the  Roman  vultures  had  flown  in 
the  space  of  eight  hundred  years.  The  Koran,  the  tribute,  or  the  sword, 
was  the  alternative  which  they  offered  to  the  vanquished,  after  their  un- 
counted victories.  From  Damascus,  the  centre  of  their  power,  the 
Crescent  shed  disastrous  twilight  over  the  nations,  for  two  thousand 
miles,  to  Benares  and  the  Ganges,  in  the  east ;  as  fiir  as  across  the 
breadth  of  Africa,  to  the  pillars  of  Hercules  and  the  waves  of  the  At- 
lantic in  the  west.  On  the  thirtieth  of  April,  711,  Tariff  Ben  Zeyad 
crossed  from  Ceuta  to  the  coast  of  Spain,  and  fortified  the  rock  ever 
since  called,  from  his  name,  Gibraltar.  So  strange  was  the  costume  and 
the  bearing  of  his  Mauritanian  followers,  that  they  seemed  like  beings 
dropped  from  another  world.  Tariff  burned  his  ships,  and  with  his 
scimitar  opened  his  way  towards  Toledo,  through  a  three  days  sanguin- 
ary battle,  at  Xeres,  in  which  Roderic,  his  royal  antagonist,  was  slain  ; 
the  degenerate  descendants  of  the  warriors  of  the  great  Euric  were 
routed,  and  the  Gothic  monarchy  fell,  as  indeed  it  deserved  to  fall. 
The  fanaticism  which  made  the  Saracens  invincible,  had  not  yet  spent 
its  force.  Mohammed  had  promised  to  the  faithful,  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth  for  a  possession,  and  they  delayed  not  to  enter  upon  their  inherit- 
ance. In  about  twenty  years  they  had  subdued  all  Spain,  and  half  of 
Gaul,  advancing  from  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  one  thousand  miles,  to  the 
Loire,  up  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  and  Saone  as  far  as  Besan(;on,  dilapi- 
dating churches  and  monasteries,  whose  ruins  still  bear  witness  to  their 
progress,  putting  to  the  sword  all  who  could  bear  arms,  but  sparing  non- 
combatants,  except  the  "  sworn  children  of  the  devil,"  as  they  called 
the  monks,  on  whom  they  wreaked  the  frenzied  hatred  of  their  new- 
born faith.  If  the  Franks  should  succumb,  neither  the  Lombards,  nor 
the  Greeks,  nor  any  Teutonic  or  Sclavonic  people  could  hope  to  present 
a  more  effectual  resistance.  It  would  then  be  easy,  in  comparison  with 
what  had  already  been  accomplished,  to  conquer  Germany,  Italy,  and 
the  Greek  empire,  and  return  by  way  of  Constantinople  to  the  Euphra- 
tes, thus  uniting  Europe  with  Asia  and  Africa  under  a  sceptre  mightier 


396  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

than  that  of  Sesostris,  or  Alexander,  or  Trajan,  or,  in  after  times, 
Kapoleon. 

This  stupendous  enterprise  Abdalrahman,  Emir  of  Cordova,  had  con- 
ceived. He  gathered  the  tribes  of  Yemen  and  Damascus,  Moors,  Ber- 
bers from  beyond  Mount  Atlas,  on  their  coursers,  fleet  as  the  wind,  and 
all  the  Moslem  force  of  Spain.  Unquenchable  was  the  zeal  raging  in 
the  breasts  of  these  miscreants,  to  wash  out  their  sins  in  the  blood  of  the 
Christians,  and  to  win  a  seat  among  the  Houries,  by  crystal  fountains, 
in  the  gardens  of  everlasting  bliss.  The  sword  is  the  key  of  heaven 
and  hell,  said  the  prophet ;  battle  is  the  gate  of  paradise.  The  feet  that 
are  covered  with  dust  in  the  holy  war,  shall  never  burn  in  the  eternal 
fire.  Say  not  they  die  who  fall  in  the  holy  war :  Allah  receives  them 
to  himself.  Their  wounds  shall  bloom  resplendent  as  vermilion,  redo- 
lent with  the  fragrance  of  musk  in  the  day  of  judgment.  These  were 
the  promises  that  lifted  their  souls  above  danger,  pain,  and  death ;  while 
the  dogmas  of  a  religion  breathing  fire  and  carnage,  urged  them  on  per- 
petually to  more  distant  conquests.  They  who  fall  in  the  holy  war  at 
home,  says  one  of  their  sublime  doctors,  feel  no  keener  pang  in  death 
than  the  sting  of  a  common  ant ;  but  to  them  who  fall  in  the  holy  war 
over  the  sea,  death  has  a  sensation  like  cold  water  mingled  with  fresh 
honey,  to  a  traveller  perishing  with  thirst,  in  the  middle  of  a  burning 
desert. 

Abdalrahman  led  the  soldiers  of  the  crescent  across  the  Pyrenees, 
took  and  pillaged  Bordeaux,  and  on  the  banks  of  the  Dordogne  encoun- 
tered Eudes,  Duke  of  Aquitaine,  whom  he  overthrew  with  a  loss  so  ter- 
rible, that,  in  the  language  of  the  chronicler,  God  alone  could  reckon  the 
number  of  the  slain.  Aquitaine  and  Burgundy  were  ravaged  without 
resistance,  and  the  devastating  torrent  reached  the  environs  of  Tours. 
The  genius  and  the  battle-axe  of  one  man,  Karl,  duke  of  Austrasia, 
rescued  Christendom  in  this  her  hour  of  extreme  peril.  With  his 
Franks  and  Gallo-Romans,  Karl  met  the  enemies  of  the  cross  between 
Tours  and  Poictiers,  and  there  decided  the  eventful  controversy  between 
the  religion  of  the  Koran  and  the  faith  taught  in  the  gospels. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  October,  in  the  year  732,  a  century  complete 
after  the  death  of  Mohammed.  The  two  armies  skirmished  and 
manoeuvred  seven  days,  before  the  signal  for  the  deadly  strife  was 
given ;  for  each  knew  the  strength  of  his  adversary,  and  felt  that  no  or- 
dinary interests  were  staked  upon  the  issue.  The  Austrasian  warriors 
were  drawn  up  in  compact  ranks ;  their  formidable  stature,  covered  with 
breastplates  and  bucklers  glittering  in  the  sun,  presented,  as  it  were,  a 
wall  of  steel,  impenetrable  to  the  charge.  They  awaited  with  admira- 
tion the  onset  of  that  brilliant  oriental  cavalry ;  wild  Berbers,  shaggy 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  397 

nomades  of  the  desert,  and  turbaned  Arabs,  whose  polished  cuirasses 
and  bright  scimitars  flashed  fire  as  they  pranced  over  the  field.  They 
joined  battle  early  on  the  morning  of  Saturday.  The  column  who 
formed  that  day  the  last  bulwark  of  Christendom,  stood  like  a  rock  of 
adamant,  against  which  the  troops  of  Moslem  horse,  lil<:e  successive  bil- 
lows, dashed  themselves  and  were  hurled  back  in  confusion.  The  Ions: 
and  serried  pikes  resisted  every  attack,  and  the  ponderous  battle-axe  of 
the  Germans,  the  Francisque,  shivered  the  Moorish  cuirasses,  and  hewed 
down  squadrons.  The  earth  trembled  as,  with  impetuous  valor,  the 
Moorish  horse  thundered  on  the  Christian  phalanx,  and  were  as  often 
repulsed.  So  all  day  the  doubtful  war  ebbed  and  flowed  till  the  shades 
of  night  suspended  the  contest ;  but  not  till  Abdalrahman  and  his  bravest 
comrades  had  fallen  beneath  the  death  dealing  battle-axe.  At  daylight, 
on  Sunday,  the  Franks  formed,  and  cautiously  approached  the  Moslem 
tents,  to  complete  the  ruin  of  their  enemies ;  but  they  found  the  camp 
deserted.  The  survivors  of  that  hard-fought  field  had  fled  during  the 
night.  Shouts  of  joy  welcomed  the  discovery.  The  robbers  left  be- 
hind them  the  spoils  of  the  cities  of  the  South,  and  of  half  the  monas- 
teries of  France,  and  the  plain  so  strewed  with  the  dead,  that  Arab 
writers  call  it  the  pavement  of  the  martyrs.  They  abandoned  Aqui- 
taine  forever.  Karl  and  his  successors  drove  them  beyond  the  Pyre-  ' 
nees ;  and  this  was  the  last  attempt  to  make  the  Mediterranean  a  lake 
for  the  internal  intercourse  of  the  all  absorbing  Saracen  Caliphate. 
Karl  was  called  Martel,  or  the  hammer,  after  the  victory,  because  he 
smote  the  unbelievers,  as  Thor  the  god  of  his  heathen  ancestors,  smites 
the  rebellious  deities  with  that  hammer  which  is  the  symbol  of  the 
Scandinavian  Jove. 

What  would  have  been  the  flite  of  France,  of  Europe,  of  Christen- 
dom, had  the  keen  scimitar  of  Abdalrahman  cloven  the  head  of  Karl 
Martel  in  the  battle  of  Tours  ?  We  may  judge,  perhaps,  by  measuring 
the  degradation  and  the  slavery  of  Egypt,  Persia,  Syria,  and  Turkey. 
Witliout  a  special  and  miraculous  interposition,  Christianity  would  have 
given  place  to  Mohammedanism.  No  Italian  republics  would  have  sprung 
into  life  beneath  the  iron  yoke  of  Caliphs  and  Emirs.  The  genius  of 
Italian  literature  was  cradled  on  the  stormy  sea  of  liberty.  The  fine 
arts,  through  the  whole  period  of  their  perfection,  were  the  exponents  of 
Christianity.  Where  are  the  Dante,  the  Ariosto,  or  the  Milton  of  the 
Moslem  faith  ?  Where  is  the  Michael  Angelo,  or  the  Raphael  of  Bag- 
dad, or  of  Teheran  ?  Where  the  Handel  of  Cairo,  or  Aleppo  ?  Poetry 
is  dumb,  and  music  soulless,  and  painting  hath  no  charm  under  the  bru- 
talizing superstition,  into  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Koran,  after  its  first 
outburst  of  frantic  ferocity,  has  finally  subsided.     Strike  with  such  a 

34 


398  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

paralysis  the  mind  of  Europe,  and  tlie  starry  Galileo  would  have  lived 
to  other  woes  than  those  of  too  much  science.  No  Yasco  w^ould  have 
explored  the  adventurous  passage  to  the  realms  of  fabulous  wealth  in 
India  or  Cathay.  No  Columbus  would  have  given  a  new  world  to  Cas- 
tile and  Leon,  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed,  room  for  disenthralled  man  to 
grow  to  the  full  stature  of  intellectual  and  moral  greatness.  No  Gut- 
temberg  would  have  given  to  truth  the  thunder  tones  with  which  she 
shakes  the  world.  The  genius  of  mechanical  invention  would  not  have 
fettered  the  most  potent  of  the  demons,  steam,  chaining  him  to  the  wheel, 
to  toil  at  the  taskwork  of  many  millions,  under  the  supervision  of  a  few 
trusty  sentinels.  Commerce  would  not  have  spread  her  white  wings,  like 
an  angel  of  peace,  over  every  ocean  ;  enriching,  enlightening,  blessing, 
wherever  she  smiles,  and  brightening  daily  every  link  in  the  golden 
chain  of  universal  brotherhood.  Abdalrahman  had  planted  himself  like 
a  hungry  lion  in  the  path  of  human  progress.  Karl  Martel  lifted  his 
stalwart  arm,  and  smote  the  grim  Paynim  with  his  heavy  Francisque. 
The  way  is  open  ;  humanity  passes  on. 

I  have  described  a  crisis,  imminent,  passing  away,  and  again  recurring, 
in  which  the  mother  country  of  certain  new  systems  of  thought  waged 
an  exterminating  war  against  the  ideas  that  were  her  own  offspring. 
The  south-western  peninsula  of  Asia,  inclosed  by  the  Red  Sea,  the  Me- 
diterranean, the  Euxine,  and  the  Caspian,  with  a  slight  auxiliary  influ- 
ence from  Egypt,  is  the  source  whence  flowed  into  Europe  all  the  no- 
tions, social,  political,  religious,  which  she  has  received  from  abroad  for 
more  than  three  thousand  years.  The  seeds  of  Greek  science  were  con- 
fessed by  the  Greeks  to  have  been  imported,  but  they  germinated  rapidly 
and  flourished  more  luxuriantly  than  in  their  native  soil.  When  the 
great  king  ordered  his  satraps  to  root  out  the  plant,  (dl  the  nations  of  the 
mother  country  of  science  followed  in  their  train  to  enforce  the  sentence. 
God  be  thanked  that  sooner  or  later  comes  a  day  of  emancipation  from 
mother  countries.  The  mind  of  Greece  was  free,  and  had  been  from 
her  infancy.  A  few  reluctant  States  yielded  the  tribute  demanded  ;  but 
the  little  republics  scattered  along  the  coast,  who,  "  with  sunny  scorn," 
flung  defiance  at  the  feet  of  the  monarch,  were  strong  enough  to  with- 
stand and  ultimately  to  shatter  the  great  empire  of  the  age. 

Greek  freedom  thus  secured,  Greek  civilization  soon  culminated.  It 
did  a  great  work  ;  but,  in  its  best  estate,  it  was  far  from  sufficing  for  the 
wants  of  man.  There  was  needed  a  system  less  selfish,  more  spiritual ; 
rules  and  principles  of  action  for  a  loftier  standard  of  human  duty  than 
even  the  sublimest  morality  of  the  Greek  philosophers  ;  affections  more 
comprehensive  than  the  narrow  patriotism  of  a  Greek  city. 

The  same  Asiatic  peninsula  supplied  these  wants.     It  sent  forth  into 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  399 

a  world  benighted  in  idolatry,  the  sacred  volume  of  Hebrew  literature, 
impressed  on  every  page,  blazing  in  characters  of  living  light,  with  the 
great  central  truth  of  all  later  faiths  and  revelations,  the  unity  of  the 
Divine  Being.  This  idea  informed  thinking  minds,  and  penetrated  the 
framework  of  society,  to  a  much  greater  depth  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed, before  the  Christian  era.  But  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  Europe 
until  it  has  circulated  for  some  centuries  in  Asia.  The  laws  and  records 
of  Moses,  himself  of  an  Asiatic  race,  educated  in  Egypt,  were  reduced 
to  writing  in  the  Arabian  desert,  and  promulgated  among  the  inhabitants 
of  a  corner  of  Syria,  ages  before  the  light  of  this  truth  shone  on  Europe  ; 
and  though  the  Jewish  local  and  ritual  laws  made  but  few  converts  be- 
yond their  own  tribes,  yet  the  transforming  fact,  that  there  is  one  Crea- 
tor, Preserver,  and  Judge,  must  have  disseminated  itself  among  candid 
inquirers  wherever  the  genius  of  emigration  impelled  that  restless  peo- 
ple. Then  issued  from  Palestine  that  mission  of  mercy  which  taught 
men  that  they  were  children  of  one  father,  and  heirs  of  one  destiny. 
Through  the  broad  Roman  empire  it  vindicated  its  triumphant  progress, 
consoling  the  slaves  of  the  Neros  and  Caracallas,  breathing  life  into  the 
bosom  of  despair,  cheering  with  immortal  hope  the  habitations  of  the 
dark  places  of  the  earth,  which  were  full  of  cruelty. 

After  six  hundred  years,  the  mother  country  of  the  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian religions  had  apostatized  from  the  worship  of  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
and  obeyed  the  apostles  of  that  prophet  who  was  called  the  Son  of  the 
Sword.  Then  rushed  the  frenzied  fanatics  of  Arabia,  Persia,  Syria, 
what  is  now  Turkey,  and  Egypt,  across  Christian  Africa,  blotting  out 
from  her  history  thenceforth  the  faith,  and  the  very  name  of  Christ,  and 
with  the  same  fell  purpose  upon  Europe,  hurried  on  that  terrible  irrup- 
tion which  penetrated  a  thousand  miles,  to  be  wrecked  upon  the  heavy 
shields  and  firm  set  pikes  of  the  Franks  before  Tours. 

Another  thousand  years  rolled  on,  and  again  transplanted  principles 
have  taken  deep  root  and  blossomed  luxuriantly,  and  again  the  arm  that 
planted  is  stretched  forth  to  eradicate  them.  Of  these,  one  is  demo- 
cratic freedom,  which,  nourished  in  a  propitious  soil,  had  shot  up  vigor- 
ously. Its  boughs  spread  wide,  and  made  a  goodly  shadow ;  its  leaves 
were  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  The  inhabitants  of  the  land  rejoiced 
in  its  shelter  and  fruit.  The  inhabitants  of  other  lands  hailed  its  glori- 
ous promise,  and  longed  for  that  blessed  shelter  to  reach  their  borders. 
Britain,  fair  mother  of  a  hundred  states — Jilia  pulchrior  —  is  the  mother 
of  one  far  excelling  her  own  matronly  beauty;  and  the  anticipated 
rivalry  of  the  daughter,  with  all  the  light  and  life  of  youth  to  witch  a 
wondering  world,  could  not  fail  to  arouse  the  jealousy  of  a  parent  unwil- 
ling to  fancy  that  she  must  ever  cease  to  reign  supreme  in  the  admiration 
of  all  beholders. 


400  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Great  Britain  liad  elaborated,  through  wars  of  barons  against  the 
crown,  and  matured  and  perfected,  through  the  reciprocating  motion  of 
rebelUon  on  one  side  and  the  headsman's  axe  on  the  other,  a  superior 
form  of  aristocratic  hberty.  When  she  had  done  this,  she  had  accom- 
plished her  mission.  The  incubus  of  conservatism  palsied  her  endeavors 
after  any  thing  better.  A  regenerating  revolution  convulsed  one  whole 
generation  of  tlie  people  of  that  island.  It  tantalized  them  with  rainbow 
promises,  —  yielded  nothing  but  the  bitterness  of  hope  deferred,  and  at 
last  turned  and  went  backward :  thick  brooding  darkness  settled  on  the 
prospects  of  popular  freedom.  The  fellow-patriots  of  Hampden,  and  the 
fellow-soldiers  of  Cromwell,  who  gave  to  England  all  the  liberty  she  yet 
enjoys,  beyond  mere  feudal  privileges,  disappointed  in  the  reformation  of 
Church  and  State  for  which  they  had  risked  their  lives,  left  behind  them, 
not  their  mother  country  only,  but  abuses  too  inveterate  to  be  redressed; 
her  institutions  incurably  vicious,  which  sacrificed  the  general  welfare  to 
the  interest  or  caprice  of  the  few.  They  follovfcd  into  this  ncAV  world 
wilderness  the  pilgrim  pioneers,  never  doubting  that  they  should  realize 
here  the  beatific  vision  which  still  reigned  in  their  hearts,  though  it  had 
mocked  so  often  their  fond,  impatient  expectations,  the  Christian  Com- 
monwealth,—  "the  holy  city  coming  down  from  God  out  of  heaven, 
beautiful  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband."  *  They  brought  with 
them  the  doctrines  that  the  people  are  the  source  of  power,  and  cannot 
be  taxed  without  their  own  consent,  and  that  the  private  Christian  is 
amenable  only  to  his  own  conscience  and  his  Maker,  for  his  worship  and 
his  faith.  They  brought  with  them  equality,  self-respect,  self-control,  fra- 
ternity ;  and  that  which  guaranteed  all  these,  courage  hardened  in  adver- 
sity, and  the  puritan  spirit  of  resistance  against  every  encroachment  on 
their  rights. 

For  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  arrival  of  the  Mayflower, 
the  little  democratic  communities,  the  towns  of  New  England,  had  been 
schools  of  mutual  instruction  in  individual  freedom  and  local  indepen- 
dence. Long  and  desperate  struggles  with  the  savages  and  the  French, 
had  made  the  colonists  self-reliant.  The  management  of  their  common 
colonial  affairs,  and  the  discussions  in  their  representative  assemblies, 
had  given  them  administrative  experience,  and  developed  the  instinct  of 
organization  and  legislative  capacity.  Upon  the  dissolution  of  the  polit- 
ical bands  which  united  them  to  Great  Britain,  they  could  trust  confi- 
dently not  to  fall  into  anarchy,  but  to  enter  upon  a  new  career  of 
regulated  liberty  as  free  and  independent  States.  To  this,  however, 
they  did  not  aspire,  until  the  usurpation,  by  the  mother  country,  of  their 

*Dr.  Cooper's  Sermon  on  the  Commencement  of  the  Constitution,  Oct.  25,1780. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  401 

acknowledged  rights  as  Englishmen,  forced  upon  them  the  alternative  of 
political  slavery,  or  national  independence. 

France  had  been  driven  from  the  North  American  continent,  and  the 
Indians  on  this  side  of  the  Alleghanies  had  ceased  to  be  formidable,  before 
Great  Britain  began  to  regard  the  colonies  as  a  magnificent  field  whence 
to  reap  a  future  harvest  of  revenue.  The  opportunity  was  too  tempting, 
the  anticipated  plunder  too  vast  for  ministerial  virtue,  when  Boston 
could  truly  boast  that  its  own  trade  had  done  much  to  raise  the  British 
empire  to  its  existing  height  of  opulence  and  splendor,*  and  when 
Burke  could  demonstrate  to  the  commons  of  the  realm,  that  the  colonies 
furnished  already  a  full  moiety  of  the  wealth  which  commerce  poured 
into  the  coffers  of  the  haughty  mistress  of  the  seas.f  It  is  no  wonder, 
then,  that  the  British  government,  feeling  power  and  forgetting  right, 
would,  not  relinquish  without  a  struggle  her  attempt  to  impose  the  bur- 
den of  unconstitutional  taxation  upon  the  colonies.  Nor  is  it  extraordi- 
nary, when  we  consider  the  material  out  of  which  the  rising  States  were 
built  up,  that  the  attempt  should  have  met  everywhere  renewed  and 
obstinate  resistance,  and  should  have  ultimately  miscarried.  The  rash 
financial  empiricism  of  Lord  North  and  his  besotted  master,  the 
arbitrary,  coercive  acts  of  parliament,  and  the  bayonets  of  Gage  had 
encountered  the  indomitable  steadfastness  of  the  puritan  stock,  too  stub- 
born to  bend  under  the  heaviest  pressure  of  tyranny. 

The  lofty  and  vehement  eloquence  of  James  Otis,  vivid  as  that  elec- 
tric fire  which  summoned  his  troubled  soul  to  its  final  peace,  had  kindled 
in  every  breast  the  genial  flame  of  liberty.  The  Junius  Brutus  of  our 
history,  that  sturdy  and  incorruptible  puritan,  Samuel  Adams,  not  over 
well  supplied  with  funds,  but  richer  than  King  George  and  all  his 
minions,  —  for  there  was  not  gold  enough  in  the  British  empire  to  buy 
him,  —  had  awakened  the  great  heart  of  the  democracy  of  this  conti- 
nent, and  made  it  throb  responsive  to  his  own.  For  his  transparent 
integrity  and  self-denying  virtue,  for  his  sound  judgment  and  manly 
energy,  they  loved  and  trusted,  respected  and  followed  him.  The 
merchant  prince,  John  Hancock,  rallied  the  classes  w^hose  pursuits 
depended  on  commerce,  fiercely  indignant  at  the  shackles  which  the 
genius  of  monopoly,  stretching  her  leaden  sceptre  three  thousand  miles 
across  the  ocean,  had  imposed  upon  their  industry.  The  majestic  dig- 
nity and  lion  port  with  which  John  Adams  confronted  power,  wielding 
in  his  country's  cause  the  weapons  of  an  oratory  like  that  which 

"  Shook  the  arsenal  and  fulmincd  over  Greece, 
To  Maccdon,  and  Artaxerxes'  throne," 

*  Vote  of  Boston,  May  18,  1774.  f  Speech  on  Conciliation,  March  22, 1775. 

34* 


402  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

riving,  witli  the  tliunclerbolts  of  his  genius,  the  miserable  sophistries  of 
the  apologists  of  tyranny,  insj^ired  with  his  own  confidence  and  firm  re- 
solve, his  admiring  countrymen.  The  chivalrous  Warren,  the  most 
illustrious  of  the  proto-martyrs,  whose  souls  cried  from  beneath  the 
altar,  how  long !  until  America  had  declared,  and  consummated,  and  se- 
cured her  independence ;  he  who  watered  with  his  blood  the  monumen- 
tal heights  where  yonder  shaft  bears  eternal  witness  to  the  high  tragedy 
enacted  at  its  base,  was  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season,  to  rouse, 
inform,  combine,  confirm  the  patriots  on  whom  devolved  the  giant  work 
of  revolution.  His  fervid  ardor  awoke  dormant  enthusiasm,  and 
breathed  new  life  into  flagging  zeal  exhausted  by  efforts  beyond  its  na- 
ture to  sustain,  —  "  the  fiery  virtue  roused,  from  under  ashes,  into  sud- 
den flame,"  —  and  fanned  the  rising  conflagration,  none  more  indefatiga- 
bly,  none  more  successfully. 

The  determined  posture  which,  under  the  guidance  of  these  worthies, 
the  country  had  assumed,  was  not  without  wellwishers  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  The  oppressed  of  other  lands  watched  for  the  halting 
of  the  tyrant;  for  they  knew  that  conquest  over  us  would  rivet  their 
chains ;  while  our  successful  repulse  of  the  impending  invasion,  and 
vindication  of  our  birthright  from  aggression,  would  light  up  for  them, 
as  it  were,  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night,  to  lead  them  through  darkness  out  of 
bondage.  Far-seeing  men,  themselves  placed  by  the  accidents  of  rank 
or  fortune  above  subjection  to  the  immediate  and  personal  evils  of  mis- 
government,  no  less  looked  anxiously  for  the  triumph  of  principles 
fraught  with  the  redemption  of  humanity  from  the  accumulated  wrongs 
and  miseries  of  ages.  The  philosophic  monarch  of  Prussia,  the  great 
Frederic,  left  behind  him  the  record  of  his  approbation  of  the  first 
movement  towards  the  extermination  of  kingcraft ;  a  movement,  all  the 
ultimate  consequences  of  which,  he  probably  had  not  estimated.  Hol- 
land and  France  sympathized  deeply  with  us,  as  the  event  afterwards 
proved.  Ireland,  from  her  rack  of  never-ending  torture,  sent  up  to 
heaven  in  our  behalf  her  heartfelt  intercessions.  Even  in  England, 
philosophy  and  liberality,  and  whatever  elements  of  freedom  the  British 
Constitution  contained,  were  all  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  the  colonies.  In 
the  commons  house  of  parliament,  Burke,  and  Barre,  and  Fox,  the  wis- 
dom, and  wit,  and  genius  of  that  awful  assemblage,  waged  incessant  war, 
for  usj  against  the  creatures  of  executive  misrule  ;  and  night  after  night, 
advanced,  like  a  forlorn  hope,  to  storm  the  impregnable  ministerial 
benches.  Even  among  the  Lords,  talent  was  on  our  side.  Chatham 
was  not  the  only  peer  who  rejoiced  that  America  had  resisted;*  and  the 

^  January  14th,  1766.     Pitt  in  the  House  of  Commons, 


OF  ROBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  403 

Duke  of  Grafton,  abandoning  the  administration,  wrote  to  Lord  North, 
that,  "  the  inclinations  of  the  majority  of  persons  of  respectability  and 
property  in  England,  differed  in  little  else  than  words,  from  the  declara- 
tions of  the  congress."  After  the  sword  Avas  drawn,  and  the  contest 
waxed  hot,  the  choicest  spirits  of  Europe  rushed  to  engage  in  it.  The 
soil  which  they  fought  to  emancipate,  covers  the  bones  of  Pulaski  and 
De  Kalb.  Kosciusko  served  here  his  apprenticeship  to  freedom  ;  in 
whose  name  he  defied  death  when  slaughter  revelled  over  the  ruins  of 
Warsaw.  The  early  friend  of  Washington,  the  adopted  child  of  Amer- 
ica, the  apostle  of  universal  liberty,  the  lamented  of  both  worlds,  the 
great  and  good  Lafayette,  breaking  from  the  lap  of  prosperity,  and  de- 
serting the  home  of  domestic  felicity,  spurning  all  obstacles,  and  breast- 
ing every  danger,  in  the  bloom  of  youth  devoted  himself  like  Hannibal, 
and  swore  upon  the  altar  of  human  rights,  eternal  hatred  to  every  form 
of  tyranny. 

With  such  leaders  at  home,  and  such  friends  abroad,  the  disparity  was 
still  fearful  between  the  parties  ranged  in  arms.  Massachusetts,  before 
the  colossal  proportions  of  the  parent  State,  showed  like  the  youthful 
champion  of  Israel  arrayed  against  the  Philistine  of  Gath;  yet  the 
stripling  defied  the  giant.  It  is  the  first  collision  between  the  hostile 
powers,  absolutism  on  the  one  side,  liberty  on  the  other,  the  sj)irit  of  the 
past  and  the  spirit  of  the  future,  that  we  have  this  day  met  to  com- 
memorate, —  a  custom  honored  in  the  observance  and  deserving  to  be 
perpetuated. 

If  those  who  live  under  governments  in  which  the  subjects  have  no 
share,  can  feel  a  patriotic  interest  in  the  commemoration  of  the  victories 
that  have  illumined  their  annals,  much  more  may  we,  a  self-governing, 
sovereign  people,  exult  in  our  joint  inheritance  of  joy  and  pride.  If  the 
battles,  in  which  the  selfish  ambition  of  rivals  for  power  has  deluged 
every  corner  of  the  earth  in  fraternal  blood,  are  held  in  everlasting  re- 
membrance by  the  posterity  of  the  victors,  to  keep  alive  the  national 
spirit,  and  to  nourish  that  enthusiasm,  which,  blind  and  preposterous  as 
it  may  sometimes  be,  is  yet  the  strongest  safeguard  of  a  nation's  honor, 
union,  and  independence,  how  much  rather  should  we  embalm  in  our 
hearts  an  act  of  self-sacrificing  devotion,  unsullied  with  any  mixture  of 
sordid  interest,  —  an  act  which  stands,  and  must  forever  stand,  alone,  in 
its  original,  unapproachable  sublimity!  The  blasts  which' have  rung 
loudest  and  most  frequent  from  the  trumpet  of  fame,  have  ever  pealed 
in  honor  of  mere  vulgar  slaughters, — an  unavailing  and  a  lavish  waste 
of  life,  over  which  pure  philanthropy  could  only  weep.  How  delightful 
is  the  contrast  of  our  American  jubilees,  when  our  grateful  anthems  as- 
cend in  devout  thanksgivings  to  Him  who  inspired  the  founders  of  Amer- 


404  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

ican  inde2:>endence  to  erect  for  themselves  that  ever-diiring  monument, 
—  a  work  which,  as  it  had  no  model,  though  it  may  be  often  imitated, 
will  have  no  equal,  forever  peerless  in  its  solitary  grandeur. 

If  there  be  any  event  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  any  nation  is 
called  upon  to  celebrate,  the  birthday  of  a  free  and  mighty  empire  pre- 
sents the  strongest  claim  to  this  distinction.  "  0,  what  a  glorious  morn- 
ing is  this  !  "  was  the  memorable  exclamation  of  Samuel  Adams,  while, 
as  himself,  and  his  brother  in  proscription  as  well  as  in  patriotism,  John 
Hancock,  in  their  concealment  anxiously  awaited  the  event  of  the  well- 
known  enterprise  of  British  confidence,  volley  after  volley  of  distant 
musketry  broke  upon  the  ear,  and  told  but  too  plainly  that  the  vengeance 
of  the  mightiest  empire  in  the  world  was  let  loose  upon  her  feeble  colony 
of  Massachusetts  Bay.  It  was  the  exclamation  of  more  than  Roman 
patriotism  ;  it  expressed  the  stern  joy  springing  from  a  higher  feeling, — 
an  unshaken  trust  in  that  overruling  Justice  to  which  Pagan  Rome  could 
only  look  up  with  dim  and  doubtful  hope. 

Was  the  dawn  of  the  19th  of  April,  1775,  a  glorious  morning?  He, 
whose  heart  pronounced  it  glorious,  knew  that  it  was  the  moment  of  a 
great  crime.  British  subjects  were  murdered  by  British  arms.  Even 
while  he  spoke,  the  story  was  all  too  audible,  that  the  brother  was  im- 
bruing his  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  brother.  The  first  martyrs  in  a 
holy  cause,  choice  spirits  of  the  youthful  yeomanry  of  Middlesex  and 
Essex,  on  that  day  rendered  in  their  testimony.  The  deeds  of  that  day 
gave  earnest,  which  the  issue  did  not  falsify,  that 

"  British  fury,  rankling  for  revenge, 
With  Ate  at  her  side,  come  hot  from  hell, 
Should,  in  our  confines,  with  a  monarch's  voice. 
Cry  havoc,  and  let  slip  the  dogs  of  war." 

Not  war  only,  0  my  friends,  with  whose  fell  visage  they  had  grown 
familiar  from  their  childhood,  threatened  our  fathers  ;  not  French  or  In- 
dian hostilities,  for  which  they  could  with  composure  make  ready  prepa- 
ration ;  but  war  in  a  new  and  more  fearful  character,  civil  war,  the  direst 
scourge  that  ever  tormented  long-suffering  humanity.  Yes,  m  the  first 
shot  fired  at  Lexington  they  recognized  the  promise,  how  truly  fulfilled, 
that  British  wrath,  in  desolation,  blood,  and  fire,  should  sweep  the  vast 
continent  from  Maine  to  Georgia. 

Why  then  was  the  morning  of  the  first  banquet  of  civil  slaughter  a 
glorious  morning?  What  were  the  omens  that  could  brighten  this 
gloomy  future  ?  What  rapturous  vision  of  reward  tempted  them  to 
wade  cheerfully  through  that  sea  of  blood  into  which  they  that  day 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  405 

stepped  exulting?  Were  they  courting  fame,  or  power,  or  wealth,  or 
popularity,  for  themselves,  and  willing  to  pave  the  way  to  their  purpose 
with  the  myriads  of  heads  that  must  be  laid  in  the  dust  ?  Were  they 
conjuring  up  the  spirit  of  a  terrible  revolution,  that  they  might  ride  in 
the  whirlwind  and  direct  the  storm  it  would  create  ?  Nothing  of  all  this 
found  any  place  among  their  motives.  They  did  not  belong  to  that  class 
of  men  concerning  whom  it  is  necessary  to  inquire  what  profit  recom- 
mends their  acts  of  virtue. 

They  were  never  trained  to  pace  in  trammels,  nor  tempted  by  the 
sweets  of  preferment  to  sacrifice  freedom  to  the  servile  restraints  of  am- 
bition, and,  from  this  circumstance,  could  feel  a  comfort  which  no  exter- 
nal honors  could  bestow.  Hancock  and  Adams  belonged  to  the  class  of 
Plutarch's  men,  —  the  higher  order  of  politicians  described  by  Lord 
Bacon  ;  their  minds  "  endued  with  a  true  sense  of  the  frailty  of  their 
persons,  the  casualty  of  their  fortunes,  and  the  dignity  of  their  soul  and 
vocation  ;  so  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  esteem  that  any  greatness 
of  their  own  fortune  can  be  a  true  or  worthy  end  of  their  being  and  or- 
dainment,  and  therefore  are  desirous  to  give  their  account  to  God,  and 
so  likewise  to  their  masters  under  God,  the  States  that  they  serve,  not 
as  unprofitable  servants  ;  whereas,  the  corrupter  sort  of  mere  politicians, 
that  have  not  their  thoughts  established  in  the  love  and  apprehension  of 
duty,  nor  ever  look  abroad  into  universality,  do  refer  all  things  to  them- 
selves, and  thrust  themselves  into  the  centre  of  the  world,  as  if  all  lines 
should  meet  in  them  and  their  fortunes,  never  caring,  in  all  tempests, 
what  becomes  of  the  ship  of  state,  so  they  may  save  themselves  in  the 
cockboat  of  their  own  fortunes  ;  whereas,  men  that  feel  the  weight  of 
duty,  and  know  the  limits  of  self-love,  use  to  make  good  their  places  and 
duties  though  with  peril." 

The  zeal  of  these  two  pioneers  of  the  revolution  was  disinterested,  for 
the  rebellion  put  all  to  hazard  that  they  had  or  might  expect.  A  lucra- 
tive commerce  annihilated,  the  sources  of  Hancock's  income  were  largely 
cut  off;  in  the  defeat  of  the  colonists,  the  confiscation  of  his  estates  must 
have  followed  ;  and  even  to  their  success,  his  destruction  seemed  at  one 
time  to  be  necessary.  When  it  was  contemplated  to  bombard  Boston 
during  the  siege,  he  cheered  on  the  attempt,  though  it  would  reduce  his 
property  to  ashes.  Neutrality  in  the  contest  that  v.^as  coming  on  would 
have  replenished  the  coffers  of  Samuel  Adams  ;  but  he  was  as  inacces- 
sible to  seduction  as  Phocion  or  Aristides,  and  lived  and  died  in  honor- 
able duty. 

If  popularity,  fame,  or  influence  had  charms  for  these  daring  rebels,  a 
safe  and  easy  path  was  open  before  them.  The  lavish  munificence  of 
Hancock's  private  life,  his  hospitality,  free  as  the  air  and  liberal  as  the 


406  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

sun,  his  affability  in  social  intercourse,  and  the  urbanity  of  his  carriage, 
fitted  him  to  be  a  universal  favorite  ;  and,  with  his  facility  In  business 
and  knowledge  of  character,  if  joined  to  the  favor  of  the  government, 
must  have  formed  a  most  powerful  combination.  The  unostentatious 
habits,  unbending  austerity,  and  indefatigable  activity  of  Samuel  Adams, 
could  not  fail  to  command  respect  and  influence,  upon  different  but  no 
less  certain  principles.  Office  was  within  his  reach,  if  he  had  deigned 
to  accept  it ;  but  Governor  Hutchinson,  In  a  letter,  has  told  us  why  he 
was  not  silenced  by  it :  "  Such  is  the  obstinacy  and  inflexible  disposition 
of  the  man,"  said  his  excellency,  "  that  he  never  can  be  conciliated  by 
any  office  or  gift  whatever,"  —  a  tribute  characteristic  of  him  who  had 
maintained,  on  receiving  his  second  degree  at  Harvard  in  1743,  that  it 
was  "  lawful  to  resist  the  supreme  magistrate,  if  the  Commonwealth 
cannot  be  otherwise  preserved,"  with  the  same  sincere  zeal  with  which 
he  practised  the  thesis.  When  General  Gage,  after  the  battle,  offered 
a  pardon  to  all  the  other  rebels,  they  had  the  honor  to  be  the  two  sole 
exceptions,  their  offences  being  ''  of  too  flagitious  a  nature  to  admit  of 
any  other  consideration  than  that  of  condign  punishment." 

The  prospect  before  Hancock  and  Adams,  on  the  ever-glorious  nine- 
teenth of  April,  was,  to  be  soon  proclaimed  traitors ;  and  if  the  giant 
despotism  they  had  provoked  crushed  the  incipient  rebellion,  as  the  world 
looking  on  expected,  that  then  their  ghastly  heads  would  frown  from 
Temple  Bar,  and  their  blasted  names  be  bequeathed  to  eternal  infamy, 
both  in  the  old  world  and  the  new,  —  triumphant  tyranny  having  silenced 
the  voice  of  truth,  justice,  and  patriotism.  The  "  condign  punishment "  de- 
nounced against  the  champions  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  Englishmen, 
involved  atrocities  too  horrible  to  be  alluded  to  here  ;  *  it  was  an  exhibi- 
tion from  which  a  heathen  spectator  might  naturally  infer,  that  not  the 
dove,  but  the  vulture,  was  the  emblem  of  Christianity.  It  had  been  first 
inflicted  on  an  unfortunate  patriot  guilty  of  the  precise  crime  of  Hancock 
and  Adams,  David  Prince  of  Wales,  who,  In  the  eleventh  year  of  Edward 
I.,  expiated,  by  a  cruel  death,  his  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  his  country's 
independence.  At  a  grand  consultation  of  peers  of  the  realm,  it  was 
agreed  that  London  should  be  graced  with  his  head,  while  York  and 
Winchester  disputed  for  the  honor  of  his  right  shoulder.  In  a  few  years, 
other  Welsh  chiefs  suffered  the  fate  of  their  prince.  This  unseemly 
precedent,  adopted  in  the  flush  and  insolence  of  victory,  then  assumed 
the  venerable  form  of  law,  and  fell  next  upon  the  undaunted  William 


*  "  Accursed  be  the  faggots  that  blaze  at  liis  feet, 

Where  his  heart  shall  be  thrown,  ere  it  ceases  to  beat, 
With  the  smoke  of  its  ashes  to  poison  the  gale." 


OF  EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  407 

Wallace,  who  noblj  died  in  defence  of  tlie  liberties  and  independence  of 
liis  country,  exhibiting  to  the  delighted  city  of  London  a  terrible  exam- 
ple of  Edward's  vengeance.  Such  was  the  begimiing  of  that  lavr  of 
treason,  which,  originating  in  the  year  1283,  continued  in  force  for  more 
than  five  centuries,  as  if  to  warn  mankind  how  easily  the  most  execrable 
example  may  be  introduced,  and  w^ith  what  difficulty  a  country  is  purified 
from  its  debasing  influence.  Why  should  I  single  out  illustrious  victims 
of  these  rites  of  Moloch  ?  The  ever-hallowed  names  in  the  perennial 
pages  of  British  glory,  you  may  read  them  in  the  attainted  catalogue  of 
arrant  traitors.  Long  after  the  ashes  of  Welsh  independence  were 
quenched  in  the  blood  of  a  native  prince,  ages  after  the  spirit  of  Scottish 
liberty  was  roused,  not  crushed,  by  the  ignominious  butchery  of  Wallace  ; 
More  and  Fisher,  learning  and  piety,  Russell  and  Sidney,  integrity  and 
honor,  were  sacrificed  upon  the  scaffold  of  treason,  beneath  the  axe  of 
arbitrary  power.  These  lessons  of  history  might  have  taught  our  Tlan- 
cock  and  Adams,  that  the  holy  cause  to  which  they  were  devoted,  purity 
of  motive,  and  a  character  untouched  by  any  shaft  of  calumny,  were  not 
pleas  in  bar  to  a  British  indictment  for  treason. 

Why,  then,  we  may  Vv^ell  ask  again,  was  the  prospect  of  coming  perils 
glorious  to  the  eye  of  far-seeing  patriotism  ?  For  the  high  prize  that 
could  be  won  by  none  but  souls  tempered  to  pass  through  the  interven- 
ing agony ;  wdio,  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  them,  could  endure  the 
cross  and  despise  the  shame,  —  Liberty,  the  life  of  life,  that  gladdens 
the  barren  hill-tops  of  Scotland  and  Switzerland,  and  loved  >Tew  Eng- 
land ;  that  makes  the  sun  shine  brightly  in  our  cold  northern  sky  ;  that 
makes  the  valleys  verdant  in  blithesome  spring,  and  sober  autumn  laugh 
in  her  golden  exuberance ;  that  nerves  the  arm  of  labor,  and  blesses  the 
couch  of  repose ;  that  clothes  Avith  strength  our  sons,  and  our  daughters 
with  beauty,  —  Liberty,  in  whose  devotion  they  were  nursed ;  vrhich 
their  fathers  had  bequeathed  to  them,  a  legacy  to  be  handed  down  unim- 
i^aired,  through  ourselves,  to  their  and  our  latest  posterity  ;  to  which 
they  clung  through  life,  and  which  inspired  the  patriotism  that  could 
freely  testify,  to  die  for  one's  country  is  a  joy  and  a  glory.* 

Young  freedom  had  ever  been  consecrated  by  the  baptism  of  blood. 
Sparta  and  Athens,  Holland  and  the  mountain-girt  Swiss,  proud  Albion 
and  regenerated  France,  bought  at  a  cheap  purchase,  with  the  lavish 
expense  of  their  best  lives,  the  rights  which  they  enjoyed.  Adams  and 
his  compatriots,  on  the  day  we  have  met  to  celebrate,  knew  that  liberty 
must  be,  as  it  ever  had  been,  a  life-bought  boon  ;  that  only  by  a 
mortal  struggle  could  it  be  wrested  from  the  grasp  of  power ;  and  that 


*  "Dulcc  ct  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori."  —  Warren  in  answer  to  Gerry. 


408  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND  WRITINGS 

nothing  but  perpetual  vigilance,  resolved  to  do  and  dare,  and  suffer  all 
tilings  rather  than  surrender  it,  could  guarantee  the  long  possession  of 
the  blessing  afterwards.  They  had  counted  the  cost,  and  chose  the 
purcliase. 

Glorious,  thrice  glorious  was  the  morning,  then,  w^lien  the  first  shot 
fired  at  Lexington  gave  the  signal  of  separation,  of  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent empire,  from  its  parent  state.  The  nineteenth  of  April  and  the 
seventeenth  of  June,  both  on  the  classic  ground  of  the  world's  freedom, 
this  County  of  Middlesex,  cut  out  the  work  for  the  fourth  of  July  — 
w^orld-emancipating  work  —  which  the  achievements  of  the  heroes  of  the 
uprising  of  America,  and  the  Titanic  labors  of  the  transatlantic  sons  of 
revolution,  yet  agitate  and  roll  on  towards  its  grand  completion.  Mid- 
dlesex possesses  this  imperishable  glory,  before  which  the  lustre  of  the 
brightest  victories  won  in  battles  between  contending  tyrants,  turns  pale. 
Her  children  claim  a  common  property  in  the  trophies  of  these  two 
memorable  days  ;  they  walk  together  in  the  light  of  these  two  glowing 
beacon-fires,  kindled  on  that  stormy  coast  where  liberty  has  taken  up  her 
eternal  abode,  to  illuminate,  with  the  cheering  radiance  of  hope,  her 
benighted  pilgrims,  who  can  look  nowhere  else  for  hope  but  to  this 
western  world. 

In  her  affluence  of  glory,  Middlesex  can  afford  to  be  generous.  She 
would  not  monopolize  with  local  jealousy  the  fame  of  the  great  deeds 
that  astonished  and  startled  the  repose  of  the  age  of  Hancock  and  Ad- 
ams, and  ushered  in  the  stupendous  changes  of  the  era  of  Mirabeau  and 
Napoleon.  In  that  inheritance  of  glorious  recollections,  garnered  up  by 
our  revolutionary  fathers,  of  which  Massachusetts  enjoys  the  undisputed 
possession,  the  three  northeastern  counties  claim  each  a  peculiar  share. 

It  was  Boston  that  thwarted  the  scheme  of  colonial  taxation,  under 
the  guise  of  commercial  regulations,  when  she  hurled  into  the  sea  the 
intended  instrument  of  her  slavery.  It  was  Boston  whose  streets  were 
stained  with  massacre,  making  every  ear  that  heard  it  tingle,  but  never 
shaking  her  unconquerable  constancy.  It  was  Boston  that  esj)ecially 
provoked  ministerial  anger,  and  was  early  marked  out  for  signal  retri- 
bution. It  was  the  bugle-blast  of  Boston  patriotism  that  awoke  the 
sympathies  of  the  distant  colonies,  and  was  answered  by  the  thunders  of 
British  vengeance.  While  smarting  under  the  blow  aimed  at  her  pros- 
perity, not  for  a  moment  did  she  cease  to  animate  her  friends  and  her 
neighbors  to  resistance. 

After  the  colUsion,  which  extinguished  the  last  lingering  hope  of  a 
reconciliation,  the  county  of  Essex,  essentially  maritime  in  her  habits, 
launched  her  thunderbolts  over  the  deep,  and  trailed  the  flag  that  for  a 
thousand  years  had  braved  the  battle  and  the  breeze,  ignominiously  on 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  409 

many  a  conquered  deck,  whence  went  up  the  pine-tree  flag  of  the  rebels 
in  token  of  victory. 

The  first  flag,  under  the  continental  authority,  that  ever  floated  at  an 
American  masthead,  in  defiance  of  British  supremacy,  was  hoisted  on 
board  the  Hannah,  from  Beverly.  The  first  commander  who,  under 
Washington's  commission,  threw  down  the  gauntlet  of  maritime  warfare, 
was  Captain  Manly,  of  Marblehead.  The  first  of  our  naval  heroes,  who, 
with  the  words,  "  don't  give  up  the  ship ! "  upon  his  dying  lips,  fell,  not 
in  defeat,  but  in  the  arms  of  victory,  was  Captain  Mugford,  of  Marble- 
head.*  The  first  highly  valuable  prize  of  all  the  vast  prey  snatched 
from  the  enemy  by  our  cruisers,  was  the  ordnance  brig  Nancy,  carried 
into  Gloucester,  and  containing  a  most  seasonable  supply  of  arms  and 
ammunition.  From  this  small  beginning  grew  up  that  formidable  naval 
strength  which  wrestled  with  the  power  hitherto  deemed  invincible  on 
the  ocean,  and  came  out  of  that  desperate  struggle  not  without  laurels. 
The  harbors  of  Salem,  Marblehead,  and  Beverly,  swarmed  with  private- 
armed  vessels,  and  were  crowded  with  prizes.  The  same  hardy  fisher- 
men of  the  seaports  of  Essex,  driven  from  the  theatre  of  their  adventur- 
ous industry  by  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  trod  the  decks  of  these 
little  wanderers  of  the  sea,  who  afterwards  manned  the  Constitution  in 
the  second  war  of  independence,  when  St.  George's  cross  went  down 
before  the  stars  and  stripes. 

But  it  is  to  the  County  of  Middlesex  that  the  tribes  of  our  American 
Israel  come  up  to  keep  holy  time.  The  Mecca  and  Medina  of  the  ad- 
vent of  freedom  are  within  her  borders.  Lexington,  whose  echoes  an- 
swered to  the  signal  gun  that  broke  the  centennial  slumbers  of  the  genius 
of  revolution,  to  sleep  no  more  till  he  has  trampled  on  the  fetters  of  the 
last  slave,  and  wrapped  in  consuming  flames  the  last  throne  ;  to  overturn, 
and  overturn,  and  overturn,  until  he  shall  make  an  end ;  —  Concord, 
that  saw  the  insulting  foe  driven  back  in  dire  confusion  before  the  children 
of  liberty,  as  the  cloud  squadrons  of  some  threatening  thunderstorm 
melt  and  disperse  when  the  full-orbed  sun  bursts  through  and  overpowers 
them  ;  —  Acton,  whose  Spartan  band  of  minute-men  withstood  the  onset, 
and  returned  the  fire  of  the  minions  of  the  tyrant ;  whose  gallant  Davis 
poured  out  his  soul  freely  in  his  country's  cause,  at  the  moment  when 
the  tide  of  foreign  aggression  ebbed,  at  the  moment  when  the  beginning 
of  the  onward  movement  of  his  country's  liberty,  independence,  great- 
ness, and  glory,  by  his  judgment,  promptness,  and  valor,  was  secured;  — 
Charlestown,  the  smoke  of  whose  sacrifice  mingled  with  the  roar  of  the 
murderous  artillery,  while  a  holocaust  of  victims  and  the  apotheosis  of 


=*May  19,  1775. 
35 


410  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Warren  consecrated  lier  mount  as  tlie  thrice  holy  spot  of  all  New  Eng- 
land's hallowed  soil; — Cambridge,  the  head-quarters  of  the  hero,  after 
v/hom  the  age  of  transition  from  monarchies  to  republics  will  be  called 
the  age  of  Washington ;  —  in  these,  your  towns,  are  the  several  peculiar 
shrines  of  the  worship  of  constitutional  liberty  that  have  made  the 
American  continent  not  barren  of  historical  monumental  scenes.  Where 
else,  in  the  circuit  of  the  revolving  globe,  does  the  sun  look  on  such  a 
clustered  group  of  glories  ? 

Lexington,  Concord,  Acton,  Charlestown,  Cambridge,  each  has  its 
blazoned  page  in  the  records  of  fame ;  but,  gentlemen,  we  have  gathered 
from  our  several  homes  at  the  point  which  marks  the  crisis  in  the  im- 
mortal epos.  It  was  here  that  republican  energy  said  to  foreign  usurpa- 
tion, thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  but  no  further,  and  here  shall  thy  proud 
waves  be  stayed.  The  site  of  the  old  North  Bridge  at  Concord,  is  the 
pivot  on  which  the  history  of  the  world  turns.  The  volley  fired  for 
freedom  there,  reverberated  through  a  series  of  revolutions.  The  rout 
Vv'hich  then  begun,  was  but  the  beginning  of  the  disasters  and  retreats  of 
despotism  not  yet  ended.  Before  the  first  shot  had  been  fired  that  morn- 
ing to  repulse  the  regulars,  self-government  was  a  dream  ;  since  that 
moment  it  has  grown  to  be  a  fact  fixed  as  the  everlasting  hills.  The 
transactions  of  that  day  of  destiny,  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago,  are 
too  familiar  to  you  all  to  be  rehearsed  again  on  this  occasion.  You  will 
pardon  me,  if  I  rather,  after  succinctly  stating  the  event,  return  to  those 
general  considerations  which  seem  to  be  appropriate  to  the  place  and 
day. 

The  Boston  Port  Bill  took  eflfect  June  1st,  1774.  It  prostrated  the 
flourishing  commerce  of  that  town  and  occasioned  great  distress.  It  was 
intended  to  punish  the  destruction  of  the  tea,  and  other  manifestations  of 
the  rebellious  temper  of  the  New  England  metropolis,  and  was  followed 
by  the  landing  of  several  additional  regiments  to  enforce  the  submission 
of  the  colonies  to  the  obnoxious  acts  of  parliament.  Government  hardly 
anticipated  any  serious  opposition  after  this  demonstration.  They  sadly 
underrated  the  persevering  courage  of  our  countrymen.  An  officer 
v/rote  home  from  Boston,  in  November,  1774,  "  Whenever  it  comes  to 
blows,  he  that  can  run  the  fastest  will  think  himself  best  off*;  any  two 
regiments  here  ought  to  be  decimated,  if  they  did  not  beat,  in  the  field, 
the  whole  force  of  the  Massachusetts  province."  As  late  as  the  IGth  of 
March,  1775,  Earl  Sandwich  told  an  apochryphal  story,  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  of  the  cowardice  of  the  Americans  at  Louisburg,  and  added, 
'•'  They  are  raw,  undisciplined,  cowardly  men.  I  wish,  instead  of  forty 
or  fifty  thousand  of  these  brave  fellows,  they  would  produce  in  the  field 
at  least  two  hundred  thousand  ;  the  more  the  better,  the  easier  would  be 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  411 

the  conquest ;  if  they  did  not  run  away,  they  would  starve  themselves 
into  compliance  with  our  measures."*  When  the  test  came,  the  feats  of 
running  were  upon  the  other  side  ;  and  the  nearest  approach  to  starva- 
tion was  experienced  within  the  lines  of  beleaguered  Boston  rather  than 
without. 

Notwithstanding  this  overweening  confidence  of  the  ministry,  Gage, 
who  had  fought  by  the  side  of  provincial  troops  in  Braddock's  expedi- 
tion, could  not  disguise  from  himself  that  a  "  bloody  crisis  "  was  at  hand, 
and  Avrote  home  to  his  employers,  that  "  a  very  respectable  force  should 
take  the  field."  The  possession  of  arms  and  ammunition  was,  of  course, 
essential  to  the  plans  of  the  colonists,  and  to  deprive  them  of  the  mate- 
rial of  war  was  equally  an  object  of  the  first  importance  with  General 
Gage.  On  the  1st  of  September,  he  caused  to  be  carried  off,  from  the 
magazine  at  Quarry  Hill,  in  Charlestown,  two  hundred  and  fifty  half 
barrels  of  powder,  belonging  to  the  provincials,  and  two  field-pieces  from 
Cambridge.  This  proceeding  excited  great  indignation.  The  patriots 
conveyed,  secretly  and  by  night,  muskets  and  cannon  out  of  Boston,  and 
from  an  old  battery  at  Charlestown,  and  made  every  effort  to  secure  their 
stores.  Sunday,  February  26th,  Colonel  Leslie  was  sent  to  Salem  to 
seize  some  brass  cannon,  but  was  thwarted  by  the  hoisting  of  the  North 
Bridge,  and  the  sudden  assembling  of  the  people.  On  the  18th  of 
March,  the  Boston  Neck  Guard  seized  thirteen  thousand  four  hundred 
and  twenty-five  cartridges,  and  a  quantity  of  ball,  which  the  patriots 
were  transporting  into  the  country. 

At  Concord,  where  the  provincial  congress  sat,  from  the  twenty-second 
of  March  to  the  fifteenth  of  April,  a  large  quantity  of  military  stores  had 
been  collected,  which  General  Gage,  in  pursuance  of  his  settled  policy, 
determined  to  destroy.  He  sent  out  officers  to  reconnoitre  the  roads, 
and  endeavored  to  intercept  all  information  of  his  designs  on  its  way  into 
the  country ;  and,  on  the  night  of  the  eighteenth  of  April,  at  half-past 
ten,  despatched  eight  hundred  men,  by  way  of  Lechmere's  Point,  through 
West  Cambridge  and  Lexington,  to  Concord.  A  lanthorn  in  the  North 
Church  steeple  alarmed  the  country,  and,  by  midnight,  Colonel  Paul 
Revere  had  carried  the  news  to  Hancock  and  Adams,  at  the  Rev.  Jonas 
Clark's  house  in  Lexington.  The  commanding  officer  learned,  by  the 
sound  of  guns  and  bells,  that  his  silent  march  had  been  betrayed,  and 
that  the  country  was  rising  round  him.  He  sent  back  to  Boston  for  a 
reinforcement,  and  at  the  same  time  pushed  forward  six  companies  of 
light-infantry,  under  Major  Pitcairn,  to  seize  the  Concord  bridges.    This 

*  Debate  on  the  Bill  for  restraining  the  Trade  and  Commerce  of  the  New  England 
Colonies. 


412  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

detachment  found  at  Lexington,  a  little  before  five  in  the  morning,  Cap- 
tain Parker's  company  of  militia,  just  to  the  north  of  the  meeting-house, 
numbering  sixty  or  seventy.  Pitcairn  ordered  them  to  throw  down  their 
arms  and  disperse ;  but  the  order  was  not  instantly  obeyed,  and  the 
king's  troops  rushed  on  them,  shouting  and  firing.  Eight  patriots  were 
killed,  and  ten  wounded.  Jonas  Parker,  and  some  others,  returned  the 
fire  ;  the  militia  retreated  in  disorder.  The  British  gave  "  three  huzzas 
by  way  of  triumph,  and  as  expressive  of  the  joy  of  victory  and  the  glory 
of  conquest ; "  *  and  after  about  twenty  minutes'  halt,  during  which  the 
light-infantry  came  up,  the  whole  force  moved  on  to  Concord,  and 
reached  it  about  seven  o'clock.  The  militia  collected  there,  retired  be- 
fore their  superior  numbers  ;  the  grenadiers  and  part  of  the  light-infantry 
remained  in  the  centre  of  the  town  ;  a  party  secured  the  South  Bridge, 
and  Captain  Laurie,  with  about  a  hundred  light-infantry,  guarded  the 
North  Bridge,  while  Captain  Parsons,  Avith  about  the  same  number, 
passed  about  two  miles  beyond  it,  to  destroy  the  stores  at  Colonel 
Barrett's.  A  portion  of  these  had  been  removed,  and  were  saved.  In 
the  mean  time,  the  tocsin  sounded  far  and  wide,  and  the  minute-men 
hurried  from  all  the  towns  around  to  the  help  of  their  brethren  in  peril. 
By  Colonel  Barrett's  direction,  they  were  formed  on  the  high  grounds 
about  a  mile  from  the  North  Bridge,  by  Adjutant  Hosmer,  to  the  number 
of  about  four  hundred  and  fifty.  Concord,  Lincoln,  Carlisle,  Chelmsford, 
Bedford,  Westford,  and  Littleton  were  numerously  represented  there, 
and  the  Acton  company  marched  up  together.  Smoke  began  to  rise 
from  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  the  Americans  must  see  their  dwellings 
burned,  or  occupy  the  bridge  and  pass  over  it  to  the  rescue.  A  short 
consultation  was  held  among  the  officers.  Captain  William  Smith,  of 
Lincoln,  volunteered  to  dislodge  the  enemy  from  the  bridge.  Captain 
Isaac  Davis,  of  Acton,  with  a  knowledge  of  his  company  which  the  event 
justified,  remarked,  "  I  haven't  a  man  in  my  company  that  is  afraid  to 
go."  Colonel  Barrett  "  ordered  them  to  march  to  the  North  Bridge  and 
pass  the  same,  but  not  to  fire  on  the  king's  troops  unless  they  were  fired 
upon."t  They  advanced  in  double  file,  the  Acton  company  under  Cap- 
tain Davis  in  front ;  Captains  Brown,  Miles,  Barrett,  Smith,  and  some 
others,  with  their  companies,  fell  into  the  line  ;  Major  Buttrick,  of  Con- 
cord, had  the  command,  and  Colonel  Robinson,  of  Westford,  marched 
beside  him  as  a  volunteer.  The  British,  when  they  saw  them  approach, 
began  to  take  up  the  planks  of  the  bridge.  Major  Buttrick  remonstrated, 
and  hastened  his  march.     When  they  were  within  ten  or  fifteen  rods, 

^  Clark's  Account,  April  19,  1776. 

t  Colonel  Barrett's  Deposition,  April  23,  1775. 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  4X3 

Laurie's  party  fired  upon  them,  first  a  few  shots  and  then  a  volley,  kill- 
ing Captain  Davis  and  Abner  Hosmer,  of  the  same  company,  and 
wounding  several  others.  The  provincials  returned  the  fire,  killed  one, 
and  wounded  several ;  and  the  regulars  immediately  retreated,  "  with 
great  precipitation,"  *  towards  the  main  body.  This  happened  between 
nine  and  ten  o'clock.  The  party  under  Captain  Parsons  soon  after 
passed  the  bridge  unmolested,  and  joined  the  main  body.  The  troops 
remained  in  Concord  till  noon. 

But  now  the  country  was  indeed  awake.  The  cry  of  innocent  blood 
sped  over  the  hills,  and  kindled  the  brave  New  England  hearts  in  every 
hamlet.  The  spark  struck  out  in  that  morning's  collision  was  fated  to 
light  up  the  flame  of  a  general  war,  and  to  burst  into  a  second  conflagra- 
tion, the  European  revolution,  which  the  blood  of  three  millions  of  vic- 
tims has  not  yet  sufficed  to  quench.  Already  it  ran  rapidly  over  this 
land  like  an  autumn  fire  in  the  prairies.  The  farmer,  from  the  plough 
left  standing  in  the  furrow,  the  smith,  casting  down  his  hammer,  up 
every  valley,  and  along  every  pathway,  the  firm-nerved  sons  of  toil, 
seizing  the  weapons  choked  with  the  rust  of  a  long  peace,  rushed  to 
arrest  the  progress  of  the  destroyer,  and  to  vindicate  their  outraged 
countrymen.  The  foe  that,  "  like  evening  wolves,  greedy  of  prey,  .  .  . 
crept  out  of  Boston,  through  a  by-way,  in  the  dark  and  silent  night,  that, 
unseen  and  unawares,  they  might  lay  waste  and  destroy,"  f  saw  their 
hidden  counsels  discovered,  and  their  boasted  victory  turned  to  shameful 
flight.  The  accumulated  wrongs  of  many  years  crowded  this  hour  of 
vengeance,  and  the  wrath  nursed  in  colonial  vassalage,  finding  sudden 
vent,  was  poured  without  stint  on  the  astonished  heads  of  invaders  who 
had  visited  their  quiet  homes  with  fire,  havoc,  and  massacre.  The  guilt 
of  the  first  blood  weighed  heavily  on  the  disheartened  fugitives,  as  they 
entered  on  their  rout  of  terror,  and  transformed  the  king's  troops,  in 
the  view  of  the  exasperated  patriots,  into  felons  doomed  and  deserving 
to  be  hunted  down  like  wolves.  Their  hatred  of  oppression  merged  in 
abhorrence  of  the  unnatural  crime  of  murder,  which  elevated  the  thirst 
of  vengeance  to  a  high  and  holy  duty,  "  to  execute  the  divine  law  in 
cutting  off  men  of  blood."  I  This  conviction  of  a  divine  warrant,  a 
positive  command  to  cut  off  their  enemies  from  the  earth,  took  deep  root 
in  the  puritan  heart  that  day,  and  was  assiduously  cultivated  by  the 
clergy  of  New  England  through  the  war,  making  it  inveterate  because 
it  was  a  war  of  conscience.     "  Choose  out  men  ;  go  fight  with  Amalek," 


*  Dr.  Langdon's  Sermon  before  Congress,  May  31, 1775. 
t  Mr.  Cooke's  Sermon  at  Lexington,  April  19,  1777. 
t  Cooke's  Sermon,  April  19,  1777. 
35* 


414  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

thundered  from  the  pulpits  ;  "  a  curse  is  denounced  against  the  man  that 
withholdeth  his  hand  from  shedding  blood,  and  even  on  him  that  doeth 
this  work  of  the  Lord  negligently."  *  Truly  these  were  genuine  de- 
scendants of  those  iron  Roundheads,  who  made  inquisition  for  blood, 
who  went  up  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty,  and  smote  them, 
hip  and  thigh  ;  who  read  the  one  hundred  and  forty -ninth  psalm  before 
their  battles,  and  cursed  Meroz  bitterly  ;  who  trusted  in  God  and  kept 
their  powder  dry,  and  shared  with  Oliver  his  crowning  mercies.  On 
that  black  and  ever  memorable  day,  April  nineteenth,  a  bloody  line  was 
drawn  across  the  scroll  of  history.  British  soldiers  were  no  longer 
fellow-subjects  of  their  anointed  king,  but  bloody  and  deceitful  men, 
whom  God  abhorred  and  would  repay  ;  sons  of  Amalek,  who  laid  wait 
for  Israel  in  the  way  when  he  came  up  from  Eygpt,  and  smote  him 
when  he  was  faint  and  wear}^ ;  against  whom  God  was  their  succor  and 
defence,  breaking  the  bows  of  the  mighty,  that  they  who  are  girded  with 
strength  stumble  and  fall.  Hoc  fonte  derivata  clades,  here  first  were 
"  garments  rolled  in  blood,  which,  from  this  source,  has  awfully  streamed 
through  the  land."  t  "  The  crimson  fount  was  opened  ;  God  only  knew 
when  it  would  close."  % 

About  noon,  Colonel  Smith  and  the  regulars  took  up  their  march  for 
Boston.  The  outposts  on  their  left,  on  the  high  ground,  had  been  dis- 
quieted with  the  prospect  of  the  husbandmen  hastening  along  every 
road  that  winds  round  the  hills,  bringing  with  them  the  firelocks  proved 
in  the  French  war.  Scant  time  had  they  to  divide  the  half-cooked  con- 
tents of  the  camp-kettles,  and  make,  what  was  to  many,  their  last  hurried 
meal.  A  strong  flank  guard  kept  the  ridge  that  runs  by  the  road,  and 
covered  their  left.  Near  Merriam's  corner,  the  Reading  minute-men, 
under  Major  Brooks,  and  the  militia  from  Billerica,  and  some  from  other 
towns,  came  up,  and  made  a  stand.  The  British  called  in  their  flanking 
party,  faced  about,  and  fired  a  volley,  which  injured  no  one.  The  fire 
was  immediately  returned,  and  two  British  soldiers  fell  dead  in  the  road 
near  the  brook. 

After  this,  no  vantage  ground  was  unimproved.  From  behind  trees, 
rocks,  fences,  and  buildings,  the  quick,  sharp  report  of  the  musket  was 
heard,  with  deadly  aim.  The  flanking  parties  suffered  terribly,  and 
whenever  the  nature  of  the  ground  brought  them  in,  the  shot  fell  fre- 
quent in  the  ranks  of  the  main  body.  Near  Hardy's  Hill,  the  Sudbury 
company  poured  in  their  fire.  The  woods  of  Lincoln  swarmed  with 
minute-men,  posted,  in  the  Indian  style,  behind  large  trees.     The  stone 

*  Cooke's  Sermon,  April  19,  1777. 
t  Cooke's  Sermon,  April  19,  1777. 
X  Letter  to  New  York,  quoted  in  Life  of  Hamilton,  Vol.  I. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  415 

walls  were  lined  with  sharpshooters,  and  the  quick  repeated  flashes  be- 
trayed their  numbers.  Woburn  had  "  turned  out  extraordinary,"  one 
hundred  and  eighty  strong,  who  scattered  behind  walls  and  trees.  The 
road  is  hilly  and  crooked,  with  forests  and  thickets  near.  In  passing 
through  these  woody  defiles,  for  three  miles  or  more,  the  British  loss 
was  heavy.  They  sustained  a  constant,  galling,  well-directed  fire,  and 
could  not  return  it  with  effect.  Captain  Parker  with  the  Lexington 
company,  smarting  under  the  outrage  of  the  morning,  met  them,  and 
turning  aside  into  the  field,  delivered  a  most  deadly  fire  as  they  passed. 
A  bright  sun  had  been  shining  all  day,  and  for  so  rapid  and  long-con- 
tinued a  movement,  the  weather  was  oppressively  warm.  The  pursuers 
mustered  in  constantly  increasing  numbers.  Ammunition  began  to  fail 
the  regulars,  \yorn  out  with  fatigue,  and  tortured  with  thirst,  the  re- 
straints of  discipline  could  be  endured  no  longer.  They  came  down 
the  hills  on  the  run,  and  scarcely,  by  threats  of  instant  death,  could  the 
officers  retain  them  in  their  decimated  ranks. 

Hasty,  hasty  rout  is  there  ; 
Fear  to  stop,  and  shame  to  fly. 
There  confusion,  terror's  child, 
Conflict  fierce,  and  ruin  wild, 
Agony  that  pants  for  breath. 

Their  situation  was  desperate,  and  the  detachment  must  soon  have 
surrendered,  if  they  had  not  been  reinforced. 

In  pursuance  of  Colonel  Smith's  request  in  the  morning.  General 
Gage  had  ordered  up  eleven  hundred  men  to  relieve  him.  They  con- 
sisted of  three  regiments  of  infantry,  and  two  divisions  of  marines,  with 
two  field-pieces,  and  marched  under  Lord  Percy,  through  Roxbury  and 
Cambridge,  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle.  They  met  the  fugitives, 
about  two  o'clock,  within  half  a  mile  of  Lexington  meeting-house,  "  so 
much  exhausted  with  fatigue,"  says  Stedman,  "  that  they  were  obliged 
to  lie  down,  for  rest,  on  the  ground,  their  tongues  hanging  out  of  their 
mouths,  like  those  of  dogs  after  a  chase."  The  field-pieces  played  from 
the  high  grounds  below  Munroe's  tavern,  and  kept  the  Provincials  at 
bay.  Awhile  the  battle  paused;  but  devastation  filled  the  interval. 
Buildings  were  set  on  fire,  and  others  on  the  route  plundered,  and  prop- 
erty wantonly  destroyed.  The  British  dressed  their  wounded ;  the  re- 
treating party  took  some  refreshment,  and  the  whole  body  rested  about 
half  an  hour,  a  mile  below  the  meeting-house. 

Lord  Percy  was  a  nobleman  of  talent,  valor,  and  skill ;  proud  of  the 
Northumberland  honors.  He  had  with  him  eighteen  hundred  veterans, 
schooled  in  victory  in  the  old  world,  finely  officered,  furnished  with  well- 
served  artillery,  and  goaded  to  revenge  by  the  spectacle  of  their  discom- 


416  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

fited  and  bleeding  comrades,  driven  like  sheep  before  the  rustic,  undis- 
ciplined, and  rudely-organized  champions  of  freedom.  Yet  he  did  not 
turn  upon  his  assailants,  and  evidently  considered  that  he  was  accom- 
plishing a  most  arduous  achievement,  and  earning  for  himself  no  mean 
military  reputation,  if  he  could  rescue  his  command,  environed  with 
peril,  and  conduct  it  without  serious  loss  to  Boston.  No  sooner  were 
his  troops  in  motion,  than  the  minute-men  and  militia,  rallied  from  a  still 
wider  circle  than  before,  renewed  the  attack  with  unabated  ardor. 
Wherever  the  windings  of  the  road  enabled  the  pursuers  to  bring  the 
column  in  their  line  of  fire,  the,  dead  and  wounded  dropped  from  the 
ranks.  Lord  Percy  quickened  his  march.  At  West  Cambridge, 
Hutchinson's  company,  consisting  of  twenty-four  minute-men  from  Dan- 
vers,  and  Lieutenant  Ebenezer  Francis,  and  the  same  number  of  men 
from  Beverly,  with  Foster's  minute-men,  principally  from  Danvers,  but 
partly  from  Beverly,  followed  by  Eppe's,  Page's,  and  Flint's  companies 
of  militia,  mostly  from  Danvers,  and  Captain  Caleb  Dodge's  company 
from  Beverly,  reached  the  scene  of  action.  They  planted  themselves  in 
the  route  of  the  retreat,  and  prepared  to  receive  the  enemy,  by  throwing 
together  a  breastwork  of  bundles  of  shingles  against  the  walls  of  an 
inclosure,  a  little  west  of  the  meeting-house.  They  probably  had  not 
heard  of  the  reinforcement  under  Lord  Percy,  and  expected  to  encoun- 
ter, and  intended  to  intercept,  the  jaded  and  harassed  survivors  of  the 
Concord  fight.  They  were  soon  undeceived,  for  the  British,  in  solid 
column,  descended  the  hill  on  their  right,  while  a  large  flanking  party 
advanced  at  the  same  moment  on  their  left.*  Surprised,  outnumbered, 
and  surrounded,  they  made  a  gallant  resistance ;  some  fell  fighting  and 
sold  their  lives  dearly;!  others  surrendered  and  were  basely  butchered; 
so  says  the  local  tradition  of  their  town.  Captain  Foster  and  a  part  of 
his  men,  who  had  not  entered  the  inclosure,  but  had  posted  themselves 
behind  trees  on  the  hill-side,  passed  along  the  margin  of  the  pond,  and 
crossed  the  road  directly  in  front  of  the  British  column,  and  fired  from 
behind  a  ditch  wall,  as  long  as  their  shot  would  tell.]:     It  is  a  fact,  which 


=^  Hanson's  History  of  Danvers. 

t  "  The  greatest  slaughter  of  the  British  took  place,  it  is  said,  while  they  were  on 
the  retrograde,  sweating  with  toil  and  blood,  for  three  or  four  miles  through  the 
woody  defiles  in  Lincoln,  and  in  the  upper  part  of  Lexington,  and  again  when  their 
flanking  parties  were  intercepted  in  Cambridge,  by  one  or  two  companies  from 
Danvers."  Lexington  and  the  19th  of  April,  1775,  republished  in  the  Boston  News 
Letter. 

J  For  this,  and  some  other  incidents  given  above,  I  am  indebted  to  the  interesting 
address,  delivered  by  Hon.  D.  P.  King,  on  laying  the  corner  stone  of  the  Danvers 
monument. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  417 

certainly  should  never  be  forgotten  in  the  commemoration  of  the  acts  of 
daring  patriotism  of  the  citizens,  of  about  twenty  towns,  who  took  part 
in  the  pursuit  that  afternoon,  that  Danvers,  distant  sixteen  miles  from 
the  spot  where  her  children  fell,  lost  a  greater  number  of  killed  than 
any  other  town,  after  the  retreat  from  Concord  bridge,  until  the  British 
entered  Boston ;  greater  than  any  other  town  during  the  day,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Lexington.  And  though  a  son  of  that  ancient  and 
sober  town  which  has  waited  patiently  seventy-five  years  for  her  due 
meed  of  honor  in  the  events  of  this  great  day,  I  shall  venture  to  remark, 
that,  though  further  distant  from  the  lin-e  of  the  retreat,  by  several  miles, 
than  any  other  town  that  sent  a  musket  into  service  that  day,  her  ready 
zeal  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  are  evidenced  by  the  four  names  that 
represent  the  town  of  Beverly,  on  the  list  of  killed  and  wounded. 

The  British  had  many  struck  at  West  Cambridge,  and  the  fire  grew 
perhaps  hotter  at  the  base  of  Prospect  Hill.  The  flight  quickened  to 
very  near  a  run  down  the  old  Cambridge  road  to  Charlestown  neck,  to 
gain  a  shelter  under  the  guns  of  the  ships  of  war.  At  the  close  of  the 
day,  they  ascended  Bunker's  Hill.  There  was  no  time  to  be  lost  on  the 
road,  for  while  the  main  body  of  the  Provincials  hung  closely  on  their 
rear,  a  strong  force  was  advancing  upon  them  from  Roxbury,  Dorchester, 
and  Milton,  and  Colonel  Pickering,  with  seven  hundred  Essex  militia, 
threatened  to  cut  off  their  retreat  from  Charlestown.*  Pickering's  regi- 
ment reached  Winter  Hill,  as  the  British  passed  down  the  Charlestown 
road.  General  Heath,  soon  after,  ordered  the  pursuit  to  be  stopped.f 
The  next  day's  sun  shone  on  the  siege  of  Boston.  The  wolf  was 
hounded  to  his  den,  and  never  since  that  day  has  he  troubled  the  homes 
of  the  Massachusetts  yeomanry.  Bunker  Hill,  that  gave  them  the  first 
rest,  after  thirty-six  miles'  march  of  disaster  and  disgrace,  was  the  only 
spot  of  Massachusetts  soil  outside  the  Boston  lines,  recovered  by  the 
enemy  after  his  retreat,  and  this  at  the  cost  of  more  than  a  thousand  killed 
and  wounded,  and  a  victory  more  fatal  than  many  defeats.  As  the  news 
of  this  day's  slaughter,  and  its  great  revenge,  spread  through  Massachu- 


*  Washington  writes,  May  31,  1775  :  "  If  the  retreat  had  not  been  as  precipitate  as 
it  was  —  and  God  knows  it  could  not  well  have  been  more  so  —  the  ministerial  troops 
must  have  surrendered,  or  been  totally  cut  off.  For  they  had  not  arrived  in  Charles- 
town (under  cover  of  their  ships)  half  an  hour,  before  a  powerful  body  of  men  from 
Marblehcad  and  Salem  was  at  their  heels,  and  must,  if  they  had  happened  to  be  up 
one  hour  sooner,  inevitably  have  intercepted  their  retreat  to  Charlestown."  Sparks's 
Washington,  Vol.  II.  p.  407. 

t  I  have  made  free  use  of  Mr.  Frothingham's  well-digested  account  of  the  battle, 
in  his  History  of  the  Siege  of  Boston,  with  the  materials  in  his  notes ;  Shattuck's 
History  of  Concord ;  Messrs.  Ripley,  Phinney,  and  Adams's  pamphlets  on  the  local 
questions;  and  Mr.  Everett's  magnificent  oration  in  1825. 


418  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

setts,  every  town  sent  up  its  contingent  to  tlie  "  American  Grand  Army," 
extemporized  upon  tliis  sudden  call.  Putnam,  to  this  day  the  hero  of 
the  popular  heart,  from  Connecticut ;  Stark,  insensible  to  fear  as  the 
granite  mountains,  from  New  Hampshire ;  Greene,  who  enjoyed  and 
deserved  the  confidence  of  Washington,  from  Rhode  Island,  with  the 
generous  volunteers  of  those  colonies,  joined  the  Bay  State  regiments 
under  General  Ward,  and  a  force  of  sixteen  thousand  men  hemmed  the 
veterans  of  Minden,  sufficiently  experienced  on  Middlesex  battle  grounds, 
within  a  narrow  circuit,  until,  on  the  17th  of  March,  1776,  Washington, 
from  the  heights  of  Dorchester,  beheld  the  embarkation  and  final  flight 
of  one  of  Britain's  haughtiest  and  best-appointed  armies,  humbled  and 
dismayed,*  and  the  consecrated  bounds  of  Massachusetts  freed  forever 
from  the  detested  presence  of  a  foe. 

From  Concord  bridge,  my  friends,  the  rout  began.  Bunker  Hill  and 
Boston  roads.  Declaration  Hall  at  Philadelphia,  Saratoga  and  Yorktown, 
and  the  treaty  bearing  Franklin's  signature,  mark  successive  stages 
in  the  onward  progress  of  America,  and  the  continual  retrograde  of  her 
enemy.  Upon  another  element,  where  Britain  reigned  unrivalled  and 
secure,  what  Manly,  Mugford,  and  Jones  begun,  was  carried  on  by  Perry, 
and  McDonnough,  and  Chauncey,  Lawrence,  Bainbridge,  and  Hull. 
The  account,  which  was  opened  here,  was  closed  by  Jackson  at  New 
Orleans.  The  account  of  blood  was  closed,  I  say,  and  all  arrears  were 
fully  paid.  There  remains  between  the  great  empire  of  the  past  and 
the  greater  empire  of  the  future,  a  friendly  rivalship  of  beneficent  in- 
fluences, which  we  may  contemplate  with  unalloyed  pleasure,  and  which 
is  not  the  less  the  legitimate  product  of  the  first  revolutionary  movement 
here  commenced. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  enumerate  even  the  names  of  those  who  acted 
well  their  parts,  that  day.  The  host,  that  started  at  their  country's  sum- 
mons that  morning,  has  passed  away  from  among  us.  The  places  that 
knew  them,  and  honored  them,  know  them  no  more.  They  have  left 
the  scene  of  their  toils  and  perils,  and  gone  to  that  home  "  where  there 
are  no  wars  nor  fatiguing  marches,  no  roaring  cannon,  ....  but  an  eter- 
nity to  spend  in  perfect  harmony,  and  undisturbed  peace."  t  Where  all 
acted  from  a  common  impulse  of  duty,  distinctions  may  seem  invidious  ; 
but  it  is  pardonable  to  recall,  especially,  the  memory  of  those  who  were 
spared  for  other  service  to  their  country,  in  her  councils,  or  in  arms. 


*  "  We  have  one  consolation  left.  Neither  Hell,  Hull,  nor  Halifax,  can  afford 
worse  shelter  than  Boston.''  Letter  of  a  British  officer,  from  Nantasket  Roads,  March 
26,  1776. 

t  Seth  Pomeroy's  letter  to  his  wife,  from  the  siege  of  Louishourg,  May  8,  1745. 


OF  EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  419 

Eustis,  and  Brooks,  and  Pickering,  and  Gerry,  distinguished  throiigli 
long  lives  of  usefulness  by  tlie  confidence  of  their  fellow-citizens,  dis- 
charged the  duties  of  important  stations  both  in  the  State  and  in  the  na- 
tion, and  affection  and  gratitude,  with  reverend  sorrow,  paid  their  funeral 
obsequies,  —  a  fate  how  unlike  that  of  the  beginners  of  all  other  revolu- 
tions !  The  master-spirit  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  holding 
with  a  steady  hand  the  helm  of  state,  until  death  unloosed  his  grasp,  was 
scarcely  laid  in  his  grave,  before  the  sanctity  of  his  tomb  was  violated, 
his  ashes  given  to  the  winds,  and  his  bones  gibbeted  with  infamy. 
France  saw  the  heads  that  inspired  the  councils  of  her  liberty  shorn 
away,  one  after  the  other,  by  the  remorseless  guillotine. ,  America  ap- 
preciates and  trusts  her  patriot  leaders,  —  her  Adamses,  her  Franklin, 
Jefferson,  and  "Washington,  —  and  guards  their  dust  among  her  choicest 
treasures.  Thus  she  repudiates  and  falsifies  that  ancient  maxim  of  pa- 
trician insolence,  that  republics  are  ungrateful. 

But  there  are  other  names  to  be  remembered  in  the  list  of  those  who 
drove  the  Percy  in  such  hot  haste  to  shelter,  and  those  who  hastened  to 
surround  the  foiled  lion,  and  prevent  a  second  egress  :  among  them  are 
those  that  have  resounded  through  the  world,  and  whose  echoes  will  not 
yet  be  lost  in  distant  ages.  General  Heath,  early  in  active  service,  took 
the  command  above  West  Cambridge,  and  endeavored  to  rally  and  form 
the  minute-men,  dispersed  by  Percy's  artillery.  Prescott  of  Pepperell, 
took  part  in  the  council  of  war  held  before  Boston,  the  next  day,  and  to 
him  was  intrusted  the  most  arduous  and  momentous  duty  ;  deliberately 
to  invite  and  defy  to  battle  the  whole  British  force  in  America,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  war,  —  a  duty  how  nobly  performed  !  Never  did  scarred 
and  laurelled  conqueror,  from  his  triumphal  car,  look  forward  to  so 
bright  an  immortality,  as  he  who  marshalled  the  elect  of  freedom,  on  the 
sod  which  Warren  moistened  with  his  blood.  Warren  himself,  as  ever 
careless  of  his  life,  was  in  the  field,  and  active  there.*  At  Lexington 
he  encouraged  the  militia  to  disregard  the  fire  of  the  field-pieces ;  at 
West  Cambridge,  he  was  in  the  hottest  of  the  fight,  and  a  musket  ball 
passed  through  his  earlock.  The  name  of  the  president  of  the  provin- 
cial congress  belongs  then,  legitimately,  to  the  recollections  to  be  passed 
in  review  this  day.  The  name  of  Warren,  falling  in  his  prime,  in  a  sad 
and  sanguinary  defeat ;  sad,  yet  more  glorious  than  any  victory  the  muse 
of  history  had  ever  yet  recorded,  is  and  ever  must  be,  embalmed  in  the 
hearts  of  the  whole  people  of  the  republic.     He  left  a  fame  that  is  the 


*  Dr.  EUot  remarks  of  3^r.  WaiTcn,  —  "  At  the  battle  of  Lexington  he  was,  per- 
haps, the  most  active  man  in  the  field.  His  soul  beat  to  arms,  as  soon  as  he  learned 
the  intention  of  the  British  troops." 


420  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

nation's  common  property ;  priceless,  for  gold  could  not  buy  it ;  secure, 
for  no  reverse  of  arms  can  tear  it  from  us.  So  long  as  language  shall 
be  faithful  to  its  trust ;  so  long  as  tradition  shall  preserve  the  outline, 
after  history  has  forgotten  the  detail ;  so  long  as  one  generous  emotion 
shall  warm  the  human  heart ;  after  the  monument  shall  have  crumbled, 
but  while  Bunker  Hill  shall  stand,  Warren  shall  be  the  watchword  in 
the  armies  of  liberty. 

But  the  generation  of  that  heroic  age,  their  work  done,  all  done,  well 
done,  have  passed  from  the  land  which  they  redeemed,  and  are  gone. 
All  gone  ?  0  no !  It  has  pleased  the  Almighty  Father  of  mercies,  in 
his  sovereign  Providence,  to  continue  to  us  two  time-honored  worthies 
of  the  veteran  band,  beyond  the  ordinary  lot  of  humanity,  sole  lingerers 
on  the  verge  of  life,  to  witness  the  seventy-fifth  year  of  freedom  by 
God's  blessing,  and  their  good  right  arms,  secured.  Living  mementos  of 
the  glorious  past !  Long  may  your  valued  presence  remind  us  of  our 
duty  to  the  future,  by  showing  what  the  past  has  done  for  us,  by  carrying 
back  our  thoughts  to  the  times  that  tried  men's  souls.  These  are  of  the 
number  that  took  their  lives  in  their  hand,  and  walked  fearless  among 
the  death-shafts  ;  counting  all  things  earthly  but  as  dross,  that  surviving 
they  might  point  out  to  us,  or  dying  might  bequeathe  to  us,  a  more  excel- 
lent way,  a  career  of  pure  unshackled  liberty.  Alas !  they  are  but  two, 
out  of  so  many  thousands  ;  sentries,  waiting  to  be  called  in,  of  the  rear 
guard  of  the  grand  army  which  has  gone  before  them.  Like  the  pre- 
cious spices  of  the  East,  the  rarer  they  grow,  the  more  highly  do  we  value 
them.  Like  the  mystic  books  of  the  Sybil,  these  that  remain  represent 
to  us  the  worth  of  those  that  are  lost. 

Favorites  of  Time,  who  has  dealt  so  gently  with  you,  what  a  contrast 
do  your  eyes  behold  when  you  compare  the  mighty  empire  which  you 
helped  to  found  with  the  feeble  colony  that  gave  you  birth.  The  period 
of  your  life  has  been  contemporaneous  with  the  work  of  many  ages : 
never  before  have  a  thousand  years  done  for  any  nation  under  heaven 
what  the  last  three  fourths  of  a  century  have  done  for  us.  A  thousand 
years  constructed  and  confirmed  the  majestic  fabric  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire ;  sages  and  warriors,  through  a  thousand  years  of  fixed  purpose, 
iron  resolution,  and  all-enduring  fortitude,  established  the  dominion  of 
the  eternal  city,  unshaken  by  the  burthen  of  the  world,  and  not  to  be 
destroyed,  save  in  the  wreck  of  the  old  heathen  w^orld  passing  away  for- 
ever. But  you,  wonderful  men,  preceded  by  many  years  this  empire ;  in 
the  purple  ripeness  of  maturely-developed  youth,  you  stood  by  the  cra- 
dle of  this  empire,  when  the  young  Alcides  strangled  the  monsters  sent 
by  his  step-mother ;  when  our  home  was  a  strip  of  land  between  the 
ocean  and  the  AUeghanies,  which  scattered  settlers,  with  no  wealth  but 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  421 

tlie  labor  of  tlieir  hands,  disputed  with  the  savages.  You  have  hved  to 
be  citizens  of  an  empire  broader  than  Rome,  mightier  than  Rome, 
weaUhier  than  Rome,  wiser  than  Rome,  hoher  than  Rome.  Machinery, 
the  creation  of  the  free  mind,  does  more  for  us,  tenfold  more,  than  all 
the  arms  of  her  many  million  subjects  did  for  her.  Look  around  you  ; 
all  that  you  see,  and  all  that  your  and  our  posterity  shall  see,  is  the 
fruit  of  liberty,  and  of  that  liberty,  it  is  for  you  to  say  truly,  we  and 
our  comrades,  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  April,  planted  the  fructifying 
seed. 

Look  around  you  and  survey  your  work.  It  is  not  enough  that  we 
proclaim  that  a  small  one  has  become  a  great  people ;  that  day  by  day 
new  nations  rise  up  to  call  you  blessed ;  that  even  now,  states,  infants  in 
years,  but  giants  in  vigor  and  proportions,  press  at  your  portals,  asking 
admission  as  coordinate  sovereignties,  "  demanding  life,  impatient  for  the 
skies."  Look  around  you  ;  measure  the  improvement  of  the  condition 
of  the  individual  denizens  of  all  our  towns  and  villages,  and  see  if  it 
tend  not  upward  and  onward  in  an  accelerated  ratio,  equal,  at  least,  to 
that  of  our  political  greatness.  The  hardy  colonist  extracted  from  the 
soil,  with  infinite  labor,  a  frugal  subsistence,  uncertain  how  long  he  should 
hold  even  his  earnings,  for  the  mother  country  claimed  the  right  to  bind 
the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  collecting  few  comforts,  desiring 
no  luxuries,  without  machinery,  without  capital,  almost  without  inter- 
course, scarcely  recovered  from  the  exhaustion  of  ruinous  French  and 
Indian  wars.  The  fair  enchantress  Liberty  has  waved  her  potent  wand ; 
prosperity  and  happiness  crown  all  the  hills  and  cover  the  plains  ;  on 
every  waterfall  a  city  rises  like  an  exhalation  ;  the  iron  horse,  the  mis- 
sionary which  science  despatches  to  lead  the  van  of  advancing  refine- 
ment, snorts  over  the  prairies  scarcely  abandoned  by  the  disappearing 
buffalo ;  the  electric  nerve  throbs  with  the  impulse  of  intelligence  from 
Halifax  to  New  Orleans ;  internal  commerce  dips  her  silver  oar  in  every 
lake ;  the  birchen  canoe  of  the  native  hunter  is  transformed  to  a  water- 
borne  palace,  gorgeous  with  the  adornments  of  high  art,  and  steadying 
her  upright  keel  against  the  wind,  w^ith  the  miraculous  energy  of  impris- 
oned fire.  Of  the  rich  exuberance  of  our  plenty  we  may  impart  with  a 
world-wide  charity ;  and  ocean  smiles  to  transport  upon  her  bosom  the 
messengers  freighted  with  salvation  to  the  famine-stricken  millions  of 
slavery-blasted  Ireland. 

I  have  inquired  what  consequences  would  have  followed  if  the  Mede 
had  trodden  out  Hellenic  liberty,  and  an  Achocmenian  despot  reckoned 
Greece  among  his  provinces ;  what  would  have  been  the  effect  of  a  Sar- 
acenic conquest  of  Europe  ?  I  might  go  on  to  imagine  our  own  situation, 
if  Great  Britain  had  reduced  her  colonies  to  abject  submission.    Reverse 

36 


422  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  result  at  Marathon ;  should  we  have  been  here  ?  Would  the  old 
world  have  known  the  existence  of  the  continent  of  which  Plato  dreamed? 
Eeverse  the  result  at  Tours,  and  where  would  have  been  the  faith  and 
hopes  of  Christendom  ?  Reverse  what  was  done  at  Concord  bridge,  and 
all  that  has  followed  out  of  what  was  there  done,  and  I  need  not  ask, 
should  we  have  been  free  ?  How  much  of  the  freedom,  well-being,  and 
progress  of  Europe  would  the  world  yet  wait  for  ?  Where  would  have 
been  the  miracles  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  of  the 
loftier  anticipations  of  the  portion  yet  to  come  of  that  century  ? 

I  might  answer,  mind  moves  the  world,  informs  and  agitates  the  mass, 
and  fashions  the  future,  before  the  wheels  of  time  deliver  it  into  being. 
All  the  elements  of  progress  exist  in  thought  before  they  are  moulded 
in  reality.  The  provincial  mind  is  blasted  with  barrenness.  The  degree 
of  freedom  which  our  fathers  enjoyed,  at  the  time  of  the  Concord  fight, 
had  become  a  paradoxical  impracticability :  it  must  either  complete  itself, 
or  disappear.  It  was  necessary  that  we  should  throw  oJ0f  the  yoke  of 
colonial  vassalage,  or  sink  to  the  level  and  wear  the  livery  of  that  vas- 
salage. It  was  the  electricity  developed  in  our  revolutionary  atmos- 
phere that  burst,  in  thunder,  on  slumbering  France.  Awaking  France 
awoke  the  world. 

Starting  from  these  principles,  I  might  work  out  the  problem  pro- 
pounded ;  but  it  will  be  equally  instructive,  and  far  more  satisfactory,  to 
examine  what  has  been,  rather  than  to  ask  what  might  have  been ;  to 
measure  the  strides  of  living  liberty,  rather  than  calculate  the  tracks  of 
some  fossil  megatherium  of  extinct  tyranny.  Over  what  distance  has 
the  good  goddess  led  us,  since  the  young  days  of  these  our  venerable 
friends ;  and  how  does  our  progress  compare  with  that  of  other  nations 
and  of  other  times  ?  Upon  the  threshold  of  this  ample  theme  I  pause  ; 
for  the  hours  rush  swiftly  by,  and  to  do  justness  to  its  vastness  would 
delay  you  too  long.  There  is  no  time  to-day  to  survey  the  field.  I  will 
barely  indicate  a  few  of  the  landmarks. 

Our  present  population  is  nine  times  that  of  the  day  of  Concord  fight, 
and  a  continuance  of  the  same  ratio  for  the  same  period,  to  the  year 
nineteen  hundred  and  twenty-five,  will  extend  the  blessings  of  this  Union 
over  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  souls.  Then  the  orator  who 
shall  stand  upon  this  spot,  will  show  that  all  these  are  not  crowded,  but 
that  there  is  room  for  more.  There  is  no  probability  that  this  aggregate 
will  be  less  than  double  the  Avhole  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  together  with  the  French  Republic. 

Our  present  wealth  is  more  than  forty  times  that  of  the  colonies 
seventy-five  years  ago.  The  annual  income  of  the  nation  is  at  least 
twenty -five  times  as  great  as  it  was  then.     Our  annual  income  was  then 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  423 

about  one  tenth  part  that  of  France ;  now,  it  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of 
France,  and  is  gaining  very  rapidly  upon  that  of  the  British  Empire. 
Of  the  great  element  of  power  over  physical  nature,  coal,  our  production 
is  now  greater  than  that  of  the  world  seventy-five  years  ago.  Of  iron, 
the  chief  instrument  with  which  man  subdues  nature  to  his  purposes,  our 
product  is  greater  than  that  of  all  the  world  seventy-five  years  ago.  Of 
gold,  the  other  main  sinew  of  war,  and  the  negotiator  of  the  exchanges 
of  peace,  we  produce  more  than  the  rest  of  the  world  now  does.  Our 
cotton  manufactures  exceed  those  of  the  whole  world  seventy-five  years 
ago.  Our  tonnage  exceeds  that  of  the  world  seventy-five  years  since. 
It  will  soon  surpass  that  of  the  British  Empire,  and  in  a  few  years,  much 
short  of  three  quarters  of  a  century,  it  will  far  surpass  that  of  the  rest 
of  the  world.  We  have  more  printing  presses  in  operation,  and  more 
printed  volumes  in  the  hands  of  our  people,  than  the  whole  world  had 
on  the  day  of  the  Concord  fight.  More  newspapers  are  printed  in  the 
city  of  Boston  every  day,  than  the  whole  world  then  produced.  Since 
that  day,  America  has  produced  the  steamboat  and  adopted  the  loco- 
motive, and  there  are  more  steam  engines  employed  in  Massachusetts 
than  were  then  used  in  the  world. 

It  would  be  gratifying  to  know  how  far  these  means  of  physical  com- 
fort, ease,  and  improvement,  have  been  employed,  it  is  our  imperative 
duty  to  inquire  how  far  they  may  and  ought  to  be  employed  for  the 
moral  and  intellectual  advancement  of  a  people  so  highly  favored  of 
heaven.  The  proper  limits  of  this  occasion  forbid  me  to  enter  upon  a 
new  investigation  ;  I  can  only  express  the  hope  that  we  should  have  no 
reason  to  blush  at  the  results,  if  we  had  time  to  pursue  it. 

Over  how  broad  a  portion  of  the  world  have  we  extended  the  advan- 
tages we  ourselves  enjoy !  Our  domain  unites  the  noblest  valley  on  the 
surface  of  the  globe,  competent  to  grow  food  for  human  beings  many 
more  than  now  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  with  an  eastern  wing, 
fitted  for  the  site  of  the  principal  manufacturing  and  commercial  power 
of  existing  Christendom,  and  a  western  flank  well  situated  to  hold  the 
same  position  on  the  Pacific,  when  Asia  shall  renew  her  youth,  and 
Australia  shall  have  risen  to  the  level  of  Europe.  Bewildering,  almost, 
is  the  suddenness  of  our  expansion  to  fill  these  limits,  and  astounding 
are  the  phenomena  that  accompany  this  development.  This  day  there 
stands  before  the  councils  of  the  nation,  deputed  to  participate  in  their 
deliberations,  a  young  man  born  within  sight  of  old  Concord  Bridge,  and 
educated  under  the  institutions  which  Concord  fight  secured,  who,  when 
he  revisits  the  old  homestead,  claims  to  represent  a  territory  larger  than 
France  and  the  United  British  kingdom ;  capable  of  containing,  if  settled 
to  the  present  density  of  Great  Britain,  more  than  a  hundred  millions  of 


424  MEMOIRS   OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR. 

souls  ;  a  territory  lately  the  joint  inheritance  of  the  Indian  and  the 
grisly  bear,  now  outstripping,  in  its  instant  greatness,  all  recorded  colo- 
nies ;  the  Ophir  of  our  age,  richer  than  Solomon's ;  richer  than  the  wild- 
est vision  that  ever  dazzled  Arabian  fancy. 

Occupying  such  a  continent,  receiving  it  consecrated  by  the  toils  and 
sufferings,  and  outpouring  of  ancestral  blood,  which,  on  the  day  we  now 
commemorate  began,  how  delightful  is  the  duty  which  devolves  on  us  to 
guard  the  beacon-lire  of  liberty  whose  flames  our  fathers  kindled.  Suf- 
fer it  not,  my  friends !  suffer  it  not,  posterity  that  shall  come  after  us  !  to 
be  clouded  by  domestic  dissension,  or  obscured  by  the  dank,  mephitic 
vapors  of  faction.  Until  now,  its  pure  irradiance  dispels  doubt  and  fear, 
and  revivifies  the  fainting  hopes  of  downcast  patriotism.  Forever  may 
it  shine  brightly  as  now,  for  as  yet  its  pristine  lustre  fades  not,  but  still 
flashes  out  the  ancient,  clear,  and  steady  illumination,  joy -giving  as  the 
blaze  that,  leaping  from  promontory  to  promontory,  told  the  triumph  of 
Agamemnon  over  fated  Troy.  It  towers  and  glows,  refulgent  and 
beautiful,  far  seen  by  the  tempest-tost  on  the  sea  of  revolution ;  darting 
into  the  dungeons  of  gaunt  despair  beams  whose  benignant  glory  no  lapse 
of  time  shall  dim ;  the  wanderers  in  the  chill  darkness  of  slavery,  it 
guides,  and  cheers,  and  warms ;  it  fills  the  universe  with  its  splendor. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

CAPITAL  PUXISHMEXT.     MR.  RANTOUL'S  LABORS  FOR  THE  REPEAL  OF 
TPIE   LAWS  REQUIRING  THE  PENALTY   OF   DEATH. 

The  web  of  man's  moral  and  intellectual  organization  is  early- 
woven,  and  its  results,  w^hether  of  thought  or  sentiment,  are 
determined  and  certain  as  the  laws  which  mark  the  course  of 
the  stars.  But  to  attempt  to  trace  thought  to  its  first  objects, 
and  to  follow  sentiment  to  its  original  emotion,  that  throb  of 
the  heart  which  gave  it  being,  is  to  affect  a  wisdom  scarcely 
less  than  omniscient.  And  yet  we  try  with  our  imperfect  reason- 
ing, to  account  for  the  infinite  phenomena  of  the  human  char- 
acter; while  all  that  is  certain,  in  the  result  of  our  endeavors 
is,  that  we  can  know  but  little  of  the  original  springs  of  human  ' 
action.  At  the  best,  we  must  be  satisfied  with  conjecture. 
We  see,  however,  beyond  question,  or  doubt,  the  influence  of 
early  education  —  education,  not  of  precept  and  example  only, 
but  of  innumerable  and  unavoidable  circumstances,  constantly 
occurring,  which  are  modified  in  their  results,  by  the  original 
and  distinctive  nature  of  every  individual  soul. 

No  benevolent  and  thoughtful  person  can  look  at  the  infant, 
clinging  to  its  mother's  breast,  without  finding  himself  running 
into  curious  and  involuntary  conjectures  as  to  what  kind  of  life 
may  lie  wrapped  up  in  the  delicate  organization  of  that  tender 
frame.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  seen,  at  once,  to  be  conditions 
of  its  being ;  but  how  far  they  shall  be  modified  by  that  spark 
of  immortality  which  constitutes  the  oneness,  the  personality, 
the  identity  of  every  human  being,  we  may  imagine  but  can 
never  know. 

36* 


426  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

"We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Rantoul's  childhood  was  passed  un- 
der wise  and  beneficent  influences ;  and  that  his  youth  was 
favored  with  the  best  means  of  instruction.  Happy  in  every 
circumstance,  and  in  every  guiding  care  that  could  mould  the 
heart  to  virtue,  was  the  scene  of  his  earliest  joys  and  his  latest 
affections.  New  England,  justly  celebrated  for  her  happy 
homes,  could  boast  of  few  more  rich  with  blessings,  than  that 
in  which  he  received  his  most  abiding,  because  first,  impres- 
sions of  truth  and  duty.  Love  and  wisdom  were  the  tutelary 
principles  of  that  family  altar,  and  its  ministrations  were  con- 
ducted by  parents  competent  and  disposed  to  present  accepta- 
ble offerings.  While  the  time  and  talents  of  his  father,  without 
neglecting  his  private  and  domestic  obligations,  were  almost  in- 
cessantly devoted  to  the  duties  of  a  good  citizen  in  the  official 
administration  of  town  affairs,  or  to  those  of  the  magistracy  in 
which  for  forty  years  he  has  held  a  commission,  or  of  the  legis- 
lature, where  either  as  representative,  or  senator,  he  served  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century  wanting  but  one  session,  as  one  of  the 
most  trusted  and  honored  of  the  men  of  Massachusetts  ;  the 
thoughts  and  cares  of  his  mother  were  devoted  to  the  culture, 
in  her  children,  of  those  sentiments  of  virtue  which  gave  to  her 
own  character  the  grace  of  a  high  moral  purity,  and  the  ineffa- 
ble charm  of  a  benevolent  spirit.  She  was  singularly  amiable 
and  discreet ;  scrupulously  conscientious,  and  at  the  same  time 
generously  charitable.  While  she  adhered  firmly  to  her  own 
convictions  of  duty,  she  was  accustomed  to  treat  with  delicate 
tenderness  and  liberality,  the  motives  and  opinions  of  others. 

Such,  in  a  word,  were  the  home  influences  by  which  the  act- 
ive mind  of  the  subject  of  these  Memoirs  was  more  or  less  af- 
fected in  its  earliest  developments.  That  their  effect  was  con- 
siderable on  his  subsequent  life,  who  can  doubt?  It  is  well 
known  that  his  father  so  early  as  1809,  entertained  opinions  in 
opposition  to  the  law  of  Capital  Punishment.  In  that  year  he 
was  first  elected  a  representative  from  Beverly  to  the  legislature: 
and  he  was  annually  chosen  to  the  house  or  senate,  for  twenty- 
four  successive  years,  —  a  testimony  most  honorable,  of  the 
estimation  in  which  he  was  held  by  his  fellow-citizens,  who 
best  knew  him,  and  of  his  efficiency  and  usefulness  in  the  office 
to  which  he  was  called  by  their  choice.     By  the  citizens  of 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  427 

Beverly  he  was  elected  with  singular  unanimity  member  of  the 
present  Convention,  as  well  as  that  of  1820,  for  revising  the 
Constitution  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  and  of  the  distinguished 
body  now  in  session  he  presided  at  the  organization.  That 
the  opinions  of  one  so  honored  and  trusted,  whose  sentiments 
in  relation  to  this  important  subject  were  well  known,  must 
have  affected,  to  a  degree,  the  viev/s  of  those  with  whom  he 
was  associated  in  legislative  duties;  and  especially,  that  they 
early  turned  the  attention  and  naturally  enlisted  the  feelings  of 
his  son,  who  even  in  the  first  years  of  his  youth,  evinced  a  sin- 
gular maturity  of  thought  upon  great  moral  and  political  ques- 
tions, is  not  to  be  doubted.  He,  (Mr.  Rantoul,  senior,)  has 
kindly  furnished  the  following  history  of  attempts,  which  were 
commenced  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  to  effect  a  reform  of 
the  laws  requiring  the  penalty  of  death. 

In  1829,  Thomas  Kendall,  a  representative  from  Boston,  in  January 
of  that  year,  offered  a  motion  to  the  house  respecting  this  subject.  This 
motion  was  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Committee,  of  which  Francis  Bay- 
lies of  Taunton,  w^as  chairman.  This  committee  very  soon  reported 
against  any  alteration  in  the  existing  laws.  Mr.  Kendall  made  some  re- 
marks in  opposition  to  the  report,  whereupon  Mr.  Baylies  made  an  able 
speech  in  its  support,  but  not  confining  himself  to  the  subject,  he,  with 
his  usual  wit,  ridicule,  and  sarcasm,  attacked  Mr.  Kendall  personally ; 
but  the  latter  gentleman  and  the  subject  in  which  he  felt  a  deej)  interest, 
found  a  ready  defender  equally  able  with  Mr.  Baylies,  to  say  no  more, 
in  Caleb  Gushing,  then  a  representative  from  Newburyport.  Mr.  Cush- 
ing's  speech  was  manly  and  philanthropic,  and  had  a  powerful  effect 
upon  the  house.  The  result  was  that  the  report  of  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee was  referred  to  a  special  committee,  who  then  had  under  consider- 
ation the  expediency  of  a  revision  of  the  Penal  Code.  To  this  com- 
mittee, Mr.  Cushing,  and  Theodore  Sedgwick  of  Stockbridge,  both  of 
whom  were  known  to  be  favorable  to  an  alteration  of  the  laws  in  regard 
to  the  subject,  were  added.  At  this  time  I  interested  myself  and  en- 
deavored to  influence  others  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  the  penalty  of 
death.     I  voted  on  all  occasions  for  its  repeal. 

In  March,  1831,  William  Sullivan,  Thomas  Kendall,  and  John  B. 
Davis,  all  of  Boston,  Oliver  Holden  of  Charlestown,  and  myself  w^ere 
appointed  by  the  house  a  committee  to  consider  the  subject  of  Capital 
Punishment  and  to  report  at  the  next  session  of  the  general  court.  An 
able  report  from  this  committee  was  prepared  by  General  Sullivan,  and 


428  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

he  not  being  reelected,  I  presented  it  to  the  house  on  the  10th  of  June, 
1831,  and  it  was  read,  laid  on  the  table,  and  ordered  to  be  printed.  This 
was  the  first  extended  report  on  this  subject  presented  by  order  of  the 
legislature,  and  at  a  subsequent  session  was,  on  motion  of  Rev.  Thomas 
Whittemore  of  Cambridge,  ordered  to  be  re-printed.  On  the  18th  of 
June,  this  report  was  taken  up  and  committed  to  myself,  Thomas  Ken- 
dall, Stephen  Oliver  of  Lynn,  Oliver  Ilolden,  and  Francis  Bassett  of 
Boston.  This  committee  reported  a  reference  to  the  next  session,  and 
that  Willam  Sullivan  be  authorized  to  draft  bills  in  conformity  with  his 
report.  In  January,  1832,  the  Speaker  laid  before  the  house  a  com- 
munication from  Mr.  Sullivan,  inclosing  three  bills  prepared  by  him. 
These  bills  were  referred  to  a  committee  of  which  I  was  a  member,  and 
were  reported  with  amendments  ;  but  the  time  had  not  come  for  the 
passage  of  such  laws,  and  thtjy  were  rejected. 

Mr.  Sullivan's  report  was  reviewed  in  the  Christian  Examiner  for 
July,  1833,  by  Rev.  Andrew  P.  Peabody. 


The  venerable  gentleman  who  furnishes  the  above  interesting 
account  of  the  attempts  which  from  time  to  time  had  been 
made  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  to  repeal  the  death 
penalty,  says  in  reference  to  his  son's  subsequent  labor  to  that 
end,  "  I  do  not  attribute  this  so  much  to  the  influence  of  my 
own  views,  as  I  do  to  the  influence  of  the  well  known  opinions 
of  his  nearest  female  relatives."  This  modest  estimate  of  the 
influence  of  his  own  character,  pays  a  heartfelt  tribute  of  hom- 
age to  the  moral  worth,  the  intellectual  accomplishment,  and 
the  benevolent  spirit  of  the  nearest  female  relatives  of  his  son, 
more  eloquent  than  the  most  extended  eulogium. 

The  abolition  of  capital  punishment  was  not  again  agitated 
in  the  legislature,  until  the  subject  of  these  memoirs  became  a 
member  of  the  house  in  1835.  On  the  eighth  day  of  the  ses- 
sion, Mr.  Rantoul  of  Gloucester,  Ruggles  of  Fall  River,  and 
R.  G.  Price  of  Boston,  were  a  committee  to  consider  the  "expe- 
diency of  repealing  all  such  laws,  as  provide  for  the  infliction 
of  the  punishment  of  death ; "  and  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  the 
next  month,  February,  he,  as  chairman  of  the  committee,  re- 
ported a  bill  for  that  purpose,  which  was  read  and  ordered  to  be 
printed.  On  Tuesday,  March  31st  of  the  same  year,  he  made 
an  able  speech  in  support  of  the  proposed  repeal  of  the  death 
penalty.     Coming  warm  from  the  heart,  glowing  with  brilliant 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  429 

thoughts,  and  strong  with  unanswerable  arguments,  the  house 
felt  the  force  and  justice  of  the  appeal,  and  all  but  thirteen 
members  voted  for  the  bill.  What  a  triumph  for  the  young  and 
eloquent  advocate  of  truth  and  humanity  !  This  was  the  first 
of  the  reports  which  he  presented  to  the  house  in  the  four  suc- 
cessive years  of  his  membership.  Of  these  the  first  and  second 
were  several  times  printed,  and  that  of  1836  obtained  a  high 
reputation  in  Europe,  being  considered  standard  authority,  and 
quoted  as  such  in  France,  Belgium,  Germany,  and  Italy.  The 
ablest  writers  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken,  who 
have  advocated,  recently,  the  reform  of  the  penal  laws,  and 
their  adaptation  to  the  demands  of  justice  and  the  enlightened 
sentiments  of  modern  civilization,  have  been  largely  indebted 
to  I\Tr.  Rantoul's  ripe  thoughts  and  sound  reasoning.  His 
speeches  in  support  of  reform  of  the  laws  regulating  the  death 
penalty,  and  especially  his  speech  in  the  session  of  1836,  were 
among  the  most  brilliant  and  eloquent  ever  delivered  in  a  legis- 
lative assembly.  The  Boston  Atlas  furnishes,  it  is  believed,  the 
only  existing  report  of  one  of  these  speeches.  It  is  published 
here  in  connection  with  the  elaborate  report  above  referred  to, 
namely,  that  of  the  session  of  1836,  and  cannot  fail  to  be  of 
permanent  interest.  Brief  as  was  his  career  as  a  statesman 
and  a  philanthropist,  he  lived  to  see  the  measure  he  so  strenu- 
ously and  ably  advocated,  gaining  respect  throughout  Christen- 
dom, and  virtually  adopted  in  his  native  State. 

The  following  is  a  report,  from  the  Boston  Daily  Atlas  of 
1836,  of  remarks  of  Mr.  Rantoul  on  Capital  Punishment,  in 
answer  to  the  speech  of  the  Hon.  Francis  C.  Gray. 

Mr.  Speaker,  —  The  gentleman  who  has  just  taken  his  seat,  has  enter- 
tained the  house  with  an  argument  so  carefully  2)repared  in  the  choice  of 
topics,  their  arrangement,  the  eloquence  and  finish  of  the  language  in  which 
it  is  clothed,  and  the  elaborate  adaptation  of  every  sentence  to  the  eiFect 
which  he  intends  to  produce,  that  I  cannot  doubt  but  this  is  the  principal 
effort  to  be  made  against  this  bill,  and  that  it  requires  to  be  answered 
somewhat  at  length,  and  in  detail,  although,  from  the  necessity  of  the 
case,  I  must  reply  without  a  moment's  deliberation.  The  gendeman 
has  first  delivered  general  theories,  upon  the  nature  of  society,  to  which 
I  shall  in  the  main  agree,  though  I  shall  deny  his  inferences,  which  have 
no  connection  with  his  premises.     He  then  reasons  from  experience,  as 


430  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

he  tells  us,  though  in  fact  it  is  from  his  own  limited  observation,  and 
partly  from  unfounded  prejudice,  against  the  experience  of  the  whole 
w^orld,  so  far  as  the  committee  have  been  able  to  collect  it  after  a  some- 
what diligent  and  thorough  investigation.  The  gentleman  can  take  no 
offence,  if  I  apply  to  the  situation  of  his  mind  upon  this  subject  one  of 
those  happy  illustrations  with  which  he  has  enlivened  his  own  speech. 
"  Such  is  the  infirmity  of  our  nature,  that  to  those  who  dwell  on  one 
point  intently,  and  brood  over  it  long,  it  assumes  an  unnatural  import- 
ance, occupying  their  whole  attention  to  the  exclusion  of  objects  really 
of  greater  magnitude,  as  a  pebble  before  the  eye  hides  a  mountain  in 
the  distance." 

Let  us  look,  then,  Mr.  Speaker,  at  the  experience  of  the  gentleman  as 
he  has  testified  to  it,  and  at  the  experience  of  the  world  as  we  have  been 
able  to  ascertain  it.  Standing  at  an  equal  distance  from  both,  and  view- 
ing them  with  an  impartial  eye,  let  us  compare  the  pebble  which  the 
gentleman  has  contributed,  to  the  mountain  of  facts  collected  by  the 
committee,  and  exhibited  by  those  who  have  addressed  the  house  in 
favor  of  this  bill.  Let  us  look  at  them  in  every  point  of  view.  Let  the 
eye  measure  both  at  a  distance,  —  then  examine  both  closely  and 
deliberately.  Take  the  pebble  in  your  hand ;  turn  it  over,  poise  it, 
scrutinize  it,  till  you  know  what  it  is,  and  how  large  it  is,  —  then  walk 
round  the  mountain,  survey  it,  ponder  on  its  dimensions,  and  its  antiquity 
as  well  as  its  vastness, — then  let  every  clear-sighted  member  of  this  house 
determine  what  proportion  this  small  and  perishable  pebble,  crumbling 
"while  you  look  at  it,  bears  to  the  eternal  mountain  of  indestructible 
truth.  I  have  no  paternal  anxiety  for  the  theories  of  the  report.  Scat- 
ter them,  if  you  please,  to  the  four  winds,  —  if  they  do  not  rest  upon 
facts,  I  will  rejoice,  and  even  participate  in  their  destruction.  But,  Sir, 
I  take  my  stand  upon  experience,  and  I  am  glad  that  the  gentleman  has 
tendered  an  issue  which  I  can  cordially  accept.  I  take  my  stand  upon 
experience,  and  from  this  ground  I  cannot  be  dislodged.  "  It  is  not  sur- 
prising," as  the  gentleman  has  remarked,  "  that  all  men  should  speculate 
on  this  subject,  whether  acquainted  with  its  details  or  not."  It  will  be 
very  surprising,  however,  though  it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  the  advocates 
of  this  bill,  if  its  opponents  do  not  become  better  acquainted  with  the 
subject  than  they  appear  to  be  thus  far.  "  It  is  natural  that  theory 
should  be  allowed,  as  it  is,  to  prevail  over  experience  ; "  but  it  shall  not 
be  our  fault  should  such  be  the  result  in  the  present  case.  I  trust  to  the 
good  sense  of  the  house,  that,  by  the  passage  of  this  bill  after  it  shall 
have  been  amended,  it  will  appear  that  in  one  instance,  at  least,  experi- 
ence is  to  be  allowed  to  prevail  over  theory.  The  gentleman  tells  us, 
that  he  felt  especially  bound  to  address  the  house,  because  from  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  431 

official  relation  in  wliich  he  had  stood  for  some  years  toAvards  the  State 
Prison,  he  had  thought  much  upon  this  subject,  and  was  acquainted  with 
facts  having  a  large  bearing  upon  it.  No  doubt  he  has  had  remarkably 
good  opportunities  to  acquire  information,  and  no  doubt  he  has  made  the 
best  use  of  those  opportunities.  What  is  the  amount  of  experience  in- 
troduced w^itli  this  preamble  ?  Simply  a  single,  solitary,  isolated  fact,  of 
the  very  narrowest  extent,  and  not  warranting  any  conclusion  whatever, 
if  it  stood  alone ;  but  by  no  means  establishing  a  theory  directly  con- 
tradictory to  all  the  facts  introduced  into  this  debate  on  either  side.  It 
is,  that  in  fifteen  months  from  January,  1818,  while  highway  robbery  was 
not  capitally  punished,  there  wxre  four  cases  of  that  crime.  Sir,  this  is 
true,  and  I  intended  to  have  mentioned  it  when  up  before,  as  an  instance 
of  the  insufficient  and  partial  views  on  which  v/e  often  legislate.  These 
four  cases  in  fifteen  months  produced  the  law  of  1819,  a  law  urged 
by  one  of  the  prosecuting  officers  of  this  State,  but  strenuously  opposed 
by  some  of  the  wisest  and  best  men  in  the  legislature,  who  thought  we 
should  look  over  a  wider  space  and  longer  time  than  fifteen  months  in 
Massachusetts,  to  construct  a  general  theory.  Dr.  Johnson  remarked 
in  1751,  that  it  was  always  the  practice,  Vvhen  a  particular  species  of 
robbery  became  prevalent,  to  endeavor  to  suppress  it  by  capital  denun- 
ciation ;  but  he  affirms,  this  method  has  long  been  tried  with  little 
success,  and  that  the  experience  of  past  times  gives  us  little  reason  to 
hope  that  any  reformation  will  be  effected  by  it. 

Our  legislature  overlooked  the  experience  of  past  times,  to  try  once 
more  that  experience  of  blood  which  has  always  failed.  In  a  short  time 
after  the  law  went  into  force,  three  men  were  hanged  for  highway  rob- 
bery in  the  space  of  three  months,  a  much  more  striking  fact  than  that 
four  cases  should  have  occurred  in  fifteen  months,  —  the  single  fact  on 
which  the  gentleman's  theory  rests,  —  the  only  fact  yet  brought  forward 
to  disprove  Dr.  Johnson's  position,  that  "  the  frequency  of  capital  punish- 
ment rarely  hinders  the  commission  of  crime,  but  naturally  and  com- 
monly prevents  its  detection."  But  why  does  the  gentleman  build  a 
theory  upon  these  fifteen  months,  when  he  does  not  pretend,  and  will  not 
pretend,  that  for  the  one  hundred  and  thirty -three  years  when  this  offiiuce 
was  not  capital,  this  crime  was  any  more  common  than  during  the  sixty 
years  wh,.en  it  was  capital  ?  It  is  because  all  thp  facts  on  a  large  scale 
are,  without  one  exception,  adverse  to  his  argument,  that  the  gentleman 
shut  himself  up  in  this  very  narrow  circle.  So  insignificant  is  this  cir- 
cumstance, that  it  could  not  command  a  moment's  attention  if  it  were  not 
for  the  weight  which  the  gentleman  gives  it.  Not  only  is  it  his  fact,  his 
only  fact,  but  it  is  the  only  fact  yet  produced,  in  a  debate  of  several  days, 
having  the  least  tendency  to  show  that  the  substitution  of  imprisonment 


432  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

for  life,  instead  of  death,  ever  increased  crime.  And,  as  those  gentlemen 
who  parade  this  one  fact  call  themselves  practical  men,  while  they  re- 
hearse their  theories  and  conjectures  to  the  house,  and  set  us  down  as 
mere  speculators  and  theorists,  while  we  read  from  the  record  authentic 
and  numerous  facts,  upon  a  large  scale,  and  conclusive  for  the  purpose  for 
which  we  use  them,  —  fiicts  which  they  do  not,  cannot  and  will  not,  doubt 
or  deny,  and  which  they  hardly  attempt  to  explain,  —  it  seemed  to  be 
proper  to  point  out  to  the  house  the  precise  amount  of  matter  of  fact 
which  these  very  practical  men  have  thus  far  furnished  as  the  only 
definite  and  tangible  specimen  of  that  experience  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much,  but  seen  so  little. 

So  much  for  the  pebble,  —  look  at  the  mountain.  I  go  not  back  to 
Egyjit,  though  the  experience  of  a  long  reign,  under  Sabak,  or  Sabakos, 
with  the  approbation  bestowed  by  Diodorus  on  that  experiment,  might 
deserve  to  be  met  otherwise  than  by  a  sneer.  I  shall  say  but  little  of 
the  Roman  law,  though  a  period  of  tw^o  hundred  years  may  be  thought 
to  test  more  fairly  the  tendency  of  any  punishment,  than  the  short  space 
of  fifteen  months  selected  for  the  purpose.  In  Rome,  by  the  Porcian 
law  enacted  in  the  year  of  the  city  453,  it  was  forbidden  to  put  to  death 
a  Roman  citizen.  This  law  continued  in  force  two  hundred  years,  and 
"  it  was  never  observed,"  says  Montesquieu,  "  that  this  step  did  any 
manner  of  prejudice  to  the  civil  administration."  Was  it  a  "  morbid 
sensibility  "  that  originated  and  perpetuated  this  law  ?  The  unrelenting 
sternness  of  the  Roman  character  is  too  well  known  to  admit  this  favorite 
suggestion  of  a  sanguinary  code.  Cicero  thus  bears  his  testimony  to  the 
noble  sentiment  upon  which  the  Porcian  law  was  founded  :  "  Far  be 
from  us  the  punishment  of  death,  —  its  ministers,  its  instruments.  Re- 
move them  not  only  from  actual  operation  on  our  bodies,  but  banish 
them  from  our  eyes,  our  ears,  and  thoughts  ;  for  not  only  the  execution, 
but  the  apprehension,  the  existence,  the  very  mention  of  these  things  is 
disgraceful  to  a  freeman,  to  a  Roman  citizen."  This  is  the  language  of 
a  heathen,  but  it  would  do  honor  to  a  Christian  orator. 

I  shall  not  dwell  long  upon  the  example  of  Russia,  though  there  the 
experiment  was  upon  a  vast  scale,  and  for  a  long  time.  The  Empress 
Elizabeth  abolished  the  punishment  of  death,  and  Catharine  11.  followed 
in  her  footsteps,  and  excluded  it  from  her  code.  I  quote  now  Bla,ckstone, 
a  thorough-bred  conservative  lawyer,  and  what  saj^s  he  to  a  course  so 
opposite  to  the  savage  spirit  of  British  law  ?  In  liis  Commentaries,  he 
thus  expresses  himself:  "W^as  the  vast  territory  of  the  Russians  worse 
regulated  under  the  late  empress  Elizabeth,  than  under  her  more  san- 
guinary predecessors  ?  Is  it  now,  under  Catharine  IL,  less  civilized, 
less  social,  less  secure  ?     And  yet  we  are  assured  that  neither  of  these 


or  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  433 

illustrious  princesses  have,  tlirougliout  their  whole  administration,  in- 
flicted the  penalty  of  death ;  and  the  latter  has,  upon  the  full  persua- 
sion of  its  being  useless,  nay  even  pernicious,  given  orders  for  abolishing 
it  entirely  throughout  her  extensive  dominions." 

These  instances  it  will  be  said  are  remote,  and  the  gentleman  from 
Salem,  (Mr.  Williams,)  who  shot  off  in  a  tangent  to  China,  and  gave  us 
somewhat  apocryphal  statements  of  the  policy  of  the  celestial  empire  in 
answer  to  my  New  England  facts,  objects  that  any  one  else  should  go  so 
far  from  home.  For  this  reason  the  report  does  not  allude  to  Egypt, 
ancient  Rome,  or  Russia,  yet  the  report  contains  a  collection  of  fticts  so 
extensive,  that  my  friend  from  Salem  was  alarmed  at  the  expense  of 
printing  it.  That  collection  would  have  been  made  much  larger,  if  ob- 
jection to  the  length  of  the  document  had  not  been  anticipated.  Now 
let  the  house  remember,  that,  throughout  this  long  debate,  not  one  of  the 
facts  stated  in  that  report  has  been  denied,  or  even  doubted,  —  not  one 
of  those  facts  has  been  explained  away,  —  not  a  single  fact  has  been  pro- 
duced to  offset  against  them,  except  the  solitary  fact  so  much  relied  on 
by  the  gentleman  from  Boston.  We  have  had  conjectures,  imaginations, 
speculations,  and  theories  offered  to  us  in  abundance,  but  no  facts.  The 
committee,  on  the  other  hand,  have  not  indulged  in  conjectures,  —  they 
have  accumulated  a  mass,  a  mountain  of  facts,  such  as  they  believed  to 
be  irresistible,  and  perhaps  the  house  will  be  of  the  same  opinion.  Be- 
cause we  will  not  prefer  conjectures  to  facts,  we  are  called  theorists. 
Gentlemen  first  plume  themselves  upon  the  wisdom  of  experience,  and 
then  scoff  at  all  the  lessons  of  experience.  They  at  first  declaim  bitterly 
against  theoretical  speculations,  then  ask  us  to  believe  because  they  guess 
it  will  be  so,  that  what  always  has  happened  when  the  experiment  of 
mercy  has  been  tried,  in  all  ages  and  countries,  certainly  will  not  happen 
if  it  be  tried  once  more ;  but  that  a  consequence  which  never  did 
happen  in  any  known  instance,  inevitably  will  follow  in  the  next  case 
that  occurs.  Practical  men  these,  surely  !  This  is  as  much  as  if  one 
were  to  say,  heavy  bodies,  to  be  sure,  have  gravitated  toward  each  other 
in  all  parts  of  the  world,  as  far  as  I  have  seen  or  heard,  and  all  the 
rivers  that  I  know  of  run  down  hill ;  but  then.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  and 
the  Marquis  La  Place  were  a  couple  of  speculating  theorists,  and  I 
expect  the  next  river  we  meet  wdth  we  shall  find  it  running  up  hill. 

Before  passing  from  the  report,  allow  me  to  recur  to  one  of  the  cases 
there  enumerated,  —  that  of  Tuscany.  "It  is  remarkable  that  the  man- 
ners, principles,  and  religion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Tuscany  and  of  Rome 
are  exactly  the  same.  The  abolition  of  death  alone,  as  a  punishment  for 
murder,  produced  this  difference  in  the  moral  character  of  the  two  na- 
tions."    The  difference  is  too  striking  to  be  passed  without  particular 

37 


434  MEMOIKS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

notice.  We  have  tlie  authority  of  Dr.  Franklin  that  in  Rome,  where 
the  punishment  of  death  was  inflicted  with  great  pomp  and  parade,  sixty 
murders  were  committed,  in  the  short  space  of  tJiree  months,  in  the  city 
and  vicinity.  Count  de  Sellon,  of  Geneva,  on  the  other  hand,  assures 
us,  that  the  suppression  of  this  punishment  was  attended  with  the  happi- 
est effects,  insomuch  that  high  crimes  almost  entirely  disappeared  in 
Tuscany  for  thirty  years,  while  they  increased  in  the  surrounding  coun- 
tries in  which  the  punishment  of  death  was  frequently  inflicted. 

Lord  Suffield,  in  the  British  Parliament,  on  the  thirteenth  of  July, 
1834,  remarked  that  the  indirect  but  certain  tendency  of  the  jounishment 
of  death,  is  to  increase  crime.  This  may  now  he  considered  as  an  axiom 
in  political  science.  His  lordship  established  it  both  by  reasoning  and 
by  statistical  proof.  Among  other  facts,  he  mentioned  this  :  W^liile  Sir 
James  Mackintosh  vv^as  Recorder  of  Bombay,  capital  punishments  were 
suspended  altogether  for  seven  years.  The  number  of  murders  dimin- 
ished during  that  period  to  six,  whereas,  during  the  preceding  seven 
years,  there  had  been  eighteen  convicted  for  murder,  and  twelve  exe- 
cutions. 

The  gentleman  is  anxious  to  look  particularly  at  the  experience  of  our 
own  State.  To  this  I  agree.  Suppose  it  to  be  true,  as  alleged  by  the 
opponents  of  this  bill,  that  the  crimes  now  punished  with  death  are  rap- 
idly increasiug  in  this  State ;  I  am  not  satisfied  that  this  is  the  fact,  but 
if  it  be,  does  it  furnish  any  reason  for  continuing  the  punishment  which 
is  found  to  be  effectual  ? 

If  these  crimes  are  increasing  among  us,  certain  it  is  that  they  have 
diminished  very  remarkably  in  States  where  they  have  ceased  to  be 
capital.  In  Pennsylvania,  for  fourteen  years  before  the  reform  of  their 
criminal  code,  in  1794,  the  number  of  executions  was  fifty-nine ;  forty 
years  since  it  has  only  been  thirty-nine,  less  than  one  a  year.  Before 
the  reform,  there  was  one  execution  a  year  for  murder,  although  the 
population  was  so  much  smaller  than  at  present.  Of  the  prisoners 
received  at  the  Western  Penitentiary  in  1833,  there  were  eight  for  mur- 
der, one  for  murder  in  the  second  degree,  one  for  rape,  none  for  highway 
robbery,  none  for  arson.  Whole  number  of  committals  in  the  State  in 
1833,  was  one  hundred  and  forty-three,  —  about  one  to  ten  thousand.  This 
is  a  smaller  proportion  than  in  any  State  in  New  England  except  Nev/ 
Hampshire,  and  there  appears  to  be  a  smaller  proportion  of  each  of  our 
six  capital  crimes  among  them,  as  well  as  v/itli  us.  Massachusetts  has 
one  committal  to  the  state  prison  for  every  seven  thousand  inhabitants. 
In  New  Hampshire,  only  treason  (a  nominal  crime)  and  murder  are 
punished  with  death.  They  have  one  committal  annually  for  every  six- 
teen thousand  inhabitants,  —  less  than  half  the  proportion  of  Massachu- 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  435 

setts.  The  old  and  bloody  law  of  1791  was  similar  to  onrs  ;  but  by  the 
law  of  June  19,  1812,  burglary,  robbery,  rape,  and  arson,  are  punished 
by  imprisonment.  For  thirteen  years  after  this  change,  out  of  two  hun- 
dred and  forty-one  prisoners,  the  whole  number  committed,  there  were 
three  for  burglary,  three  for  arson,  none  for  robbery,  none  for  rape. 
Where  can  a  prison  bo  found  where,  for  so  long  a  time  and  among  so 
many  convicts,  so  few  were  sentenced  for  arson,  burglary,  robbery,  and 
rape  ?  Where  can  a  State  be  found,  with  so  large  a  population,  so  free 
from  these  crimes  ? 

In  Maine,  an  alteration  in  their  law  took  place  in  February,  1829,  by 
which  robbery,  burglary,  and  rape  ceased  to  be  capital.  The  results  are 
very  striking,  and  the  more  so  because  Maine  was  for  many  years 
governed  by  our  own  laws.  In  the  county  of  Cumberland,  for  six 
years  before  the  reform  in  the  law,  there  were  seven  committals  for  the 
crimes  mentioned.  Since  the  reform,  for  seven  years,  there  has  been 
but  one  committal  only, —  a  case  of  burglary  in  1834.  In  the  county 
of  Washington,  for  six  years  preceding  the  change,  there  were  five  com- 
mittals for  these  crimes.  In  1829,  the  year  of  the  change,  there  were 
two  committals  ;  and  since  1829,  for  six  years,  there  have  been  none.  In 
the  whole  State  of  Maine,  there  were  thirteen  committals  for  these 
crimes  in  the  six  years  previous  to  the  change ;  for  seven  years  after 
there  were  five  cases  only.  Considering  the  increasing  population,  there 
should  have  been  eighteen  or  nineteen,  instead  of  five,  to  have  kept  up 
the  same  proportion.  It  has  not  been  pretended  that  the  experience 
of  Ohio,  where  the  law  is  the  same  as  in  Pennsylvania ;  or  of  Ver- 
mont, where  it  corresponds  with  that  of  Maine,  varies  at  all  from  that 
already  given  in  detaih  Can  these  results  be  accidental  ?  In  a  single 
case  like  that  quoted  by  the  gentleman  from  Boston,  it  might  be  so.  But 
in  the  uniform,  the  universal  agreement  of  all  these  instances,  we  cannot 
fail  to  see  the  operation  of  the  same  cause  producing  the  same  effect. 

We  are  told,  however,  that  in  Massachusetts  crime  is  increasing.  I 
stop  not  to  inquire  how  far  this  may  be  true ;  but  if  so,  is  it  not 
high  time  to  abandon  the  medicine  under  which  the  patient  has  always 
grown  worse,  and  try  that  which  has  never  failed  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  all  who  have  resorted  to  it  ? 

There  has  been  but  one  attempt  to  explain  away  these  facts,  and  that  v^as 
by  the  gentleman  from  Salem,  (Mr.  Williams,)  who  tells  us  it  is  all  owing 
to  the  temperance  reformation  !  Was  there  a  temperance  reformation  in 
Tuscany,  under  Leopold,  lasting  thirty  years  ?  Was  there  a  temperance 
reformation  in  Pennsylvania,  commencing  in  1791  ?  Did  the  temperance 
reformation  begin  in  1812,  and  in  Maine  not  until  1829  ?  And  if,  since 
1829,  the  temperance  reformation  has  produced  such  astounding  results 

4> 


436  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WHITINGS 

in  IMaine,  why  has  it  not  operated  in  the  same  Avay  here  in  Massachu- 
setts ?  It  is  a  great,  a  glorious,  a  blessed  reformation,  —  as  much  so  in 
INIassachusctts  as  in  Maine.  No  doubt  it  lias  diminished  crime  in  both 
States,  and  probably  in  the  same  proportion  very  nearly.  But  some 
other  cause,  operating  in  the  one  State,  and  not  in  the  other,  must  be 
concerned  in  producing  a  diminution  of  a  whole  class  of  crimes  to  less 
than  one  third  of  its  former  proportion,  for  seven  years  together,  in  the 
great  State  of  Maine,  while  no  such  change  has  taken  place  in  Massa- 
chusetts. 

Sir,  the  advocates  of  this  bill  do  not  ask  the  house  to  try  any  novel 
experiment.  They  ask  you  to  abandon  an  experiment  cruel  and  un- 
christian in  itself,  and  which,  having  been  tried  in  instances  innumerable, 
has  always  signally  failed.  They  ask  you  to  adopt  an  improvement 
which  has  been  amply  tested,  and  always  with  the  happiest  success. 
They  do  not  merely  ask  you  to  refrain  from  the  wanton  and  gratuitous 
shedding  of  blood,  but  to  follow  that  course  which  all  experience  has 
shown  to  be  the  most  effectual  to  diminish  the  frequency  of  crime.  Set 
at  naught,  then,  the  idle  theories  of  gentlemen  who  oppose  their  conjec- 
tures of  what  will  be,  to  the  uniform  evidence  of  what  has  been.  If,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  house,  the  public  are  not  yet  ready  to  sustain  the 
whole  bill,  it  may  be  amended.  But  after  murder  and  arson  have  been 
exempted  from  its  provisions,  —  if  the  house  see  fit  to  exempt  them,  — I 
trust  the  bill  will  pass.  Its  passage  will  be  the  triumph  of  truth  and 
reason  over  error  and  prejudice,  of  fact  and  experience  over  imagination 
and  theory.  I  have  the  utmost  confidence  in  the  event,  for  I  rely  upon 
the  good  sense  of  the  house,  supported  as  it  will  be  by  the  good  sense  of 
the  community. 


REPOPiT  OX  THE  ABOLITION  OF  CAPITAL  PUXISIIMEXT.* 

The  committee  appointed  to  consider  the  expediency  of  abolishing 
capital  punishments,  to  whom  was  referred  so  much  of  the  Address  of 
His  Excellency  the  Governor  as  relates  to  Capital  Punishment,  and 
numerous  petitions  from  the  citizens  of  the  Commonwealth,  praying  that 
capital  punishment  may  be  abolished,  have  considered  that  subject,  and 
respectfully  ask  leave  to  report :  — 

That  they  view  the  question  submitted  to  them  as  one  of  momentous 

*  Prom  the  Lcdslativc  Documents  of  1836. 


OF   EGBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  437 

importance,  —  deeply  concerning  the  general  welfare  of  society,  by  its 
connection  with,  and  influence  upon  the  prevailing  standard  of  moral 
rectitude,  and  in  the  ultimate  decision  of  which,  according  to  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  Christian  morality,  not  only  each  legislator,  but 
every  member  of  the  community,  ought  to  feel  a  solemn  interest  and  an 
individual  responsibility.  The  undersigned  have  approached  this  ques- 
tion with  an  anxious  solicitude  to  arrive  at  a  definite  and  correct  conclu- 
sion ;  that,  if  their  inquiries  should  result  in  the  melancholy  conviction 
that  it  is  necessary  to  take  away  human  life,  in  all  or  any  of  the  cases 
for  which  the  present  laws  prescribe  the  penalty  of  death,  they  might  be 
able  to  produce  such  proofs  of  that  necessity,  and  assign  such  arguments 
for  the  justice  of  the  exercise  of  the  highest  prerogative  ever  claimed 
by  human  governments,  the  power  of  life  and  death,  as  would  be  satis- 
factory and  unequivocal,  and  sufficient  to  remove  the  painful  doubt,  of 
late  so  common,  whether  we  have  good  warrant  for  the  legislation  now 
under  consideration.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  investigation  should 
lead  to  the  decision,  so  grateful  to  humanity,  that  we  are  not  called  on 
in  any  case  to  pronounce  the  life  of  any  individual  forfeit  to  society,  and 
to  be  sacrificed  for  the  common  safety,  but  that  human  life,  as  it  is  the 
gift  of  the  Almighty,  is  by  his  fiat  alone  to  be  taken  away,  then  the 
undersigned  would  most  ardently  desire  to  place  that  truth  in  a  light  so 
clear  that  no  candid  mind  could  resist  the  evidence  which  sustains  and 
enforces  it. 

Your  committee  derive  much  encouragement,  in  entering  upon  the  in- 
quiry before  them,  from  the  fact  that  it  comes  to  them  with  the  eloquent 
and  emphatic  recommendation  of  his  Excellency  the  Governor,  in  his 
address  on  the  organization  of  the  government  of  the  Commonwealth 
for  the  current  political  year. 

"The  subject  of  crime  and  punishment  has  for  several  years  received 
much  attention,"  says  his  Excellency,  "  both  in  Europe  and  America ; 
and  it  is  generally  admitted,  that  discoveries  and  improvements  of  great 
practical  importance  have  been  made  in  this  country.  These  improve- 
ments are  in  successful  operation,  at  the  state  prison  in  Charlestown." 
It  may  be  worth  our  while  to  recollect  that  most  of  these  discoveries  and 
improvements,  now  sanctioned  and  approved  in  our  own  sphere  of  ob- 
servation by  "  the  test  of  the  sure  teacher,  experience,"  were  originally 
suggested  by  the  late  Jeremy  Bentham,  to  all  whose  plans  of  reform,  as 
wxU  those  adopted  by  his  Excellency  in  his  address  as  others,  the 
epithets,  radical  and  visionary,  were  but  a  few  years  ago  indiscriminately 
applied,  and  that,  too,  much  more  loudly  and  confidently  than  the  same 
epithets  are  now  applied,  by  some  few  devoted  adherents  to  ancient 
usages,  to  the  meliorations  of  the  criminal  code  which  his  Excellency 

37* 


438  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

recommends.  His  Excellency  remarks  in  continuation,  that  "The 
ancient  rigors  of  the  penal  code  have  been  mitigated.  Punishments  re- 
volting to  humanity  have  been  abolished,  and  others  substituted,  which 
are  believed  to  answer,  with  equal  efficacy,  all  the  ends  of  penal  justice ; 
and  which  are  more  conformable  to  the  humanity  of  the  age,  and  to  the 
mild  spirit  of  Christianity.  A  grave  question  has  been  started,  whether 
it  would  be  safe  altogether  to  abolish  the  j^unishment  of  death.  An  in- 
creasing tenderness  for  human  life  is  one  of  the  most  decided  character- 
istics of  the  civilization  of  the  day,  and  should  in  every  proper  way  be 
cherished.  Whether  it  can,  with  safety  to  the  community,  be  carried  so 
far  as  to  permit  the  punishment  of  death  to  be  entirely  dispensed  with, 
is  a  question  not  yet  decided  by  philanthropists  and  legislators.  It  may 
deserve  your  consideration,  whether  this  interesting  question  cannot  be 
brought  to  the  test  of  the  sure  teacher,  —  experience.  An  experiment, 
instituted  and  pursued  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time,  might  settle  it  on 
the  side  of  mercy.  Such  a  decision  would  be  matter  of  cordial  congra- 
tulation. Should  a  cotitrary  result  ensue,  it  would  probably  reconcile 
the  public  mind  to  the  continued  infliction  of  capital  punishment,  as  a 
necessary  evil.  Such  a  consequence  is  highly  to  be  desired,  if  the  pro- 
visions of  the  law  are  finally  to  remain,  in  substance,  what  they  are  at 
present.  The  pardoning  power  has  been  intrusted  to  the  chief  magis- 
trate ;  but  this  power  was  not  designed  to  be  one  of  making  or  repealing 
the  law.  A  state  of  things,  which  deprives  the  executive  of  the  support  of 
public  sentiment,  in  the  conscientious  discharge  of  his  most  painful  duty, 
is  much  to  be  deplored."  These  remarks  your  committee  believe  to  be 
applicable,  though  with  different  degrees  of  force,  to  all  the  crimes  made 
capital  by  our  existing  code.  They  regard,  however,  only  the  expedi- 
ency of  the  law,  and  do  not  touch  the  higher  question,  previous  in  its 
nature,  of  the  right  to  inflict  the  punishment  of  death. 

Though  it  may  not  be  necessary  for  your  committee  to  express  an 
opinion  upon  the  riglit,  if,  after  admitting  the  right,  it  should  be  found 
that  upon  grounds  of  expediency  alone  this  punishment  ought  to  be  en- 
tirely dispensed  with,  yet  as  the  right  itself  to  take  away  life  is  now 
utterly  denied  by  many  thousand  citizens  of  this  Commonweath,  whose 
number  seems  to  be  rapidly  increasing,  your  committee  have  thought  it 
proper  to  state,  so  far  as  they  understand  them,  the  principles  upon 
which  this  denial  rests,  leaving  it  to  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature  to 
allow  those  principles  due  weight  in  its  deliberations. 

It  is  said,  then,  that  society  is  nothing  but  a  partnership,  and  further, 
that  it  may  with  j)ropriety  be  styled  a  limited  'partner si lijp^  created  and 
continued  for  specijic  purposes,  —  for  purposes  which  are  easily  defined. 
These  purposes  are  all  of  them  benevolent  and  philanthropic,  and  it  is 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  439 

the  continual  boast  of  Americans  that  we  have  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing them  more  uniformly  and  completely,  and  with  less  unnecessary  suf- 
fering or  avoidable  injustice,  than  any  association  of  men  that  has  ever 
preceded  us.  This  proud  assumption  of  superiority  rests,  we  believe, 
upon  a  foundation  of  truth,  and  is  established  impregnably  in  our  history. 
Your  committee  would  be  among  the  last  to  deny  or  to  doubt  it :  yet  it 
is  impossible  that  our  system  should  be  by  any  means  perfect,  since  it  is 
the  work  of  finite  human  faculties,  and  since  that  approach  towards  per- 
fection which  is  within  the  compass  of  human  capacity  must  always  be  the 
tardy  groAvth  of  many  ages  of  gradual,  irregular,  and  often  interrupted 
improvement.  The  class  of  reasoners  of  whom  we  are  speaking,  hold 
the  infliction  of  capital  punishment  to  be  one  of  the  most  obvious  vices 
in  our  present  mode  of  administering  the  common  concerns. 

We  are  all  of  us  members,  say  they,  of  the  great  partnership.  Each 
one  of  us  has  not  only  an  interest,  but  an  influence,  also,  in  its  proceed- 
ings. Shall  the  partnership,  under  certain  circumstances  which  will 
probably  happen  now  and  then,  proceed  deliberately,  with  much  cere- 
mony, and  in  cold  blood,  to  strangle  one  of  the  partners  ?  Has  society 
the  right  to  take  away  life  ? 

The  ivJiole  ohject  of  government  is  negative.  It  is  for  the  protection  of 
property,  life,  and  liberty.  It  is  not  for  the  destruction  of  any  of  them. 
It  is  not  to  prescribe  how  any  one  may  obtain  property,  how  long  one 
may  enjoy  life,  under  what  conditions  he  may  remain  at  liberty.  It  was 
precisely  to  prevent  the  strong  from  controlling  the  weak  in  all  these 
particulars,  that  government  was  instituted.  It  is  to  take  care  that  no 
man  shall  appropriate  the  property  of  another,  that  no  man  shall  restrain 
the  liberty  of  another,  that  no  man  shall  injure  the  person,  or  shorten  the 
life  of  another.  Having  performed  these  duties,  its  office  is  at  an  end.  It 
is  not  to  become  itself  the  most  terrible  invader  of  the  interests  it  was 
created  to  protect,  acting  the  part  which  the  lion  acted  wlien  he  was  made 
king  of  beasts  ;  nor,  except  where  men  are  sunk  in  beastly  degradation, 
will  they  permit  it  to  usurp  and  monopolize  all  tlie  prerogatives  wliich 
elevate  man  above  the  brutes,  and  make  him  lord  of  the  lower  world.  It 
is  to  be  the  servant  of  the  community,  and  not  its  master.  It  is  to  keep 
off  harm  from  without,  and  to  preserve  order  within  :  not  to  interfere  in 
any  man's  business,  but  sternly  to  forbid  any  other  man  from  interfering 
with  it.  In  short,  it  is  to  leave  q,\qvj  one  untrammelled  in  the  free  en- 
joyment of  all  his  natural  rights,  to  pursue  his  own  best  happiness  in  his 
own  way,  so  long  as  he  does  not  violate  the  rights  of  another. 

Government  is  a  necessary  evil.  It  is  for  our  ignorance,  for  our 
folly,  and  our  wickedness,  that  we  are  shackled  with  its  control ;  and  we 
submit  to  it  only  that  it  may  shield  us  from  the  heavier  curse,  the  eter- 


440  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

nal  and  cleadlj  warftxre  wliicli  men  must  wage  against  one  another,  if  left 
in  a  state  of  total  anarchy,  without  the  possibility  of  a  common  arbiter 
of  differences,  or  a  mutual  protector  from  each  other's  aggressions. 
Protection  being  the  only  object  of  society,  it  follows  that  we  surrender 
to  it,  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  our  natural  rights  as  nearly  unim- 
paired as  conflicting  claims  will  in  the  nature  of  things  admit,  only  so 
much  liberty  as  it  is  necessary  should  be  relinquished  to  that  end.  To 
give  up  more,  by  the  division  of  a  hair,  would  be  to  counteract  so  far 
the  very  endeavor  we  are  making  when  we  are  forming  the  social  com- 
pact to  secure  the  full  enjoyment  of  our  natural  rights.  It  needed  not, 
therefore,  the  authority  of  Montesquieu,  or  of  Bcccaria,  to  give  weight 
to  the  maxim,  that  every  punishment  which  does  not  arise  from  absolute 
necessity ;  and  even  every  act  of  authority  of  one  man  over  another,  for 
which  there  is  not  an  absolute  necessity,  is  tyrannical.  The  right  to 
punish  crimes  is  founded  upon  the  necessity  of  defending  the  public  lib- 
erty, and  is  coextensive  only  with  that  necessity. 

To  suppose  that  any  people  has  entered  into  a  compact  giving  unlim- 
ited powers  for  all  possible  purposes  to  its  government,  would  be  to 
suppose  an  obvious  absurdity ;  yet  this  is  what  most  governments  assume 
as  far  as  they  dare,  never  admitting  any  limits  to  their  prerogative  ex- 
cept those  which  are  forced  upon  them  by  resistance,  or  the  immediate 
apprehension  of  resistance.  To  suppose  that  limited  grants  of  power 
are  to  be  used  for  any  other  than  the  purposes  for  which  they  were  made, 
is  almost  equally  absurd ;  yet  this  is  the  supposition  constantly  acted 
on  in  the  practice  of  almost  every  government  that  ever  existed. 

Whether,  in  entering  into  the  social  compact,  we  gave  up  our  lives,  to 
be  thrown  into  the  common  stock  and  disposed  of  as  society  might  will, 
is  a  question  to  be  decided  with  reference  to  these  principles,  and  it  may 
be  thought  to  be  quite  settled,  beyond  dispute,  by  the  bare  statement  of 
these  principles.  Philosophers  and  jurists  of  the  highest  reputation 
have,  however,  disagreed  in  the  inferences  which  we  should  draw  from 
them.  Rousseau  supposes  that  in  consequence  of  the  social  contract 
between  the  citizens  and  society,  life  becomes  "  a  conditional  grant  of 
the  State,"  to  be  given  up  whenever  the  State  shall  call  for  it.  This 
theory  has  the  merit  of  being  consistent  and  intelligible,  but  it  is  anti- 
republican  and  slavish.  It  forgets  that  "  the  rights  and  the  welfare  of 
individuals,"  and  not  "  projects  of  public  aggrandizement,"  are,  as  his 
Excellency  has  styled  them  in  his  address,  "the  great  objects  of  civil 
society."  Rousseau  understood  neither  the  nature  of  despotism  nor  the 
nature  of  liberty.  His  system  provides  no  sufficient  safeguards  for 
minorities  and  individuals,  but  leaves  them  exposed  to  the  tyranny  of 
majorities,  a  tyranny  as  much  to  be  dreaded,  where  a  wise  forecast  has 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  441 

not  provided  strong  guarantees  against  it,  as  the  irresponsible  power  of 
a  single  autocrat.  Athens  and  France,  ancient  democracies  and  modern 
popular  revolutions,  attest  the  magnitude  and  danger  of  that  error  which 
overlooks  the  happiness  of  individuals,  and  views  the  public  aggrandize- 
ment as  the  great  design  of  the  association.  Robespierre  was  a  sincere 
and  enthusiastic  follov/er  of  the  political  system  of  Rousseau,  and,  although 
the  philosopher  would  doubtless  have  disavowed  the  excesses  to  which 
the  principles  of  his  school  were  pushed  by  his  disciples,  the  reign  of 
terror  will  ever  be  referred  to  as  a  proof  and  an  illustration  of  the  mis- 
chiefs of  uncontrolled  and  irresponsible  power,  even  in  the  hands  of  a 
popular  majority,  or  of  a  government  growing  out  of,  and  resting  solely 
upon  the  popular  will.  The  truth  is,  the  people  are  not  only  the  sove- 
reigns, but  they  should  take  care  to  retain  in  their  own  hands,  and  as 
individuals,  by  far  the  greater  portion  of  their  sovereignty ;  yielding  to 
society,  as  an  equivalent  for  its  protection,  only  so  much  power  as  is 
necessary  to  enable  it  to  perform  that  duty ;  wdiich  grant  should  be 
hedged  about  with  the  strictest  limitations,  carefully  prescribed,  and  rigid- 
ly, nay  sacredly  observed. 

When  we  surrendered  to  society  the  smallest  possible  portion  of 
our  liberty,  to  enable  us  the  better  to  retain  the  aggregate  of  rights 
which  we  did  not  surrender,  did  we  concede  our  title  to  that  life  with 
which  our  Creator  has  endowed  us  ?  Is  it  to  be  conceived  that  we  have 
consented  to  hold  the  tenure  of  our  earthly  existence  at  the  discretion, 
or  the  caprice  of  a  majority,  whose  erratic  legislation  no  man  can  calcu- 
late beforehand  ?  While  our  object  w^as  to  preserve,  as  little  impaired 
as  might  be  possible,  all  our  rights,  which  are  all  of  them  comprehended 
in  the  right  to  enjoy  life,  can  we  have  agreed  to  forfeit  that  right  to  live 
while  God  shall  spare  our  lives,  which  is  the  essential  precedent  con- 
dition of  all  our  other  rights  ?  Property  may  be  diminished,  and  after- 
wards increased.  Liberty  may  be  taken  away  for  a  time,  and  subsequently 
restored.  The  wound  which  is  inflicted  may  be  healed,  and  the  wrong 
we  have  suffered  may  be  atoned  for ;  but  there  is  no  Prometliean  heat 
that  can  rekindle  the  lamp  of  life  if  once  extinguished.  Can  it  be,  then, 
that  while  property,  liberty,  and  personal  security  are  guarded  and 
hedged  in  on  every  side,  by  the  strict  provisions  of  our  fundamental  con- 
stitution, that  life  is  unconditionally  thrown  into  the  common  stock,  not 
to  be  forfeited  in  a  specific  case,  agreed  upon  beforehand  at  the  organi- 
zation of  our  society,  but  in  all  such  cases  as  the  popular  voice  may 
single  out  and  make  capital  by  law  ?  Have  we  entered  into  any  such 
compact? 

The  burthen  of  proof  is  wholly  upon  those  who  affirm  that  we  have  so 
agreed.     Let  it  be  shown  that  mankind  in  general,  or  the  inhabitants  of 


442  ME]\IOmS,   SPEECHES  AND  WHITINGS 

this  Commonwealth  in  particular,  have  agreed  to  hold  their  lives  as  a 
conditional  grant  from  the  State.  Let  it  be  shown  that  any  one  individual, 
understanding  the  bargain,  and  being  free  to  dissent  from  it,  ever  volunta- 
rily placed  himself  in  such  a  miserable  vassalage.  Let  there,  at  least,  be 
shown  some  reason  for  supposing  that  any  sane  man  has  of  his  own 
accord  bartered  away  his  original  right  in  his  oxni  existence,  that  his 
government  may  tyrannize  more  heavily  over  him  and  his  fellows,  when 
all  the  purposes  of  good  government  may  be  amply  secured  at  so  much 
cheaper  a  purchase.  Li  no  instance  can  this  preposterous  sacriiice 
be  implied.  It  must  be  shown  by  positive  proof  that  it  has  been  made, 
and  until  this  is  undeniably  established,  the  right  of  life  remains  among 
those  reserved  rights  which  we  have  not  yielded  up  to  society. 

It  belongs  to  those  who  claim  for  society  the  rightful  powder  of  life  and 
death  over  its  members,  as  a  consequence  of  the  social  compact,  to  show 
in  that  compact  the  express  provisions  which  convey  that  power.  But 
it  cannot  be  pretended  that  there  are  or  ever  were  such  provisions.  It 
is  argued,  as  boldly  as  strangely,  that  this  right  is  to  be  implied  from  the 
nature  of  the  compact.  It  may  seem  unnecessary  to  reply  to  such  an 
assumption ;  but  it  has  often  been  advanced,  and  for  that  reason  deserves 
our  notice.  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  social  compact  actually  entered 
into  by  the  members  of  society.  It  is  a  convenient  fiction,  —  a  mere 
creature  of  the  imagination,  —  a  form  of  expression  often  used  to  avoid 
long  and  difficult  explanations  of  the  real  nature  of  the  relation  between 
the  body  politic  and  its  individual  members.  This  relation  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  that  of  a  compact.  It  is  not  by  our  voluntary  consent  that  we 
become  each  one  of  us  parties  to  it.  The  mere  accident  of  birth  first 
introduced  us,  and  made  us  subject  to  its  arrailgements,  before  we  were 
in  any  sense  free  agents.  After  we  had  grown  to  the  age  of  freemen, 
and  had  a  right  to  a  voice  in  the  common  concerns,  what  alternatives  had 
we  then  left  ?  Simply  these :  Resistance  to  the  social  compact,  as  it  is 
called,  under  the  prospect  of  producing  ruin,  confusion,  anarchy,  slaugh- 
ter almost  without  bounds,  and  finally  ending  in  a  new  form  of  the  social 
compact  much  more  objectionable  than  that  which  had  been  destroyed,  if 
the  resistance  should  prove  successful :  should  it  fail  of  success,  incurring 
the  penalty  of  treason,  a  cruel  death,  to  such  as  have  not  been  fortunate 
enough  to  fall  in  the  field  of  battle.  Flight  from  the  social  compact, 
that  is  to  say,  flight  not  only  from  one's  home,  friends,  kindred,  language, 
and  country,  but  from  among  civilized  men,  perhaps  it  may  be  said  from 
the  fellowship  of  the  human  race.  Or,  lastly,  submission  to  the  social 
compact  as  we  find  it,  taking  the  chance  of  our  feeble  endeavors  to 
amend  it,  or  improve  the  practice  under  it.  To  this  result  almost  every 
man  feels  compelled  by  the  circumstances  in  which  he  finds  himself; 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  443 

circumstances  so  strong  as  to  force  from  an  inspired  apostle  the  declara- 
tion, though  he  wrote  under  the  tyrant  Nero,  a  monster  of  depravity, 
"  the  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God ;  whosoever  therefore  resisteth 
the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God ;  and  they  that  resist  shall 
receive  unto  themselves  damnation."  *  With  whatever  latitude  this  is 
to  be  understood,  and  there  are  cases  generally  supposed  to  justify  resist- 
ance to  the  utmost  extremity,  it  is  certain  that  submission  to  the  existing 
constitution  of  society  is,  in  ordinary  cases  at  least,  a  duty  and  a  neces- 
sity also.  IIow  then  can  that  be  a  compact  into  which  we  are  forced  by 
the  irresistible  influence  of  our  circumstances,  and  how  can  submission 
be  regarded  as  a  voluntary  acquiescence,  when  there  is  a  door  open  to 
avoid  submission,  except  such  resistance,  or  such  a  flight  as  has  been 
described  ?  It  is  a  palpable  folly  to  pretend  that  an  actual,  voluntary 
compact  exists,  and  they  who  derive  the  right  to  punish  capitally  from 
any  supposed  social  compact,  must  first  suppose  an  agreement  which  the 
facts  in  the  case  shov/  Avas  not  and  never  could  be  freely  entered  into  by 
the  individual  members  of  society ;  and  then  from  that  purely  imaginary 
agreement  proceed  to  draw  an  implication,  also  purely  imaginary,  and 
which  it  would  be  absurd  and  monstrous  to  derive  from  such  premises, 
even  if  such  a  general  compact  as  is  supposed  in  arguments  like  these 
had  been  actually  formed.  To  state  this  theory  is  sufficiently  to  refute 
it,  yet  it  is  that  which  has  been  most  frequently  relied  on. 

But  let  us  carry  this  examination  one  step  farther.  Not  only  has  no 
man  actually  given  up  to  society  the  right  to  put  an  end  to  his  life,  not 
only  is  no  surrender  of  this  right  under  a  social  compact  ever  to  be  im- 
jflied,  but  no  man  can,  under  a  social  contract,  or  any  other  contract, 
give  up  this  right  to  society,  or  to  ariy  constituent  part  of  society,  for  this 
conclusive  reason,  that  the  right  is  not  his  to  be  conveyed.  Has  a  man 
a  right  to  commit  suicide  ?  Every  Christian  must  answer,  no.  A  man 
holds  his  life  as  a  tenant  at  will,  —  not  indeed  of  society,  who  did  not 
and  cannot  give  it,  or  renew  it,  and  have  therefore  no  right  to  take  it 
away,  —  but  of  that  Almighty  Being  whose  gift  life  is,  who  sustains  and 
continues  it,  to  whom  it  belongs,  and  who  alone  has  the  right  to  reclaim 
his  gift  whenever  it  shall  seem  good  in  his  sight.  A  man  may  not  sur- 
render up  his  life  until  he  is  called  for.  May  he  then  make  a  contract 
with  his  neighbor  that,  in  such  or  such  a  case,  his  neighbor  shall  kill 
him  ?  Such  a  contract,  if  executed,  would  involve  the  one  party  in  the 
guilt  of  suicide,  and  the  other  in  the  guilt  of  murder.  If  a  man  may  not 
say  to  his  next  neighbor,  "  when  I  have  burned  your  house  in  the  night 
time,  or  wrested  your  purse  from  you  on  the  highway,  or  broken  into 

Romans,  xiii.  1. 


444  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

your  house  in  the  night,  with  an  iron  crow,  to  take  a  morsel  of  meat  for 
mj  starving  child,  do  you  seize  me,  shut  me  up  a  few  weeks,  and  then 
bring  me  out  and  strangle  me,  and  in  like  case,  if  your  turn  comes  first, 
I  will  serve  you  in  the  same  way,"  would  such  an  agreement  between 
ten  neighbors  be  any  more  valid  or  justifiable  ?  No.  Nor  if  the  num- 
ber were  a  hundred  instead  of  ten,  who  should  form  this  infernal  com- 
pact, nor  if  there  should  be  six  hundred  thousand,  or  seven  hundred 
thousand,  or  even  fourteen  millions,  who  should  so  agree,  would  this  in- 
crease of  the  number  of  partners  vary  one  hair's  breadth  the  moral 
character  of  the  transaction.  If  the  execution  of  this  contract  be  not 
still  murder  on  the  one  side  and  suicide  on  the  other,  what  precise 
number  of  persons  must  engage  in  it,  in  order  that  what  was  criminal 
before  may  become  innocent,  not  to  say  virtuous,  —  and  upon  what  hith- 
erto unheard  of  principles  of  morality  is  an  act  of  murder  in  an  individ- 
ual, or  a  small  corporation,  converted  into  an  act  of  justice  whenever  an- 
other subscriber  has  joined  the  association  for  mutual  sacrifice  ?  It  is  a 
familiar  fact  in  the  history  of  mankind,  that  great  corporations  will  do, 
and  glory  in,  what  the  very  individuals  composing  them  would  shrink 
from  or  blush  at ;  but  how  does  the  division  of  the  responsibility  trans- 
form vice  into  virtue,  or  diminish  the  amount  of  any  given  crime  ?  The 
command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  applies  to  individual  men  as  members 
of  an  association,  quite  as  peremptorily  as  in  their  private  capacity ;  and 
although  men  in  a  numerous  company  may  keep  one  another  in  counte- 
nance in  a  gross  misdeed,  and  may  so  mystify  and  confuse  their  several  re- 
lations to  it,  as  that  each  one  may  sin  ignorantly,  and  therefore  in  the  sight 
of  the  Searcher  of  Hearts  be  absolved  from  intentional  guilt,  still  that  it 
does  not  alter  the  true  nature  of  the  act  must  be  obvious,  as  also  that  it 
is  equally  our  duty  to  abstain  from  a  social  as  from  a  personal  crime, 
when  once  its  criminality  is  clearly  understood. 

It  is  not,  however,  from  any  social  compact,  either  actual  or  implied, 
comprehending  the  whole  body  of  the  people,  that  the  practice  of  putting 
to  death  particular  members  of  the  community,  grew  up.  It  was  from  a 
compact  of  the  opposite  cliaracter,  the  league  of  the  oppressors  against  the 
oppressed.  "  If  we  look  into  history,  we  shall  find,"  says  Beccaria, 
"  that  laws  vvdiich  are,  or  ought  to  be,  conventions  between  men  in  a  state 
of  freedom,  have  been,  for  the  most  part,  the  work  of  the  passions  of  a 
few,  —  not  dictated  by  a  cool  examiner  of  human  nature,  who  had  this 
only  end  in  view,  the  greatest  hapjnness  of  the  greatest  number^  This 
principle,  adopted  by  Bentham,  and  made  the  foundation  of  his  theoreti- 
cal system  of  government  and  legislation,  his  Excellency  considers  to  be 
practically  in  operation  in  our  own  institutions.  "  Our  system  looks  to 
the  people,"says  the  address,  "  not  merely  as  a  whole,  but  as  a  society 


OF   EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  445 

composed  of  individual  men,  whose  happiness  is  the  great  design  of  the 
association.  It  consequently  recognizes  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,  as  the  basis  of  the  social  compact." 

The  leading  idea  of  the  American  policy  is  freedom.  Other  nations 
haye  forms  of  government  intended  and  suited  solely  to  secure  the  inter 
ests  of  the  ruling  classes.  Here,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  a  written  constitution  was  adopted,  establishing  a  government  for 
the  security  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  whole  people.  This  is  the 
first  true  social  compact,  if  any  such  compact  be  in  existence,  and  it 
should  be  construed  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  made.  Other  constitu- 
tions have  been  compacts  of  aristocracies  parcelling  out  among  them- 
selves their  prerogative  to  plunder  and  oppress ;  compacts  to  take  all 
that  could  be  wrested  from  the  producer,  and  to  guard  against  his  resis- 
tance. Ours  is  a  compact  which  protects  whatever  we  have,  or  may 
acquire,  and  provides  for  mutual  defence  against  any  Invasion  of  the 
rights  of  a  citizen.  And  this  is  all  that  it  aims  to  accomplish,  all  that 
any  government  can  accomplish  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and  more 
than  any  other  ever  yet  did  eff'ect,  for  In  aiming  at  other,  and  unattain- 
able ends,  every  government  except,  let  us  hope,  our  own,  has  failed 
partially  of  fulfilling  what  ought  to  be  its  legitimate  purpose,  and  has 
visited  its  unhappy  subjects  with  miserable  evils,  instead  of  the  blessings 
which  it  promised. 

There  is  no  departure  from  the  proper  sphere  of  government  which 
has  been  more  fruitful  in  misery  than  the  attempt  to  sit  in  judgment  on 
the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  and  to  measure  out  punishments 
according  to  the  supposed  degrees  of  moral  guilt,  instead  of  punishing 
merely  to  protect.  It  is  to  this  attempt,  which  assumes  to  visit  upon 
secret  and  unascertainable  motives  that  vengeance  which  is  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  omniscient  judge,  which  assumes  also  that  infallibility  which 
is  equally  beyond  the  province  of  man,  that  we  owe  the  fires  of  the  in- 
quisition, the  massacres  of  St.  Bartholomews,  and  all  the  persecutions 
for  heresy  in  which  the  various  sects  mutually  sacrificed  each  other  in 
hecatombs,  with  such  fatal  readiness  and  zeal,  that,  for  ages,  Christendom 
appeared  "  one  vast  scaffold,  covered  with  executioners  and  victims,  and 
surrounded  by  judges,  guards,  and  spectators."  It  is  to  the  same  attempt, 
always  vain  and  impotent  for  its  intent,  though  so  horrible  In  its  conse- 
quences, that  we  owe  all  the  sanguinary  and  inhuman  penalties  which 
have  heretofore  disgraced  the  criminal  codes  of  our  own  and  other 
nations,  as  well  as  those  which  remain  to  be  abohshed  by  the  refined 
humanity  of  the  present  age.  Society  should  at  length  cease  to  be  vin- 
dictive. In  fixing  the  punishment  we  should  weigh,  not  the  ill  desert  of 
the  criminal,  which  can  in  no  case  be  truly  and  exactly  known,  and 

38 


446  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WEITINGS 

which  if  known  would  vary  almost  infinitely  in  crimes  of  the  same  legal 
description,  but  the  melancholy  necessity  of  painful  precautions  against 
the  moral  maniac  who  endangers  our  safety. 

But  our  prejudices  upon  this  subject  are  only  a  portion  of  that  great 
inheritance  of  error  which  have  been  handed  down  to  us  from  the  feudal 
system,  and  from  systems,  more  arbitrary  than  feudality,  which  preceded 
it.  These  prejudices  originated  centuries  back,  when  darkness  covered 
the  earth,  and  gross  darkness  the  people  ;  and  they  ought  to  have  van- 
ished long  ago,  dissipated  by  the  healing  beams  of  Christianity  and  truth. 
They  have  lingered,  however,  beyond  their  time,  till  the  full  blaze  of 
light  has  burst  upon  them,  and  is  dispelling  them,  as  the  sun  dissolves 
the  last  wreath  of  mist  from  the  river. 

When  the  favored  few  governed  for  their  own  exclusive  advantage 
the  subject  many,  whom  they  held  to  be  created  out  of  a  diiferent  clay, 
they  naturally  made  their  own  opinions,  comfort,  and  interest,  the  sole 
standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Possessing  such  unbounded  power,  they 
would  have  been  virtuous  beyond  human  virtue,  if  they  had  not  signally 
abused  it.  Accordingly  we  find  that  they  sported  in  perfect  wantonness 
w^ith  both  the  liberties  and  lives  of  the  people.  No  wonder  that  vulgar 
life  was  cheap,  when  the  noble  could  impose  laws  upon  vassals  and  vil- 
lains, when  he  could  be  tried  only  by  his  peers,  and  when  there  was 
little  sympathy  between  the  ruling  and  the  suffering  classes.  The  game 
laws  are  only  one  of  the  consequences  to  be  expected  from  such  a  state 
of  things.  There  was  a  time,  we  are  told,  when  by  the  law  of  England 
the  killing  of  a  man  was  permitted  to  be  expiated  by  the  payment  of  a 
fine,  while  the  killing  of  a  wild  boar,  by  one  not  qualified  to  hunt,  was 
punishable  with  death.  It  happened  then,  so  the  anecdote  has  come 
down  to  us,  that  a  man  charged  with  killing  a  wild  boar,  and  put  on  trial 
for  his  life,  plead  in  his  defence  that  he  did  it  by  mistake,  for  that  he 
really  thought  the  beast  was  only  a  man.  It  was  from  times  when  the  con- 
querors, who  held  in  military  subjection  the  people  they  had  overrun, 
thus  sacrificed  life  to  their  own  pleasures  or  caprices,  that  its  cheap  esti- 
mate came  down  to  a  later  stage  of  society,  when  the  moneyed  aristo- 
cracy wasted  it  as  lavishly  and  unscrupulously  for  the  protection  of  pro- 
perty from  even  slight  aggressions,  as  ever  the  iron-clad  barons  that  pre- 
ceded them,  had  for  the  protection  of  their  privileges.  The  humanity 
of  our  day  has  made  these  laws  for  the  most  part,  in  most  countries,  in- 
operative, where  they  have  not  been  repealed  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  divest 
us  so  far  of  the  impressions  they  have  left  behind  them,  as  to  see  the 
punishment  of  death  in  its  true  light,  a  mere  remnant  of  feudal  barbari- 
ty. We  are  apt  to  think,  so  great  is  the  reform  already  made  in  this 
respect,  that  we  have  gone  far  enough  ;  and  our  conservatives  cling  to 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  447 

the  surviving  instances  of  this  abuse,  with  as  ardent  attachment,  as  the 
crown  lawyers,  in  more  countries  than  one,  did  to  the  practice  of  torture, 
when  phiLanthropy  and  philosophy  waged  a  successful  warfare  against 
that  characteristic  vestige  of  the  wisdom  of  antiquity.  This  claim  of 
right,  however,  to  put  to  death,  implies  the  aristocratic  contempt  for 
mere  naked  humanity,  which  once  was  universally  prevalent  through  the 
law-making  classes.  When  the  feeling  is  entirely  extinct,  we  may  hope 
that  the  claim  itself  will  be  abandoned.  It  has  no  place  in  a  social  com- 
pact founded  in  principles  of  equality. 

There  remains  one  ground  on  which  this  right  is  sometimes  rested,  — 
the  right  of  self-defence.  But  this  cannot  give  the  right  to  put  to  death, 
lest  he  might  possibly  repeat  the  crime,  one  who  has  once  committed  a 
murder,  and  in  no  other  case  than  murder  does  the  argument  apply. 
You  cannot  defend  the  victim  of  the  crime,  for  he  is  gone  already.  To 
put  to  death  the  criminal  because  you  have  strong  reason  to  suspect  he 
might  be  guilty  of  the  same  offence  again  under  similar  circumstances, 
would  be  to  punish,  not  a  crime,  nor  even  the  intention  to  commit  it,  but 
a  suspected  liability  to  fall  under  future  temptation,  which  may  or  may 
not  assail  him,  and  which  he  may  be  effectually  precluded  from,  if  society 
so  wills.  No  man  has  agreed  that  for  the  purpose  of  self-defence,  soci- 
ety may  seize  him  and  put  him  to  death,  to  prevent  others  from  follow- 
ing his  example,  or  to  prevent  him  from  repeating  it ;  neither  is  this 
ground  of  self-defence  sincerely  believed  to  be  sound  by  the  community, 
or  any  considerable  portion  of  it,  for  if  it  were,  we  should  execute  the 
monomaniac  who  evinces  a  disposition  to  kill,  yet  the  proposition  to  do 
so  would  be  rejected  with  unanimous  indignation,  even  after  he  had 
committed  more  than  one  murder.  But  it  is  more  necessary  to  defend 
ourselves  against  such  a  man,  inaccessible  to  the  ordinary  motives  of 
hope  and  fear,  the  avenues  of  whose  heart  are  closed  against  the  ap- 
proaches of  repentance,  than  against  any  other  murderer.  Yet  we  do 
not  hang  the  maniac.  Some  other  feeling  then  must  actuate  us,  other 
than  the  desire  of  self-defence,  when  we  consign  the  murderer  to  the 
gallows. 

Indeed,  how  can  it  be  pretended  that  death  is  a  necessary  measure  of 
self-defence,  when  we  have  prisons  from  which  escape  is  barely  possible, 
and  when  tenfold  more  of  the  most  dangerous  criminals  now  go  wholly 
unpunished,  from  the  repugnance  of  witnesses,  jurors,  judges,  executive 
magistrates,  and  the  public,  at  capital  punishments,  than  could  ever 
make  their  way  from  prisons,  such,  and  so  guarded,  as  the  practical  sci- 
ence of  the  present  day  can  construct  for  their  safe  keeping.  However, 
it  might  be  in  a  state  of  imperfect  civilization,  among  us,  the  right  of 


448  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

self-defence  furnishes  no  foundation  whatever,  much  less  any  solid  basis, 
upon  Avhich  to  establish  the  right  to  take  away  life. 

Let  it  not  be  said,  that  these  are  mere  theoretical  speculations  of  no 
practical  importance,  for,  that  whether  the  right  be  or  be  not  clearly 
made  out  by  abstract  reasoning,  we  might  safely  trust  our  lives  to  the 
wisdom  and  the  mercy  of  society.  That  our  fellows  would  feel  the  re- 
sponsibility under  which  they  must  act,  and  would  take  away  the  life 
which  was  placed  at  their  disposal  only  under  the  pressure  of  the  most 
urgent  necessity ;  that,  therefore,  it  may  be  fairly  presumed,  without 
much  evidence,  that  in  entering  into  the  social  compact  we  gave  the 
power  of  life  and  death  to  the  body  politic.  All  history  contradicts  this 
too  flattering  view  of  human  nature.  Power  is  to  ambition  what  wealth 
is  to  avarice.  Instead  of  satisfying  the  desire,  it  creates  an  insatiable 
craving  for  more.  The  disposition  of  power  to  arrogate  to  itself  more 
power,  has  been  exemplified  in  the  career  of  every  government  since 
the  world  begun.  This  naturally  becomes  the  guiding  and  the  govern- 
ing principle  of  those  in  whose  hands  power  is  lodged.  Opposition  to 
this  tendency  in  our  own  institutions  is  the  criterion  and  the  substance  of 
democracy.  Governments,  however  wisely  framed  and  balanced,  will 
strengthen  themselves  till  they  are  too  strong  for  liberty,  unless  they 
have  much  virtue  within,  and  firm  and  constant  checks  from  without. 
Without  these  restraints  power  pursues  the  law  of  its  nature.  In  its 
course  it  swells  and  grows  like  a  snowball,  till  it  accumulates  to  the 
magnitude  and  moves  with  the  ponderous  momentum  of  an  avalanche. 

The  fundamental  article  in  the  American  political  creed  is,  that  gov- 
ernments ought  to  be  strictly  confined  within  their  proper  sphere.  The 
propensity  to  exercise  power,  results  from  the  passions  which  impel  the 
holder  to  increase  it.  Temptation  to  abuse  it  will  arise,  too  strong  for 
human  frailty,  where  it  is  suffered  to  be  accumulated  beyond  the  abso- 
lute necessity  for  intrusting  it.  There  is  no  power  more  flattering  to 
ambition,  because  there  is  none  of  a  higher  nature,  than  that  of  dispos- 
ing at  will  of  the  lives  of  our  fellow-creatures.  Accordingly,  no  power 
has  been  more  frequently  or  more  extensively  assumed,  exercised,  and 
abused.  When  we  review  the  past,  history  seems  to  be  written  in  letters 
of  blood.  Until  within  a  very  short  period,  the  trade  of  government 
has  been  butchery  in  masses,  varied  by  butchery  in  detail..  The  whole 
record  is  a  catalogue  of  crimes,  committed  for  the  most  part  under  legal 
forms,  and  the  pretence  of  public  good.  In  church  and  state  it  is  the 
same  ;  this  power  was  not  given  to  rust  unused.  A  philosopher  has 
sketched  in  a  few  words  a  picture,  which  is  sufficient  without  further 
illustration :  "  the  avarice  and  ambition  of  a  few  staining:  with  blood  the 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  449 

thrones  and  palaces  of  kings  ;  secret  treasons,  and  public  massacres  ; 
every  noble  a  tyrant  over  the  people  ;  and  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ  bathing  their  hands  in  blood,  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  all 
mercy."  That  such  scenes  are  no  longer  to  be  witnessed  must  be  attri- 
buted to  changes  similar  in  principle  and  tendency  to  the  total  abolition 
of  capital  punishment.  It  is  because  the  powers  of  governments  and  of 
the  few  have  been  greatly  abridged  and  restricted,  and  particularly  the 
very  power  in  question.  It  is  because  the  rights  of  the  many,  and  of 
individuals  have  been  better  ascertained  and  secured,  and  especially  the 
right  of  life.  It  is  because  the  standard  of  morality  has  been  raised, 
and  the  occurrence  of  the  greatest  crimes  prevented,  by  restoring,  in 
some  good  degree,  the  sanctity  of  human  life,  not  so  much  in  the  letter  of 
the  law  as  in  public  opinion,  which  decides  the  spirit  of  the  law.  Let  us 
complete  this  blessed  reformation  by  pushing  onward  in  the  same  direc- 
tion which  experience  has  already  sanctioned ;  but  let  us  not  vainly  im- 
agine that  the  smallest  portion  of  a  power,  unnecessary,  not  clearly  to  be 
justified,  terrible  in  its  most  discreet  and  sparing  use,  but  capable  of 
shrouding  the  whole  land  in  mourning  by  a  single  abuse,  may  be  safely 
trusted  to  any  faUible  government,  when  by  looking  back  but  a  century 
or  two  we  may  see  all  Christendom  groaning  under  its  abuse,  the  soil  red 
with  carnage,  and  a  never  ending  cry  of  innocent  blood  going  up  to 
heaven  from  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  the  wisest  and  the  best, 
expiating  under  the  hand  of  the  executioner  those  virtues  which  tyrants 
hate  and  fear. 

Not  only  are  the  general  nature  and  purpose  of  government  such  as 
have  been  described,  but  it  is  argued  that  they  are  expressly  recognized 
in  our  constitutions,  all  of  which  create  governments  intended  to  operate 
only  within  liniited  spheres,  for  specified  objects,  and  with  specified  and 
rigorously  restricted  powers.  The  tendency  of  power  to  enlarge  itself 
indefinitely  was  well  understood  by  their  founders  and  in  many  respects 
wisely  guarded  against,  —  though  not  so  fully  as  to  supersede  the  neces- 
sity of  additional  safeguards  and  faithful  vigilance.  By  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  the  people  intrust  to  the  federal  authority  certain 
granted  powers,  expressly  reserving  all  others,  because  they  would  not 
relinquish  unnecessarily  the  minutest  portion  of  their  freedom.  In  our 
own  ancient  Commonwealth  "  we  are  secured  in  the  amplest  enjoyment 
of  the  blessings  of  government,  with  the  smallest  admixture  of  its  inse- 
parable evils.  The  government  of  the  State  is  a  pure  democracy,"  as 
his  Excellency  has  justly  remarked.  "  Having  rejected  and  cast  down 
the  pillars  of  arbitrary  government,  we  have  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the 
social  edifice  on  the  intelligence  of  the  people."  Every  citizen  is  "  left 
ivith  the  least  practicable  interference  from  the  lawT     These  philosophi- 

38* 


450  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

cal  views  which  his  Excellency  entertains  of  the  spirit  of  our  institu- 
tions are  abundantly  sustained  by  the  language  of  that  fundamental  law 
on  which  they  rest.  The  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  begins  with 
promulgating  in  its  first  sentence  the  general  theory  of  government 
which  has  been  laid  down.  "  The  end  of  the  institution,  maintenance, 
and  administration  of  government,"  says  that  celebrated  instrument,  "  is 
to  secure  the  existence  of  the  body  politic ;  to  protect  it,  and  to  furnish 
the  individuals  who  compose  it,  with  the  power  of  enjoying,  in  safety 
and  tranquillity,  their  natural  riglits,  and  the  hiessings  of  life.^'  It  is  no 
part  of  its  end,  then,  to  surrender,  or  to  take  away  any  natural  right  of 
an  individual,  much  less  the  last  and  dearest,  or  to  debar  him  not  only 
from  the  blessings  of  existence,  but  from  life  itself.  And  why  "  protect 
the  body  politic  ?  "  Simply  as  means  to  the  great  end  ;  to  protect  the 
natural  rights  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  for  without  this  the 
body  politic  would  be  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing.  To  derive  one 
lesson  more  from  the  same  storehouse  of  political  wisdom  and  truth,  — 
the  reason  there  assigned  why  laws  should  be  equitably  made,  impartial- 
ly interpreted  and  faithfully  executed,  is,  "  that  every  man  may,  at  all 
times,  find  his  security  in  them."  Not  that  any  man  may,  at  any  time, 
be  liable  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  supposed  benefit  of  other  men,  nor  that  a 
majority  should  exercise  vengeance  upon  any  man  because  he  has  been  a 
sinner.  The  first  article  of  the  declaration  of  rights  reckons  the  right 
of  enjoying  and  defending  their  lives  and  liberties,  and  that  of  seeking 
and  obtaining  their  own  safety  and  happiness,  among  those  natural, 
essential,  and  unalienable  rights  which  are  common  to  all  mankind.  It 
is  impossible  then  that  it  should  have  constituted  any  part  of  our  com- 
pact to  alienate  the  unalienable  right  of  enjoying  and  defending  life. 
This  right  may  be  abridged,  by  the  iron  rule  of  stern  necessity,  when  it 
comes  in  direct  conflict  with  the  same  right  in  another,  but,  according  to 
our  Constitution,  it  can  never  be  alienated.  Let  it  not  be  said  our  Con- 
stitution does  not  forbid  capital  punishment ;  for  neither  does  it,  by  that 
name,  forbid  slavery,  or  the  whipping-post,  or  the  pillory,  or  mutilation, 
or  torture,  yet  all  these  are  confessedly  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  Con- 
stitution. The  grand,  the  comprehensive  principle  is  there.  The  sages 
who  proclaimed  it,  before  the  world  was  ripe  to  realize  it  in  all  its  bear- 
ings, left  it,  unavoidably  left  it,  to  the  wisdom  and  humanity  of  their 
posterity  to  receive  its  full  application  in  all  its  important  consequences. 
The  sublime  truth,  that  all  men  are  by  their  birthright  free  and  equal, 
had  been  asserted  for  some  years  by  Massachusetts,  before  the  non-ex- 
istence of  slavery  within  the  Commonwealth  was  adjudged  to  follow  as 
a  necessary  corollary  from  that  dogma.  The  whipping-post  and  the 
pillory  survived,  for  a  period,  the  constitutional  prohibition  of  cruel  and 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  451 

unusual  punishments.  They  have  disappeared,  and  the  gallows,  which 
is  more  unusual  than  either  of  those  barbarities  had  been,  and  infinitely 
more  cruel  and  revolting,  must  soon  follow  in  their  train.  After  the  re- 
formation shall  have  been  accomplished,  mankind  will  look  back  with 
astonishment  at  its  tardy  progress.  They  will  be  unable  to  comprehend 
how  or  why  it  was  delayed  so  long. 

It  is  in  these  particulars,  features  indeed  more  striking  than  any  other, 
that  our  constitutions  are  peculiarly  American  and  purely  democratic. 
The  great  dividing  line  between  the  friends  of  arbitrary  power  and  the 
friends  of  constitutional  freedom,  generally  has  been,  and  for  the  most 
part  will  be,  between  those  who  wish  by  wholesome  limitations  originally 
imposed,  and  by  a  strict  construction  of  them,  to  confine  governments  to 
the  few  objects  which  have  been  specified,  and  to  leave  the  people  other- 
wise individually  free  to  govern  themselves,  and  those  who  by  a  lavish 
grant  of  power  originally,  and  a  broad  latitude  of  interpretation,  and  a 
free  use  of  implication,  would  enable  the  government  to  control  and 
regulate  every  action,  would  make  it  an  engine  for  the  aggrandizement 
of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  like  most  of  the  governments  of 
the  old  world.  Our  constitutions  intend  governments,  for  freemen,  em- 
powered only  to  extend  over  individual  rights  the  broad  a^gis  of  the 
public  protection,  when  individual  strength  is  insuflScient  to  be  relied 
upon.  Their  doctrine  is  to  interfere  only  when  interference  is  necessary, 
and  only  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  :  whence  it  follows  that  punishment  is 
to  be  justified  by  necessity,  that  it  is  to  be  cautionary  not  retributive,  and 
that  its  only  rightful  measure  is  the  necessity  by  which  it  is  called  for. 
Government  should  be  our  presiding  genius,  ever  near  us  and  around  us 
to  avert  all  evil  from  us  ;  mildly,  but  firmly,  arresting  the  hand  that 
w^ould  do  us  harm,  but  in  all  else,  so  far  as  may  be,  unseen  and  unfelt, 
leaving  us  with  our  unrestricted  energies  to  work  out,  in  our  own  way, 
our  own  highest  happiness. 

The  justice  of  these  views  is  in  some  degree  corroborated  by  observing 
that  such  is  the  constitution  of  the  divine  government.  Having  the 
power  to  dictate  and  control  without  an  eflbrt  the  totality  of  human  life 
down  to  the  minutest  thought  as  well  as  motion,  looking  with  an  all-see- 
ing scrutiny  through  both  the  motives  and  the  consequences  of  every  act, 
judging  with  an  all-wise  discretion,  and  knowing  with  a  perfect  knowl- 
edge what  is  right  and  best  for  us  under  all  possible  circumstances,  it 
still  leaves  free  the  human  mind  to  choose,  the  human  w^ill  to  act,  for 
good  or  evil,  under  its  ultimate  responsibility,  having  first  proclaimed  a 
commensurate  retribution,  and  a  retribution  only  commensurate,  for  each 
infraction  of  the  moral  law. 

And  what  is  the  moral  law  ?     A  few  grand  and  governing  j)rinciples 


452  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

of  right  and  wrong,  —  simple,  and  so  easily  recognized  that  it  is  hard  to 
tell  whether  they  be  not  instructive  ;  broad  and  universal  in  their  appli- 
cation. The  moral  law  enacts  that  you  should  do  to  others  as  you  would 
that  others  should  do  to  you.  It  forbids  only  that  which  would  injure 
another.  If  you  disobey  you  will  suffer  the  consequences  of  your  mis- 
conduct, which,  in  the  wise  ordination  of  Providence,  naturally  flow  from 
it :  but  the  punishment  is  never  disproportionally  greater  than  the 
offence ;  on  the  contrary,  so  far  as  it  falls  under  human  observation,  it  is 
always  less  than  the  desert  of  the  offender,  and  its  object  appears  to  be 
not  to  crush  but  to  reform  him.  How  opposite  is  the  spirit  of  this  law 
to  those  interminable  interferences  with  private  right,  those  odious 
shackles  upon  individual  freedom,  without  an  object  and  without  a  pre- 
text, and  those  revengeful  and  unnecessary  punishments,  the  offspring 
of  unhallowed  passions,  which  make  up  so  voluminous  a  portion  of  the 
statutes  of  most  civilized  nations.  Yet  human  governments,  though 
weak  and  fallible,  acting  upon  imperfect  knowledge,  and  often  from 
partial  or  unworthy  views,  while  they  admit  that  vengeance  belongs  to 
God  alone,  would  regulate  the  distribution  of  wealth,  dispense  favors  to 
some,  impose  restrictions  on  others,  prescribe  the  conditions  and  the 
manner  of  every  action  ;  and  when  by  the  artificial  state  of  society  which 
they  have  produced,  and  the  unnatural  constraint  to  which  they  have 
endeavored  to  subdue  its  members,  they  have  multiplied  crimes  which 
but  for  them  would  not  have  existed,  and  confounded  all  the  distinctions 
of  a  rational  and  just  morality,  they  then  punish  what  is  not  morally 
wrong  because  they  have  forbidden  it,  and  accumulate  punishment  upon 
punishment,  with  unavailing  and  gratuitous  cruelty,  whenever  moral 
guilt  affords  a  plea  for  retributive  infliction  of  misery  upon  those  already 
steeped  in  wretchedness. 

Beccaria  sums  up  the  result  of  his  inquiries  upon  the  subject  of  crimes 
and  punishments  in  this  theorem  :  "  That  a  punishment  may  not  be  an 
act  of  violence  against  a  private  member  of  society,  it  should  be  public, 
immediate,  and  necessary  ;  the  least  possible  in  the  case  given  ;  propor- 
tioned to  the  crime,  and  determined  by  the  laws."  Under  such  a  rule 
society  might  keep  within  the  boundary  of  its  undisputed  rights,  and 
refrain  altogether  from  inflicting  the  punishment  of  death. 

These  remarks  upon  the  abstract  question  of  right  in  this  case,  are 
submitted  by  your  committee  as  the  fairest  statement  they  have  been 
able  to  draw  up  of  the  argument  against  the  right  denied.  They  repeat, 
that  they  submit  it  without  any  expression  of  opinion  how  far  the  rea- 
soning may  be  sound  or  otherwise.  They  thought  it  due  to  the  number 
and  excellent  character  of  the  citizens  who  profess  these  sentiments,  to 
communicate  them  to  the  legislature,  and  through  them  to  the  public. 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  453 

If  correct,  they  will  have  their  proper  influence  ;  if  erroneous,  they  will 
have  an  ordeal  to  pass  through  which  v/ill  expose  and  refute  them. 
Your  committee  have  gone  the  more  at  large  into  the  argument,  because 
they  know  of  no  work  in  common  circulation,  from  which  one  may  collect 
even  a  tolerable  idea  of  it,  while  at  the  same  time,  and  from  very  im- 
perfect statements,  or  rather  hints,  it  is  everywhere  the  topic  of  eager 
discussion.  Having  drawn  an  outline,  without  pretending  to  exhaust 
the  subject,  they  leave  it  with  the  house,  and  pass  to  the  consideration 
of  the  expediency  of  capital  punishments,  supposing  society  to  possess 
the  abstract  right. 

Upon  this  branch  of  the  inquiry,  your  committee  have  no  hesitation 
in  expressing  the  most  decided  conviction,  that  whatever  may  have  been 
the  case  in  a  state  of  imperfect  civilization,  or  whatever  may  be  the  duty 
of  another  government  v/ith  regard  to  certain  other  crimes  not  falling 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  this  Commonwealth,  questions  not  necessary  to 
be  discussed  here,  it  is  inexpedient,  in  this  State,  at  this  time,  to  provide 
by  law  for  the  punishment  of  death.  In  their  opinion,  this  punishment 
is  in  no  case  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  property,  or  of  honor,  or  of 
life,  or  of  good  government.  And  if  it  be  not  necessary,  certain  they 
are,  that  no  member  of  this  house  would  wish  that  it  should  be  wantonly 
or  gratuitously  inflicted. 

There  are  three  crimes  against  property  punishable  with  death  by  the 
laws  of  this  State,  —  arson,  burglary,  and  highway  robbery.  The  reason 
for  so  distinguishing  these  three  crimes  is  usually  alleged  to  be,  that  they, 
in  a  peculiar  manner,  endanger  life.  This  is  the  most  preposterous 
reason  that  can  be  given  for  affixing  to  them  a  punishment  which  ren- 
ders them  much  more  dangerous  to  life  than  they  would  be  under  any 
other  modification  of  the  law.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  law  had 
been  first  framed  in  solemn  mockery,  professing  to  guard  life  with  jealous 
tenderness,  yet  in  fiict  intending  not  to  save  life,  but  to  kill.  In  case 
there  be  any  witness  of  either  of  these  crimes,  the  law  prompts  the  crim- 
inal not  to  stop  short  at  an  aggression  upon  property,  but  tempts  him  to 
go  on  to  the  commission  of  murder ;  and  it  tempts  him  to  do  this  as  he 
values  his  own  life.  It  says  to  him  in  plain  and  intelligible  language, 
you  are  now  face  to  face  Vv'ith  your  mortal  enemy.  One  of  you  must 
die.  It  is  for  you  to  choose  whether  the  doom  shall  fall  upon  your  own 
head,  or  upon  that  of  your  adversary.  Kill  him,  or  he  will  kill  you.  If 
you,  already  plunged  so  deep  in  crime,  through  tenderness  of  conscience, 
choose  to  make  yourself  a  martyr  by  the  most  cruel  and  ignominious 
death,  and  without  the  sympathy  and  admiration  of  his  fellows,  which 
supports  the  martyr,  —  if  you  choose  to  throw  away  your  own  life,  for 
the  sake  of  the  life  of  this  man  who  stands  before  you,  obey  the  call  of 


454  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

duty,  and  in  return,  I,  the  law,  will  lay  my  hand  upon  you,  and  drag  you 
to  a  certain  execution ;  but  if  you  prefer  security  both  of  your  person 
and  character,  to  the  impending  destruction  and  disgrace,  go  on  boldly, 
imbrue  your  hand  in  the  blood  of  your  fellow,  and  you  will  escape  my 
grasp  :  your  crime  will  be  shrouded  in  darkness  impenetrable  to  human 
eyes  :  this  is  the  voice  of  the  law.  Should  the  law  hold  this  language  to 
any  man  ?  More  especially,  should  the  law  hold  this  language  to  a  man 
who  has  already  shown  his  extreme  frailty  by  yielding  to  a  previous 
temptation,  not  so  strong  as  the  love  of  life,  with  which  the  law  tempts 
him  ?  We  are  all,  as  weak  and  erring  creatures,  taught  to  pray  that  we 
may  not  be  led  into  temptation;  is  it  right,  is  it  expedient,  by  our  sol- 
emn enactments,  to  lead  into  the  most  terrible  temptation  that  can  beset 
him,  to  deliver  over  to  the  power  of  evil  the  man  who  has  already 
entered  the  path  of  vice,  but  who  would  never  fall  into  the  deepest  abyss 
of  guilt,  if  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  did  not  thrust  him  over  the  preci- 
pice ?  There  is  matter  for  profitable  reflection  in  these  queries,  and 
your  committee  recommend  them  to  the  most  serious  attention  of  every 
member  of  this  house. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  or  history  of  either  of  these  crimes  to 
make  it  expedient  that  it  should  be  punished  with  death. 

The  crime  of  arson  is  the  malicious  and  wilful  burning  of  a  dwelling- 
house.  The  punishment  of  arson  was  death  by  the  ancient  Saxon  laws, 
and  in  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  this  sentence  was  so  executed  as  to  be  a 
kind  of  retaliation,  for  incendiaries  were  burnt  to  death.  In  the  reign 
of  Henry  VI.,  it  was  made,  under  some  circumstances,  to  amount  to  high 
treason.  It  was  afterwards  made  felony,  with  the  benefit  of  clergy.  In 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  it  was  made  capital  again,  and  so  continues 
till  this  time  in  England.  It  was  made  capital  in  Massachusetts  by  the 
colony  law  of  1652,  and  continued  so  by  recnactments,  in  1705,  1785, 
and  1805,  though  the  description  of  the  offence  was  from  time  to  time 
somewhat  varied.  In  1G52,  it  was  a  capital  offence  for  any  one  over 
sixteen  years  of  age,  feloniously  to  set  on  fire  any  dwelling-house,  store- 
house, or  meeting-house.  In  1705,  it  was  enacted  "that  if  any  per- 
son of  the  age  of  sixteen  years  and  upwards,  shall  willingly  and  ma- 
liciously, by  day  or  night,  burn  the  dwelling-house  of  another,  or  other 
house  parcel  thereof;  or  any  house  built  for  pubhc  use;  any  barn  having 
corn,  grain,  or  hay  therein  ;  any  mill,  malthouse,  storehouse,  shop,  or 
ship  ;  the  person  so  offending,  as  aforesaid,  shall  be  deemed  and  adjudged 
to  be  a  felon ;  and  shall  suffer  the  pains  of  death  accordingly."  The 
severity  of  this  law  was  somewhat  mitigated  in  1785,  by  confining  the 
capital  offence  to  the  burning  of  the  dwelling-house  of  another,  and  that 
between  the  setting  and  rising  of  the  sun.    The  law  of  1805  confines  the 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  455 

capital  offence  to  the  niglit  time,  which  is  understood  to  be  between  the 
shutting  in  of  the  twihght  at  night,  and  its  earliest  appearance  in  the 
morning.  By  the  law  of  1830,  a  further  mitigation  is  found,  in  the  pro- 
vision, that  if  it  shall  be  proved  that  there  was  no  person  lawfully  in  the 
dwelling-house  so  burnt,  the  punishment,  instead  of  death,  shall  be  im- 
prisonment in  the  state  prison  for  life.  A  similar  provision  is  contained 
in  the  Revised  Statutes.  Thus  have  we  gone  on  ever  since  1705,  narrow- 
ing dov/n  the  crime  of  arson  to  smaller  and  smaller  limits.  The  reasons 
which  justified  the  steps  that  have  been  taken,  call  loudly  for  yet  another. 
This  crime  must  cease  to  be  capital  in  any  case.  Unless  the  signs  of  the 
times  mislead  us,  the  people  of  Massachusetts  are  already  ripe  for  the 
change. 

To  justify  the  severity  of  the  punishment  of  this  offence,  it  is  described, 
both  here  and  in  England,  as  being  one  of  the  most  malignant  dye,  not 
only  as  against  the  right  of  habitation,  which  is  acquired  by  the  law  of 
nature,  it  is  said,  as  well  as  by  the  laws  of  society,  but  because  of  the 
terror  and  confusion  which  necessarily  attend  it.  The  gradual  lessening 
of  the  extent  of  this  crime,  and  the  mitigation  of  the  penalty,  in  most 
cases  which  formerly  fell  within  the  definition,  indicate  doubts  in  the  minds 
of  the  community  of  the  correctness  of  that  reasoning,  which  places  it 
upon  a  level  with  wilful  murder.  Your  committee  would  propose  a  broad 
distinction,  as  will  be  seen,  between  crimes  of  so  different  a  nature  as 
these,  which  are  now  confounded  under  the  same  punishment.  As  the 
law  now  stands,  not  only  he  who  wilfully  and  maliciously  sets  fire  to  the 
dwelling-house  of  another,  so  that  it  should  be  burnt  in  the  night  time, 
there  being  any  person  lawfully  therein,  but  also  he  who  wilfully  and 
maliciously  sets  fire  to  the  most  insignificant  building,  intending  only  to 
burn  such  building,  if  contrary  to  his  expectation  and  intention,  a 
dwelling-house  is  in  consequence  burnt,  as  before  expressed,  is  equally 
liable  to  the  same  punishment  with  the  wilful  murderer.  So  also  are  all 
those  who  counsel,  hire,  or  procure  the  offence  to  be  done,  or  are  other- 
wise accessary  thereto  before  the  fact. 

Is  this  law  in  accordance  with  public  opinion,  and  would  the  public 
approve  its  execution  to  the  letter,  as  cases  may  arise  ?  His  Excellency 
remarks,  that  "  the  law  must  be  respected  as  well  as  obeyed,  or  it  will 
not  long  be  obeyed.  *  *  *  A  state  of  things  which  deprives  the  execu- 
tive of  the  support  of  public  sentiment,  in  the  conscientious  discharge  of 
his  most  painful  duty,  is  much  to  be  deplored."  How  far  is  this  law 
respected,  obeyed,  and,  with  the  support  of  public  sentiment,  enforced  by 
the  executive  ?  There  has,  probably,  hardly  been  a  month  for  many 
years,  when  the  crime  of  arson  has  not  been  committed  in  this  Common- 
wealth.    There  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  often  committed  many 


456  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

times  in  a  night,  for  several  nights  in  the  same  week  and  for  weeks  to- 
gether, within  the  limits  of  one  city  or  town.  There  has  been  but  one 
execution  for  the  crime  of  arson  in  Massachusetts  within  a  period  of 
more  than  thirty  years.  Stephen  M.  Clarke,  a  lad  but  little  over  seven- 
teen years  of  age,  was,  for  setting  fire  to  a  building  in  Newburyport,  put 
to  death  in  Salem  on  the  10th  of  May,  1821.  Such  was  his  horror  of 
death,  that  it  was  found  necessary,  amidst  his  cries  and  lamentations, 
actually  to  force  him  from  his  cell,  and  drag  him  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion. It  is  much  to  be  doubted  whether  any  person  of  ordinary  sensibility 
and  reflection  could  have  viewed,  amidst  the  parade  of  soldiers  and  the 
sound  of  martial  music,  the  officers  of  justice,  overcoming  with  difficulty 
their  natural  repugnance  to  such  a  task,  and  dragging  with  violence  a 
fellow  being,  a  youth,  a  mere  miserable  and  deluded  boy,  to  the  gallows, 
there  to  put  him  to  death  in  obedience  to  the  laws,  without  in  his  heart 
execrating  those  laws  which  required  the  exhibition  of  such  a  horrid 
spectacle.  As  much  as  the  crime  of  the  sufferer  is  abhorred,  the  law 
that  condemns  him  to  death  is  at  least  equally  detested  by  the  majority 
of  the  spectators.  Are  those  who  look  on  with  abhorrence  to  be  charged 
with  advocating  and  palliating  crime  ?  It  is  among  them  that  the  fewest 
crimes  occur.  That  numerous  sect  of  Christians,  the  Friends,  sometimes 
called  quakers,  reprobate  Avith  one  voice  this  kind  of  punishment ;  but 
do  they  advocate  or  tolerate  crime  ?  On  the  contrary,  high  crimes,  like 
that  under  discussion,  are  almost  unknown  among  them.  Their  voice 
has,  from  the  time  their  sect  originated,  been  uniformly  and  consistently 
lifted  up  against  all  capital  punishments  ;  not  because  they  are  unwilling 
that  the  guilty  should  be  adequately  punished,  but  because  they  believe 
it  to  be  an  act  of  wickedness  and  a  violation  of  the  principles  of  the 
religion  which  they  profess,  to  take  away  the  life  of  one  of  their  fellow- 
creatures.  Are  not  the  members  of  this  sect  as  free  from  vice  and  crime, 
and  as  moral,  pious,  and  exemplary,  as  any  other  sect  of  Christians  of 
equal  numbers  ?  It  cannot  be  denied ;  and  tliis  fact  shows  beyond 
question  or  cavil,  that  the  scruples  they  entertain  upon  this  subject  are 
not  the  offspring  of  a  lax  morality,  as  is  sometimes  uncourteously  insinu- 
ated ;  nor  do  they  tend  to  produce  a  lax  morality,  as  is  more  frequently 
and  boldly  asserted.  The  observation  of  the  world  has  shown,  and  our 
own  so  far  as  it  goes  has  invariably  confirmed  it,  that  the  effect  of  a 
capital  punishment  has  no  tendency  to  diminish  the  crime  punished. 
The  execution  for  arson,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  was  almost  imme- 
diately followed  by  a  considerable  number  of  attempts  to  commit  the 
same  crime,  in  the  same  town  where  Clarke  had  committed  it.  The 
expectation  of  such  a  punishment,  about  to  be  inflicted  if  the  law  takes 
its  course,  seems  to  have  had  no  influence  for  several  weeks  past  in  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  457 

city  of  Boston,  unless  it  has  made  incendiaries  more  active,  for  since  the 
conviction  of  two  criminals  now  under  sentence,  the  number  of  attempts 
to  kindle  fires  in  the  night  time  has  been  uncommonly  large,  includino- 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  prison  in  which  the  convicts  are  con- 
fined. A  conviction  and  sentence  of  death  in  the  case  of  John  '^Vade, 
for  the  crime  of  arson,  has  lately  occurred  at  Dedham,  and  it  is  a  subject 
of  general  congratulation  that  the  community  were  saved  from  the  evils 
attendant  upon  a  public  execution,  by  the  commutation  of  his  punishment, 
by  his  honor,  lately  lieutenant-governor,  and  the  council,  to  imprisonment 
for  life. 

The  severity  of  this  law  totally  defeats  its  object.  Often  is  there 
strong  evidence  in  the  neighborhood  where  a  conflagration  has  occurred, 
showing  that  it  was  designedly  kindled,  and  tending  to  fix  the  charge 
upon  the  incendiary.  Yet  no  complaint  is  made,  no  investigation  takes 
place,  because  the  hanging,  if  it  should  end  in  that,  would  be  a  greater 
evil  than  the  fire.  AYhen  a  trial  is  had,  which  but  seldom  occurs,  all 
possible  latitude  is  given  to  the  circumstances  which  will  take  the  case 
out  of  the  present  narrow  limits  of  arson.  From  these  and  some  other 
causes,  the  law  is  practically  obsolete,  for  of  the  many  thousand  instances 
of  arson  committed  in  the  last  thirty  years  within  this  State,  only  one 
has  been  punished  according  to  law.  Is  it  not  a  most  heinous  injustice, 
thus  to  measure  out  to  one  victim  that  retribution  which  is  spared  to  all 
others  in  like  kind  offending  ?  The  law  might  as  well  be  ex  post  facto 
as  to  be  unknown  ;  and  it  miglit  as  well  be  unknown  to  him  Avho  suffers 
under  it,  as  to  be  known  to  him  as  having  been  i.  dead  letter.  In  that 
case  may  he  not  justly  ask,  Why  should  that  vengeance  which  has  slum- 
bered for  so  many  years,  over  so  many  multiplied  transgressions,  awake 
at  last  to  ^vreak  itself  on  me  alone  ?  Instead  of  being  warned  before- 
hand that  death  would  be  my  punishment,  was  I  not  assured  by  the 
almost  uniform  result  of  similar  cases,  that  I  should  not  be  put  to  death  ? 
To  this  course  there  has  been  but  one  exception  for  a  whole  generation. 
That  the  lav*'s  should  be  just,  they  should  not  only  be  equal  in  their  pro- 
visions, but  equally  executed,  impartially  executed.  But  could  every 
author  of  an  incendiary  attempt  be  arrested  and  convicted,  public  senti- 
ment would  not  justify  their  lawful  punishment.  The  law  is  not  enfoi'ced 
because  it  is  not  in  accordance  v/itli  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  temper  of 
the  community,  the  judgment  of  our  best  and  wisest  men.  It  ought  not 
to  be  enforced.     Therefore  it  ought  to  be  repealed. 

The  remarks  upon  the  crime  of  arson  will,  in  a  great  measure,  apply 
to  that  of  burglary.  The  common  law  definition  of  a  burglar  is,  one  that 
breaks  and  enters,  by  night,  into  a  dwelling-house  with  intent  to  commit 
a  felony.    Burglary  was  first  made  capital  in  England,  as  to  the  principal 

39 


458  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

only,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  and  as  to  abettors  and  accessories  be- 
fore the  fact,  in  the  fourth  year  of  William  and  Mary.  It  was  not  a 
capital  offence  by  the  colony  law  of  1642,  until  after  two  convictions,  but 
if  the  culprit  should  commit  the  like  offence  the  third  time,  he  was  then 
to  be  put  to  death  as  incorrigible.  This  law  was  reenacted  in  1692, 
under  the  Province  charter.  In  1715  it  was  made  capital  upon  the  first 
conviction,  and  continued  so,  on  a  revision  of  the  law,  in  1770,  and  in 
1785.  In  1806,  the  law  was  altered  so  as  to  make  burglary  a  capital 
crime  only  in  case  the  offender  shall  be,  at  the  time  of  his  breaking  and 
entering,  armed  with  a  dangerous  weapon,  or  shall  commit  an  actual 
assault  upon  any  person  lawfully  wdthin  the  house.  This  provision  is 
also  recognized  in  the  Revised  Statutes.  Under  this  modification  of  the 
law,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  last  thirty  years,  there  has  been  no  one  exe- 
cuted for  the  crime  of  burglary.  Yet  not  a  year  has  passed  in  which 
this  crime  has  not  often  been  committed.  Every  man  has  heard  of 
numerous  instances  in  his  own  neighborhood,  and  in  many  of  them 
abundant  proof  might  easily  have  been  collected,  if  public  opinion  had 
demanded  a  sacrifice  to  the  violated  law.  But  the  execution  of  the  law 
in  any  one  of  these  instances  would  have  been  an  outrage  upon  the  better 
feelings  of  the  community,  which  are  much  in  advance  of  our  sanguinary 
legislation.  The  practice  under  this  barbarous  law  is  brought  to  con- 
form with  the  spirit  of  the  age  by  a  sort  of  casuistry  which  ought  by  no 
means  to  be  encouraged,  much  less  rendered  necessary  to  avert  a  public 
calamity.  The  aggravating  circumstances,  making  the  crime  capital, 
will,  if  possible,  be  concealed  by  the  complainant  and  witnesses,  or  will 
be  overlooked  by  the  jury.  Although,  through  the  natural  evasions  so 
easily  resorted  to,  there  may  never  be  any  capital  conviction  under  the 
law,  yet  it  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  remain  upon  the  statute  book 
unrepealed,  when  it  is  well  understood  to  be  the  occasion  of  prosecutors, 
witnesses,  and  jurors,  and  sometimes  it  is  supposed  even  judges,  forbear- 
ing to  notice  circumstances  which  if  fully  considered  would  certainly 
lead  to  a  capital  conviction ;  and  not  unfrequently  causes  the  entire 
acquittal,  as  is  believed  to  have  happened  in  some  recent  cases,  of  those 
who  are  really  guilty,  and  conclusively  proved  so,  if  all  the  proof  known 
to  exist  out  of  the  court  should  be  fairly  heard  upon  the  trial.  Witnesses, 
though  sworn  to  tell  the  whole  truth,  are  strongly  tempted  to  suppress 
material  circumstances,  and  give  the  most  favorable  coloring  that  they 
can  by  any  ingenuity  justify  to  their  consciences,  to  the  testimony  which 
they  give.  Others,  knowing  important  facts,  conceal  them,  that  they' 
may  not  be  called  as  witnesses.  Prosecuting  officers,  embarrassed  be- 
tw^een  their  own  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  dictates  of  the  law, 
omit,  if  possible,  those  particulars  in  the  description  of  the  offence  which 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  459 

make  it  capital.  The  jury,  sworn  to  find  a  verdict  according  to  the  law 
and  to  tlie  evidence,  are  prompted,  by  their  horror  at  the  result  to  which 
the  law  and  the  evidence  would  lead  them,  to  pervert  the  true  meaning 
of  the  law,  and  to  put  the  most  forced  interpretations  upon  the  testimony, 
or  draw  from  it  inferences  improbable  in  the  highest  degree,  and  even 
impossible.  Sometimes  they  are  driven  to  revolt  against  the  law,  shut 
their  ears  against  evidence,  and  perform  the  part  which  humanity  seems 
to  them  to  dictate,  rather  than  what  the  law  imperatively  requires  of 
them.  The  jury,  believing  in  their  hearts  that  the  offence  was  committed 
in  the  night  time,  that  the  offender  was  armed  with  a  dangerous  weapon, 
that  there  was  a  person  lawfully  within  the  house,  may  refuse  to  find 
one  or  the  other  of  these  facts,  and  so  save  the  culprit  from  the  operation 
of  a  law  which  they  cannot  approve.  In  England,  cases  like  the  follow- 
ing often  occur  in  trials  for  crimes  not  capital  among  us,  but  which  serve 
to  illustrate  the  effect  of  the  motives  alluded  to  upon  the  minds  of  jurors. 
A  woman  was  indicted  for  stealing  in  a  dwelling-house  two  guineas,  two 
half  guineas,  and  forty-four  shillings  in  other  money  :  she  confessed  the 
steahng  of  the  money,  and  the  jury  found  her  guilty  ;  but  as  the  stealirxg 
of  such  a  sum  would  be  punishable  with  death,  they  found  the  value  of 
the  money  to  be  thirty-nine  shillings  only,  which  saved  her  from  the 
sentence  of  death.  Another  female  was  indicted  for  stealing  lace,  for 
which  she  had  refused  to  take  eight  guineas,  offering  it  for  sale  for 
twelve.  The  jury  who  convicted  her  of  the  theft,  found  the  lace  to  be 
worth  thirty-nine  shillings.  Two  persons  indicted  for  stealing  the  same 
goods  privately  in  a  shop,  five  shillings  stolen  in  this  manner  making  the 
offence  capital,  one  of  the  prisoners  was  found  guilty  of  thus  stealing  to 
the  value  of  five  shillings,  and  the  other  to  the  value  of  four  shilHngs  and 
ten  pence.  A  volume  might  be  compiled  of  examples  similar  in  princi- 
ple to  these.  Their  demoralizing  tendency  cannot  be  kept  out  of  siglit. 
If  a  conviction  should  be  had  and  sentence  passed  for  the  crime  of 
burglary  in  this  State,  is  it  not  to  be  apprehended  that  the  executive 
must  sign  a  warrant  for  an  execution  which  would  shock  an  enlightened 
public  sentiment,  by  making  a  mere  violation  of  the  right  of  property 
the  price  of  human  life,  or  that  by  an  exercise  of  the  pardoning  power, 
he  must  satisfy  those  disposed  towards  crime,  that  the  law  holds  out  a 
threat  which  there  is  reason  to  know  will  never  be  fulfilled.  Indeed, 
may  not  this  inference  already  be  fairly  drawn  from  the  fact  that  tliere 
never  has  been  an  execution  for  this  offence  under  the  existing  law. 

By  the  laws  of  Massachusetts,  principals  in  the  second  degree  and  ac- 
cessories before  the  fact,  which  descriptions  may  embrace  persons  of 
various  degrees  of  guilt,  are  put  upon  the  same  footing  as  principals  in 
the  first  degree.     A  person  who  has  armed  himself  with  a  sword  or  a 


460  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WIlITmGS 

loaded  pistol,  for  a  justifiable  purpose,  and  wlio  being  thus  armed,  shall 
in  the  night  time  lift  the  window  of  an  inhabited  house,  far  enough  to 
insert  his  hand,  and  steal  therefrom  the  most  insignificant  article  of  pro- 
perty, has  committed  a  crime  by  which  his  life  is  forfeited,  and  so  have 
those  who  have  stood  by  abetting  the  act,  or  who  counselled  it  to  be  done. 
Your  committee  are  not  ignorant  of  the  high  wrought  description  of 
this  crime  usually  given  to  justify  its  horrible  punishment.     It  is  said  to 
be  very  heinous,  partly  on  account  of  the  terror  which  it  occasions,  and 
partly  because  it  is  a  forcible  invasion  and  disturbance  of  the  natural 
right  of  habitation.     Admitting  all  this  in  its  fullest  extent,  wherein  do 
we  find  a  sufficient  reason  for  taking  away  the  life  of  the  oifender  ?   How 
much, dearer  rights,  in  refined  society,  are  invaded,  for  the  invasion  of 
which  the  laws  inflict  no  penalty  whatever,  but  leave  the  injured  party 
to  the  miserable  remedy  of  an  action  for  damages,  to  be  estimated  in  dol- 
lars and  cents.     Are  there  no  terrors  far  surpassing  those  occasioned  by 
the  burglar  which  the  laws  suffer  to  go  unpunished  ?     Shall  the  image 
of  God  be  marred  and  destroyed  by  the  hand  of  man,  because  he  who 
is  doomed  to  destruction  has  put  his  fellow  man  in  fear,  by  disturbing 
his  right  of  habitation,  and  laying  his  hand  upon  perhaps  the  most  worth- 
less of  his  goods  ?     The  committee  make  these  suggestions  not  to  exten- 
uate crime,  but  to  awaken  attention  to  the  true  character  of  our  crim- 
inal laws,  that  under  the  false  notion  of  just  and  necessary  punishment, 
we  may  not  involve  ourselves  in  the  guilt  of  punishments  unjust,  unne- 
cessary, and  disproportioned  to  the  offence.     Let  the  pubhc  attention  be 
directed  to  this  subject,  and  there  will  be  an  earnest  inquiry,  what  is  just 
and  right ;  this  alone  will  insure  that  change  in  our  laws  which  is  called 
for  by  the  existing  state  of  civilization  among '  us.     Knowledge,  reason, 
and  reflection  have  made  all  the  difference  which  exists  between  the 
savage  of  the  forest  and  the  refined  and  enlightened  inhabitant  of  Mas- 
sachusetts.    They  seem  hardly  to  have  been  applied  at  all  to  the  due 
apportionment  of  punishments,  in  which  particular  reform  creeps  tardily 
behind   the    general  progress  of  society.     The  power  of  improvement 
cannot  yet  be  exhausted ;  and  it  well  becomes  a  community  that  has  se- 
cured to  itself  liberty  of  thought  and  of  action,  to  inquire  into  the  state 
of  its  advancement,  and  to  adapt  its  legislation  to  this  State  by  such 
alterations  and  amendments  of  the  laws  as  the  spirit  of  the  age  requires. 
It  has  been  said,  but  it  is  the  language  of  unreflecting  levity,  that  the 
criminal  convicted  of  a  capital  offence,  under  our  laws,  is  generally  de- 
praved and  worthless,  and  that,  therefore,  the  sacrifice  of  a  few  such 
lives  is  of  very  little  consequence  to  society,  and  it  is  not  an  object  fit  to 
engage  the  attention  of  the  government  of  a  great  State,  even  if  these 
laws  might  be  repealed  without  injury.     It  is  impossible  that  any  mem- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  4(5X 

ber  of  this  legislature  can  entertain  so  inhuman  a  sentiment.  Felons, 
however  fallen,  still  are  men,  and  have  the  better  title  to  commiseration 
the  more  deeply  they  are  sunk  in  guilt.  If  these  wretches  were  princes, 
says  Goldsmith,  there  would  be  thousands  ready  to  offer  their  ministry ; 
but  the  heart  that  is  buried  in  a  dungeon  is  as  precious  as  that  seated  on 
a  throne.  Suppose  that  one  only  may  be  caught  up  from  the  gulf  of 
vice,  misery,  and  perdition,  and  restored  to  repentance,  virtue,  and  use- 
fulness, this  would  be  gain  enough  to  reward  all  the  exertions  that  may 
be  made  to  effect  the  reform,  for  there  is  upon  earth  no  gem  so  precious 
as  the  human  soul. 

In  this  view  of  it,  no  one  will  allege,  that  too  much  importance  is  at- 
tached by  your  committee  to  the  subject  referred  to  them.  Every  one 
will  agree  with  Beccaria,  that  the  question,  whether  the  punishment  of 
death  is  really  necessary  for  the  safety  or  good  order  of  society,  is  a 
problem  which  should  be  solved  with  that  geometrical  precision,  which 
the  mist  of  sophistry,  the  seduction  of  eloquence,  and  the  timidity  of 
doubt  are  unable  to  resist.  Every  one  can  understand  the  feelings  of 
that  extraordinary  man,  when,  submitting  to  his  contemporaries  and  to 
posterity  views  so  much  in  advance  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  he 
consoles  himself  for  the  coolness  with  which  they  are  at  first  received 
with  the  reflection,  "if  by  supporting  the  rights  of  mankind,  and  of  in- 
vincible truth,  I  shall  contribute  to  save  from  the  agonies  of  death  one 
unfortunate  victim  of  tyranny,  or  of  ignorance  equally  fatal ;  his  bless- 
ing, and  his  tears  of  transport,  will  be  a  sufficient  consolation  to  me  for 
the  contempt  of  all  mankind." 

In  this  train  of  general  remark,  and  before  passing  to  the  particular 
consideration  of  the  remaining  capital  crime  against  property,  your  com- 
mittee may  be  pardoned  if  they  introduce  the  substance  of  the  observa- 
tions of  Dr.  Goldsmith  against  punishing  capitally  aggressions  upon  pro- 
perty. They  are  full  of  wisdom  learned  in  the  school  of  nature,  and 
expressed  with  the  beautiful  ease  which  characterizes  all  his  writings. 
It  were  highly  to  be  wished,  says  the  doctor,  that  legislative  power  would 
direct  the  law  rather  to  reformation  than  severity ;  that  it  would  seem 
convinced  that  the  work  of  eradicating  crimes  is  not  by  making  punish- 
ments familiar.  Then,  instead  of  our  present  prisons,  which  find  or 
make  men  guilty,  which  inclose  wretches  for  the  commission  of  one 
crime,  and  return  them,  if  returned  alive,  fitted  for  the  perpetration  of 
thousands,  —  we  should  see,  as  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  (had  he  lived  at 
the  present  day,  he  would  have  referred  rather  to  America,)  places  of 
penitence  and  solitude,  where  the  accused  might  be  attended  by  such  as 
could  give  them  repentance  if  guilty,  or  new  motives  to  virtue  if  inno- 
cent.    And  this,  but  not  the  increasing  of  punishments,  is  the  way  to 

39* 


462  'MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

mend  a  State ;  nor  can  I  avoid  even  questioning  the  validity  of  that 
right  which  social  combinations  have  assumed  of  punishing  capitally  of- 
fences of  a  slight  nature.  Natural  law  gives  me  no  right  to  take  away 
the  life  of  him  who  steals  my  property ;  as  by  that  law  the  horse  he 
steals  is  as  much  his  property  as  mine.  If  then  I  have  any  right,  it 
must  be  from  a  compact  made  between  us,  that  he  who  deprives  the 
other  of  his  horse  shall  die.  But  this  is  a  false  compact ;  because  no 
man  has  a  right  to  barter  his  life  any  more  than  to  take  it  away,  as  it  is 
not  his  own.  And  beside,  the  cojnpact  is  inadequate,  and  would  be  set 
aside  even  in  a  court  of  modern  equity,  as  here  is  a  great  penalty  for  a 
very  trifling  convenience,  since  it  is  far  better  that  two  men  should  live, 
than  that  one  man  should  ride.  But  a  compact  that  is  false  between 
two  men,  is  equally  so  between  a  hundred  and  a  hundred  thousand  ;  for 
as  ten  millions  of  circles  can  never  make  a  square,  so  the  united  voice 
of  myriads  cannot  lend  the  smallest  foundation  to  falsehood.  It  is  thus 
that  reason  speaks,  and  untutored  nature  says  the  same  thing.  Savages 
that  are  directed  by  natural  law  alone,  are  very  tender  of  the  lives  of 
each  other ;  they  seldom  shed  blood  but  to  retaliate  former  cruelty. 

Our  Saxon  ancestors,  he  continues,  fierce  as  they  were  in  war,  had 
but  few  executions  in  times  of  peace  ;  and  in  all  commencing  govern- 
ments, that  have  the  print  of  nature  still  strong  upon  them,  scarce  any 
crime  is  capital.  It  is  among  the  citizens  of  a  refined  community  that 
penal  laws,  which  are  in  the  hands  of  the  rich,  are  laid  upon  the  poor. 
Government,  while  it  grows  older,  seems  to  acquire  the  moroseness  of 
age ;  and  as  if  our  property  were  become  dearer  in  proportion  as  it  in- 
creased, as  if  the  more  enormous  our  wealth,  the  more  extensive  our 
fears,  all  our  possessions  are  paled  up  with  neiw  edicts  every  day,  and 
hung  round  with  gibbets  to  scare  every  invader. 

I  cannot  tell  whether  it  is  from  the  number  of  our  penal  laws,  or  the 
licentiousness  of  our  people,  that  this  country  should  show  more  convicts 
in  a  year,  than  half  the  dominions  of  Europe  united.  Perhaps  it  is 
owing  to  both  ;  for  they  mutually  produce  each  other.  When  by  indis- 
criminate penal  laws  a  nation  beholds  the  same  punishment  afHxed  to 
dissimilar  degrees  of  guilt,  from  perceiving  no  distinction  in  the  penalty, 
the  people  are  led  to  lose  all  sense  of  distinction  in  the  crime,  and  this 
distinction  is  the  bulwark  of  all  morality  :  thus  the  multitude  of  laws  pro- 
duce new  vices,  and  new  vices  call  for  fresh  restraints.  Instead  of  con- 
triving new  laws  to  punish  vice,  instead  of  drawing  hard  the  cords  of 
society  till  a  convulsion  comes  to  burst  them,  instead  of  cutting  away 
wretches  as  useless,  before  we  have  tried  their  utility,  instead  of  convert- 
ing correction  into  vengeance,  it  were  to  be  wished  that  we  tried  the  re- 
strictive arts  of  government,  and  made  the  law  the  protector,  not  the 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  463 

tyrant  of  tlie  people.  "Wc  should  then  find  that  creatures  whose  souls 
are  held  as  dross,  only  wanted  the  hand  of  the  refiner  ;  we  should  then 
find  that  wretches  now  shut  up  for  long  tortures,  lest  luxury  should  feel 
a  momentary  pang,  might,  if  properly  treated,  serve  to  sinew  the  State 
in  times  of  danger ;  that  as  their  faces  are  like  ours,  their  hearts  are  so 
too  ;  that  few  minds  are  so  base  that  perseverance  cannot  amend  them; 
that  a  man  may  see  his  last  crime,  without  dying  for  it ;  and  that  very 
little  blood  will  serve  to  cement  our  security.  This  last  remark  your 
committee  would  amend,  for  they  believe  that  mutual  benefits,  and  not 
mutual  bloodshed,  form  the  best  cement  of  our  security. 

There  is  one  other  capital  crime  against  property  to  be  considered. 
In  England,  highway  robbery  was  enacted  to  be  a  capital  ofience  only 
when  committed  in  or  near  the  king's  highway,  in  the  twenty-third  year 
of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  In  the  fourth  year  of  William  and  Mary  it 
was  made  capital  in  all  other  places  also.  Robbery  was  first  made  capi- 
tal in  Massachusetts  by  the  colony  law  of  1GI2,  but  not  upon  a  first  or 
second  conviction.  If  after  having  been  twice  tried,  convicted,  and  pun- 
ished, he  should  be  tried  and  convicted  a  third  time,  he  was  then  deemed 
incorrigible,  and  was  sentenced  to  death.  Before  1G42,  this  crime  would 
have  been  punished  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  and  although  the 
Jewish  code  has  numerous  capital  offences,  yet  robbery  is  not  among 
them.  In  1711,  by  the  province  law,  it  was  made  capital  on  the  second 
offence;  and,  at  last,  in  17G1,  on  the  first  conviction.  In  1785,  upon  the 
revision  of  the  last  mentioned  statute,  the  capital  punishment  was  con- 
tinued; but  in  1805,  another  revision  of  the  criminal  laws  taking  place, 
it  Avas  provided  that  robbery  should  be  punished  by  solitary  confinement 
not  exceeding  two  years,  and  confinement  afterwards  to  hard  labor  for 
life.  In  1819,  it  was  enacted  "that  if  any  person  shall  commit  an 
assault  upon  another,  and  shall  rob,  steal,  and  take  from  his  person  *  * 
*  *  such  robber  being  at  the  time  of  committing  such  assault,  armed 
with  a  dangerous  weapon,  with  intent,  if  resisted,  to  kill  or  maim  the 
person  so  assaulted  and  robbed,  or  if  any  such  robber  being  armed  as 
aforesaid  shall  actually  strike  or  wound  the  person  so  assaulted  and 
robbed,"  he  shall,  together  with  such  as  aid  or  abet  him,  or  are  acces- 
sories before  the  fact,  suffer  the  punishment  of  death.  This  statute 
still  continues  in  force.  AYithin  about  three  years  after  its  enactment, 
three  persons  suffered  the  penalty.  The  first  of  these  was  Michael  Mar- 
tin, who  was  executed  at  Cambridge,  December  20,  1821,  —  the  history 
of  whose  life  and  adventures,  compiled  and  published  in  a  sizable  vol- 
ume, did  more  injury  to  the  morals  of  the  community  than  will  be'coun- 
tervailed  by  all  the  executions  that  will  ever  occur  under  the  provisions 
of  this  last  statute  of  death.    In  about  three  months  after  Martin,  Samuel 


464  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Clisby,  and  Gilbert  Close  were  executed  for  robbery.  Thus,  this  statute 
very  soon  obtained,  if  it  did  not  create  victims.  Some  years  afterwards, 
Theron  Cheney,  a  boy  of  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  age,  attacked  an- 
other boy  about  the  same  age,  and  robbed  him,  being  armed  with  a 
dangerous  weapon.  He  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  death,  but  in 
consideration  of  his  age,  and  other  circumstances,  his  sentence  was  com- 
muted to  imprisonment  for  life.  In  the  state  prison  he  became  a  good 
boy,  and  was  pardoned,  and  restored  to  society,  to  virtue,  and  to  useful- 
ness. He  acquired  a  good  reputation  in  the  neighborhood  where  he 
lived,  and  died  a  Christian  death  among  his  friends  in  March,  1835. 
While  the  severity  of  the  law,  when  executed  to  its  utmost  extent,  was 
almost  immediately  followed  by  repeated  violations  of  its  provisions,  no 
man  can  show  any  other  than  the  best  of  consequences  from  this  inter- 
ference of  executive  clemency :  neither  have  your  committee  been  able 
to  discover  any  evidence  that  this  crime  was  more  frequent  during  the 
fourteen  years  between  1805  and  1819,  while  it  was  not  capital,  than  it 
has  been  for  the  sixteen  years  since  it  was  made  capital.  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  it  has  been  quite  as  frequent  during  the  latter  period  as 
the  former,  notwithstanding  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country,  and 
the  great  increase  of  benevolent  and  highly  successful  efforts  to  promote 
temperance,  good  education,  and  morality.  Indeed,  we  can  find  no  indi- 
cation that  this  crime  was  more  common  for  the  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  years  when  the  first  offence  was  not  capital,  reckoning  from  1 642, 
than  in  the  sixty  years  when  it  was  punished  with  death.  The  wisdom 
of  our  ancestors  during  these  hundred  and  thirty-three  years  is  more 
to  be  commended  in  this  than  in  some  other  particulars  of  their  penal 
death. 

Before  we  quit  this  branch  of  the  subject,  let  us  compare  the  punish- 
ment of  highway  robbery  with  that  provided  for  crimes  equally  detri- 
mental and  malignant.  The  celebrated  moralist,  Dr.  Johnson,  remarks, 
that  "  Pride  is  unwilling  to  believe  the  necessity  of  assigning  any  other 
reason  than  her  own  will,"  and  that  "  it  may  be  suspected  that  this  polit- 
ical arrogance  has  sometimes  found  its  way  into  legislative  assemblies, 
and  mingled  with  deliberations  upon  property  and  life."  He  goes  on  to 
observe  that  "  a  slight  perusal  of  the  laws  by  which  the  measures  of 
vindictive  and  coercive  justice  are  established,  will  discover  so  many  dis- 
proportions between  crimes  and  punishments,  such  capricious  distinctions 
of  guilt,  and  such  confusion  of  remissness  and  severity,  as  can  scarcely 
be  believed  to  have  been  produced  by  public  wisdom,  sincerely  and 
calmly  studious  of  public  happiness."  If  the  provisions  we  are  about  to 
enumerate  do  not  justify  this  severity  of  comment,  it  will  at  least,  to 
reduce  them  to  any  standard  of  necessity,  expediency,  or  justice,  require 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  465 

the  introduction  of  principles  witli  wliicli  your  committee  are  unac- 
quainted. For  convenience,  we  refer  to  tlie  report  of  the  commissioners 
appointed  to  revise  the  statutes,  part  fourth,  that  being  more  easy  of 
access  to  the  members  of  the  house  who  may  wish  to  follow  out  the 
inquiry,  than  the  Revised  Statutes,  in  their  present  condition,  and  it  not 
being  requisite  to  our  argument  to  notice  a  few  alterations  since  made  in 
that  report,  but  which  are  not  yet  in  operation  as  law. 

Highway  robbery,  chapter  125,  section  9,  is  an  assault  by  one  armed, 
who  takes  away  property,  and  if  resisted  intends  to  kill  or  maim  ;  or  if 
the  armed  robber  wounds  or  strikes  the  person  robbed,  without  intending 
to  kill  or  maim  him.  For  this  offence  against  property,  thus  endanger- 
ing life,  the  punishment  of  death  is  denounced.  Now  it  is  somewhat 
remarkable,  that  offences,  not  against  property,  but  which  endanger  life 
more  directly  and  imminently,  as  well  as  offences  more  heinous  and  cruel 
against  the  person,  the  liberty,  the  honor,  and  not  the  purse  of  the  in- 
jured party,  are  guarded  against  by  punishments  shght  in  comparison. 
Who  steals  the  purse  steals  trash,  but  if  he  steals  it  openly,  and  so  armed 
as  to  prevent  or  repel  resistance,  he  must  die  for  it ;  while  whoso  steal- 
eth  a  man  and  selleth  him,  though  armed  in  the  same  manner,  with  the 
same  intent  to  kill  if  resisted,  according  to  the  report,  was  to  be  punished 
by  fine  not  exceeding  one  thousand  dollars,  or  imprisonment  in  the  state 
prison  not  more  than  ten  years,  or  in  the  county  jail  not  more  than  two 
years.  (Chap.  125,  sect.  IG.)  So  that  if  the  robber  has  taken  from  a 
man  of  wealth  the  smallest  coin  that  passes  from  hand  to  hand,  being 
driven  by  the  pressure  of  extreme  want,  or  the  insane  fury  of  intoxica- 
tion, the  judge,  with  these  extenuating  circumstances  before  him,  must 
pass  sentence  of  death,  for  here  nothing  is  left  to  his  discretion ;  while  if 
the  same  robber,  armed  with  the  same  weapons,  with  deliberate  malice 
aforethought,  too  cruel  to  be  satisfied  with  the  murder  of  its  victim, 
should  seize  the  same  man  of  wealth,  bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and  cause 
him  to  be  transported  to  the  coast  of  Barbary,  and  there  sold  as  a  slave  to 
the  Moors,  the  judge  would  be  left  at  his  discretion  to  inflict  a  nominal 
fine  upon  the  offender,  or  to  sentence  him  to  the  county  jail  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  if  he  see  fit.  There  is  no  intention  to  intimate  that  the 
judiciary  would  in  any  case  affix  a  trivial  punishment  to  so  foul  a  crime, 
but  merely  to  point  out  the  strange  inconsistency  with  which  it  is  left  to 
their  discretion  to  reduce  the  punishment  of  him  who  takes  away  that 
liberty  which  is  dearer  than  life,  to  limits  merely  nominal ;  while  for  a 
crime  much  less  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  and  less  dangerous  to  him  on 
whom  it  is  committed,  death  only  can  atone,  and  the  court  are  to  have 
no  discretion.  This  is  not  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  for  their  law  on 
these  two  points  was  copied  from  the  Jewish  code,  and  on  these  two 


466  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND  WRITINGS 

crimes  that  law  was  the  opposite  of  ours.  Highway  robbery  was  not  a 
capital  offence  in  the  law  given  to  Moses  :  our  fathers  punished  it  on  the 
first  conviction  by  branding,  on  the  second  by  branding  and  severe 
whipping,  both  too  "  cruel  and  unusual "  to  be  inflicted  now,  under  the 
twenty-sixth  article  of  the  bill  of  rights.  The  sentence  of  death  did  not 
follow  until  after  the  third  conviction.  (Charters  and  colony  laws,  page 
56.)  But  man-stealing  in  the  Mosaic  code  is  capital ;  as  may  be  seen 
by  turning  to  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  Exodus  and  sixteenth  verse,  or 
to  Deuteronomy,  xxiv.  7.  The  same  is  our  colony  law  of  November, 
1646.  (Charters,  &c.,  page  59.)  While  we  have  mitigated  the  harsh- 
ness of  the  law  in  this  case,  without  diminishing  its  efficacy,  was  it  wise 
to  aggravate  it,  as  we  have  done  in  the  other,  without  a  corresponding 
advantage  ? 

By  the  provisions  of  chapter  126,  section  11,  a  person  entering  in  the 
night  without  breaking,  or  by  day  breaking  and  entering  a  dwelling- 
house,  outhouse  adjoining  it,  office,  shop,  warehouse,  or  vessel  to  com- 
mit murder,  rape,  robbery,  or  other  felony,  and  putting  in  fear  one  law- 
fully therein,  is  sentenced  to  the  state  prison  not  more  than  ten  years. 
If  a  man  lifts  the  latch  and  enters  furtively,  intending  to  awake  no  one, 
but  armed  to  defend  himself  if  attacked,  and  steals  food  to  satisfy  his 
hunger,  by  night,  in  a  dwelling-house,  he  has  forfeited  his  life.  But  if  he 
finds  the  door  ajar,  and  enters  with  an  intent  to  murder  all  the  inmates, 
or  to  commit  an  injury  greater  than  murder,  being  armed  and  by  night, 
and  actually  putting  the  inmates  in  bodily  fear,  his  punishment  cannot 
exceed  ten  years'  imprisonment,  and  may  be  reduced  to  the  smallest 
possible  time  in  the  discretion  of  the  court.  Is  not  this  latter  offence 
more  to  be  feared  and  guarded  against  than  the  former  ?  Is  not  the  man 
who  secretes  himself  in  a  house  in  the  daytime,  in  order  that  he  may 
murder  by  night,  or  who  in  a  summer  night  climbs  into  an  open  window 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  murdering  the  inmates  of  a  dwelling-house,  more 
to  be  feared,  and  therefore  more  to  be  guarded  against,  than  he  who 
stops  on  the  highway  an  old  man,  a  woman,  or  a  boy,  and  takes  away 
the  shghtest  article  of  property,  having  in  his  hand  a  weapon  which  he 
forbears  to  use,  although  he  has  been  told  that  the  law  will  take  away 
his  life  if  he  spares  the  witness  whom  he  has  in  his  power  ?  Is  not  he 
who  thus  enters  a  house  with  a  deadly  weapon  to  kill  his  enemy,  and 
then  escape  under  cover  of  darkness,  more  to  be  feared  and  guarded 
against,  than  he  who  not  daring  to  enter,  sets  fire  to  the  house  on  the 
outside,  and  then  flies?  Why  then  is  death  the  only  and  the  least  pun- 
ishment prescribed  for  the  lesser  oflTences,  while  that  which  may  be  not 
only  morally  a  greater  crime,  but  actually  more  dangerous  to  individuals 
and  to  society,  is  punished  at  the  highest  by  confinement  for  a  term  of 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  4(37 

years,  to  be  limited  in  the  discretion  of  the  court  to  any  period,  however 
small  ? 

By  the  twelfth  section  of  the  same  chapter,  the  man  who  enters  in  the 
same  manner,  and  with  the  same  intent  to  murder  or  otherwise,  as  in 
the  eleventh  section,  but  who  does  not  put  in  fear  any  lawful  inmate,  is 
to  be  confined  in  the  state  prison  not  more  than  three  years,  or  in  the 
county  jail  not  more  than  two  years,  or  by  fine  not  exceeding  five  hun- 
dred dollars.  And  yet  it  is  by  bare  accident  that  the  intended  murder 
or  other  felony  has  not  been  committed  ;  and  where  the  design  v/as  to 
commit  murder  or  an  equal  crime,  the  attempt  is  more  dangerous  than 
an  act  of  arson,  burglary,  or  robbery,  where  life  has  not  been  sacrificed, 
and  where,  as  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  the  incendiary,  burglar,  or 
robber  did  not  contemplate  that  it  should  be  sacrificed.  The  distinctions 
between  the  actual  commission  of  the  two  highest  crimes  mentioned  in  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  sections,  and  the  attempts  with  and  without  alarm, 
as  described  in  those  sections,  are  dictated  by  profound  sagacity  ;  for 
they  leave  the  invader  of  the  peaceful  dwelling  after  he  has  entered,  a 
strong  inducement  to  retire  before  alarm  is  taken  ;  and  even  after  the 
alarm  still  urge  him  to  stop  short  of  the  last  degree  of  guilt,  with  a  power 
which,  if  he  doubts  or  hesitates,  may  sometimes  stay  his  hand.  How 
much  wiser,  then,  would  it  be  to  apply  the  same  policy  to  the  crimes  of 
arson,  burglary,  and  robbery,  instead  of  offering  the  criminal,  by  law,  a 
premium  for  consummating  his  crime  in  murder,  the  highest  possible 
premium,  security  for  his  own  life,  and  letting  him  know  distinctly,  that 
if  he  resists  the  lion-like  temptation,  which  the  law  has  placed  in  his 
path,  he  resists  not  only  U2)on  peril  of  death,  but  of  a  public  infamy  more 
bitter  than  death. 

By  the  tenth  section  of  the  same  chapter,  any  person  who  by  night 
breaks  and  enters  an  ofiice,  shop,  or  warehouse,  not  connected  with  a 
dwelling-house,  or  a  ship,  with  intent  to  commit  murder  or  any  other 
felony,  is  to  be  imprisoned  in  the  state  prison  not  more  than  fifteen 
years.  Does  a  man  sleeping  alone  in  an  ofiice  or  shop,  stand  so  much 
less  in  need  of  the  protection  of  the  law  than  one  sleeping  in  a  dwelling- 
house,  with  others  around  him  to  assist  in  defence,  or  to  give  the  alarm, 
as  to  justify  the  wide  distinction  between  this  crime  and  burglary  ? 
Is  an  attempt  to  steal  in  a  dwelling,  or  on  the  road,  so  much  higher 
a  crime  than  an  attempt  to  kill  in  a  shop  or  office,  that  while  a  term  of 
years  in  prison,  shortened  at  discretion,  is  ample  punishment  for  the 
latter,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  pass  sentence  of  death  upon  the 
former?  If  the  penalties  provided  in  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth 
sections  of  this  chapter,  and  in  the  sixteenth  section  of  the  preceding 
chapter,  are  sufficient  to  answer  the  purpose  of  prevention,  and  your 


468  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AKD  WRITINGS 

committee  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  are  so,  how  are  we  to  justify 
the  capital  punishment  of  any  crime  against  property  ?  Your  committee 
do  not  know  of  any  instance  in  which  the  crimes  specified  in  those  sec- 
tions were  committed  clearly  because  a  severer  punishment  was  not 
provided  for  them,  but  there  are  very  numerous  instances  on  record 
where  the  crimes  of  arson,  burglary,  and  robbery  have  been  followed  by 
murder  undoubtedly  because  they  were  punishable  with  death. 

The  further  we  pursue  this  comparison,  the  stronger  evidence  shall  we 
accumulate,  that  capital  punishment  is  not  necessary  for  the  prevention 
of  any  crime  against  property.  By  the  sixth  section  of  chapter  one 
hundred  and  twenty-fifth,  if  any  person  with  malicious  intent  to  maim 
or  disfigure  another,  should  cut  off  his  legs,  arms,  nose,  and  ears,  cut  out 
his  tongue,  and  put  out  his  eyes,  what  punishment  is  assigned  to  him  ? 
A  fine  not  exceeding  two  thousand  dollars,  or  not  more  than  ten  years 
in  the  state  prison,  or  not  more  than  three  years  in  the  county  jail.  Is 
that  amount  of  money  which  a  man  carries  about  him,  of  more  value  to 
him  than  all  his  limbs  and  organs  ?  Or  does  it  stand  more  in  need  of 
the  protection  of  the  law  ?  Or  is  life  more  endangered  by  taking  money 
with  intent  to  kill  if  resisted,  than  by  tearing  out  the  tongue  and  eyes 
with  the  same  intent  to  kill  if  resisted  ?  Let  this  question  be  answered 
by  considering  the  comparative  probability  of  a  desperate  resistance  in 
the  two  cases.  Or,  again,  is  he  a  more  dangerous  member  of  society 
who  takes  away  the  pocket-book,  than  he  who  tears  out  the  tongue  and 
eyes  ?  Yet  the  statute  against  maiming  has  stood  unaltered  since  the 
revision  of  1805,  and  has  been  effectual  for  its  purpose,  the  more  so,  no 
doubt,  because  it  was  not  so  severe  as  to  leave  the  offender  to  hope  that 
it  would  not  be  enforced.  The  fine  mentioned  in  this  section  was  intro- 
duced by  the  commissioners. 

In  the  seventh  section  of  the  same  chapter,  the  punishment  for  an 
assault  with  intent  to  murder,  is  fixed  to  be  a  fine  not  more  than  two 
thousand  dollars,  not  more  than  ten  years  in  the  State  prison,  or  not 
more  than  two  years  in  the  county  jail.  This  must  be  at  least  as  severe 
as  public  sentiment  requires,  for  as  the  law  has  stood  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  the  term  in  state  prison  could  not  exceed  four  years,  and  the 
fine  has  been  added  by  the  commissioners.  By  the  tenth  section,  if  one 
armed  with  a  dangerous  weapon  assaults  another  with  intent  to  murder, 
he  shall  be  imprisoned  in  the  state  prison  not  more  than  twenty  years. 
By  these  assaults,  the  life,  being  the  object  aimed  at,  is  put  in  greater 
peril  than  in  arson,  burglary,  or  robbery,  where  the  object  aimed  at  is 
only  property,  yet  a  punishment  far  short  of  perpetual  imprisonment  is 
sufficient  for  tlie  protection  of  life  against  such  attempts,  and  no  one 
complains  that  it  is  less  than  it  should  be.     The  bad  passions  and  the 


OF   ROBERT    RxVNTOUL,   JR.  469 

recklessness  which  occasion  assaults  with  intent  to  murder,  are  of  course 
the  same  with  those  which  produce  actual  murders,  so  that,  if  the  pun- 
ishment of  death  is  the  only  terror  effectual  to  suppress  those  passions, 
or  if  the  murderer  is  to  be  executed,  because,  having  proved  that  he  has 
a  disposition  to  kill,  society  cannot  be  safe  wdiile  he  is  alive,  then  these 
assaults  should  be  punished  with  death  for  the  same  reason  as  murder, 
and  with  much  more  reason  than  the  three  crimes  against  property  which 
we  have  been  considering.  But  it  will  be  said,  and  justly  said,  these 
assaults  should  be  punished  less  severely  than  murder,  that  the  criminal 
may  not  be  made  desperate,  but  may  have  an  opportunity  and  a  motive 
to  pause  while  it  is  uncompleted.  If  this  argument  is  good  for  any  thing, 
it  applies  with  much  greater  force  to  the  three  capital  crimes  against 
property.  There  is  more  chance  that  a  burglar  or  a  robber  will  stop 
short  of  murder,  if  the  punishments  are  different,  and  if  the  law  does  not 
urge  him  to  kill  by  the  hope  of  securing  his  own  life,  than  that  the  in- 
tended murderer  will  stop  short  of  his  intent,  after  he  has  made  the 
assault,  from  which  the  fear  of  death  did  not  deter  him. 

By  section  eighth  of  the  same  chapter,  a  person  attempting  to  murder 
by  poisoning,  drowning,  or  strangling  another,  shall  be  imprisoned  five 
years  in  the  state  prison,  or  fined  not  more  than  two  thousand  dollars, 
and  sent  to  the  county  jail  for  not  more  than  two  years ;  and  by  section 
eighteenth,  he  who  shall  mingle  poison  with  food  or  medicine,  or  willfully 
poison  a  spring,  well,  or  reservoir  of  water,  with  intent  to  kill,  shall  be 
imprisoned  in  the  state  prison  not  more  than  two  years,  or  fined  not 
more  than  five  hundred  dollars.  Which,  then,  most  deserves  the  care  of 
the  law,  property  or  life  ?  For  it  cannot  be,  that  life  itself  is  more  en- 
dangered where  it  is  not  aimed  at,  than  in  the  poisoning  of  the  spring 
which  supphes  a  whole  neighborhood,  or  of  the  medicine  which  the  sick 
man  swallows  without  suspicion.  But  the  law  has  guarded  the  purse 
with  more  jealousy  than  life,  or  even  than  that  which  is  dearer  than  life, 
for  by  the  fifteenth  section,  an  assault  upon  a  woman  with  intent  to 
violate  her  honor,  which  may  be  committed  with  intent  to  kill  if  resisted, 
or  even  if  not  resisted,  is  punished  by  imprisonment  at  the  discretion  of 
the  court,  or  by  fine. 

But  a  still  more  striking  contrast  is  furnished  by  the  law  of  man- 
slaughter, the  wisdom  of  which  is  not  impeached.  If  one  kills  another, 
voluntarily  and  without  justification,  but  upon  sudden  passion  without 
previous  malice,  by  the  fifth  section  of  the  chapter  last  referred  to,  he  is 
to  be  punished,  not  with  death,  but  with  a  fine,  or  imprisonment  in  the 
state  prison,  not  more  than  ten  years,  or  in  the  county  jail,  not  more 
than  three  years.  If  the  same  extenuating  circumstances  exist  in  cases 
of  arson,  burglary,  or  robbery,  they  do  not  change  the  denomination  of 

40 


470  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tlie  crime,  or  diminish  the  punishment.  Suppose  a  desperate  man  just 
ruined  at  a  gaming-table,  meets  one  "vvho  enrages  him  by  bitter  reproaches, 
and  then,  provoked  by  an  angry  answer,  strikes  him.  If  in  his  fury  he 
should  seize  this  man,  snatch  from  him  his  pocketbook,  and  fly,  having 
about  him  a  dagger  which  he  does  not  use,  but  only  threatens  to  draw ; 
this  is  highway  robbery,  punishable  with  death.  If  he  had  drawn  his 
dagger  and  stabbed  him  to  the  heart,  this  would  have  been  only  man- 
slaughter, and  the  punishment  made  as  light  as  the  court  see  ht  to  make 
it.  The  law,  therefore,  counsels  an  angry  man  to  wreak  his  revenge 
upon  life  and  not  upon  property,  which  in  such  cases  it  holds  more 
sacred. 

How  are  these  inconsistencies  to  be  accounted  for  ?  The  observations 
of  Dr.  Johnson  may  throw  some  light  upon  them,  and  deserve  to  be 
quoted  also  for  their  applicability  to  the  subject  generally.  "  It  has 
been  always  the  practice,"  says  the  great  morahst, "  when  any  particular 
species  of  robbery  becomes  prevalent  and  common,  to  endeavor  its  sup- 
pression by  capital  denunciation.  By  this  practice  capital  inflictions  are 
multiplied,  and  crimes  very  different  in  their  degrees  of  enormity,  are 
equally  subjected  to  the  severest  punishment  that  man  has  the  power  of 
exercising  upon  man.  This  method  has  long  been  tried,  but  tried  with 
so  little  success,  that  rapine  and  violence  are  hourly  increasing  ;  yet  few 
seem  to  despair  of  its  efficacy,  and  of  those  who  employ  their  specula- 
tions upon  the  present  corruption  of  the  people,  some  propose  the  intro- 
duction of  more  horrid,  lingering,  and  terrific  punishments  ;  some  are 
inclined  to  accelerate  the  executions,  some  to  discourage  pardons ;  and 
all  seem  to  think  that  lenity  has  given  confidence  to  wickedness,  and  that 
we  can  only  be  rescued  from  the  talons  of  robbery  by  inflexible  rigor 
and  sanguinary  justice."     (This  was  in  1751.) 

Yet  since  the  right  of  setting  an  uncertain  and  arbitrary  value  upon 
life  has  been  disputed,  and  since  the  experience  of  past  times  gives  us 
little  reason  to  hope  that  any  reformation  will  be  effected  by  a  periodi- 
cal havoc  of  our  fellow-beings,  perhaps  it  will  not  be  useless  to  consider 
what  consequences  might  arise  from  relaxations  of  the  law,  and  a  more 
rational  and  equitable  adaptation  of  penalties  to  offences.  To  equal  rob- 
bery with  murder,  is  to  reduce  murder  to  robbery,  to  confound  in  com- 
mon minds  the  gradations  of  iniquity,  and  incite  the  commission  of  a 
greater  crime  to  prevent  the  detection  of  a  less.  If  only  murder  were 
punished  with  death,  very  few  robbers  would  stain  their  hands  in  blood ; 
but  wdien  by  the  last  act  of  cruelty  no  new  danger  is  incurred,  and 
greater  security  may  be  obtained,  upon  what  principle  shall  we  bid  them 
forbear  ? 

From  the  conviction  of  the  inequality  of  the  punishment  to  the  of- 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  47X 

fence,  proceeds  the  frequent  solicitation  of  pardons.  They  who  would 
rejoice  at  the  correction  of  a  thief,  are  yet  shocked  at  the  thought  of  de- 
stroying him.  His  crime  shrinks  to  nothing  compared  with  his  misery  ; 
and  severity  defeats  itself  by  exciting  pity. 

The  gibbet,  indeed,  certainly  disables  those  who  die  upon  it  from  in- 
festing the  community  ;  but  their  death  seems  not  to  contribute  more  to 
the  reformation  of  their  associates  than  any  other  method  of  separation. 
A  thief  seldom  passes  much  of  his  time  in  recollection  or  anticipation, 
but  from  robbery  hastens  to  riot,  and  from  riot  to  robbery ;  nor  when 
the  grave  closes  upon  his  companion,  has  any  other  care  but  to  find 
another. 

The  frequency  of  capital  punishments,  therefore,  rarely  hinders  the 
commission  of  a  crime,  but  naturally  and  commonly  prevents  its  detec- 
tion, and  is,  if  we  proceed  only  upon  prudential  principles,  chiefly  for 
that  reason  to  be  avoided.  Whatever  may  be  urged  by  casuists  and 
politicians,  the  greater  part  of  mankind,  as  they  can  never  think  that  to 
pick  the  pocket  and  to  pierce  the  heart  are  equally  criminal,  will  scarce- 
ly believe  that  two  malefactors  so  different  in  guilt,  can  be  justly  doomed 
to  the  same  punishment ;  nor  is  the  necessity  of  submitting  the  conscience 
to  human  laws  so  plainly  evinced,  so  clearly  stated,  or  so  generally 
allowed,  but  that  the  pious,  the  tender,  and  the  just  will  always  scruple 
to  concur  with  the  community  in  an  act  which  their  private  judgment 
cannot  approve. 

He  who  knows  not  how  often  rigorous  laws  produce  total  impunity, 
and  how  many  crimes  are  concealed  and  forgotten  for  fear  of  hurrying 
the  offender  to  that  state  in  which  there  is  no  repentance,  has  conversed 
very  little  with  mankind.  And  whatever  epithets  of  reproach  or  con- 
tempt this  compassion  may  incur,  from  those  who  confound  cruelty  with 
firmness,  I  know  not  whether  any  wise  man  would  wish  it  less  powerful 
or  less  extensive. 

All  laws  against  wickedness  are  ineffectual,  unless  some  will  inform, 
and  some  will  prosecute  ;  but  till  we  mitigate  the  penalties  for  mere  vio- 
lations of  property,  information  will  always  be  hated  and  prosecution 
dreaded.  The  heart  of  a  good  man  cannot  but  recoil  at  the  tliought  of 
punishing  a  slight  injury  with  death  ;  especially  when  he  remembers  that 
the  thief  might  have  procured  safety  by  another  crime,  from  which  he 
was  restrained  only  by  his  remaining  virtue. 

The  obligations  to  assist  the  exercise  of  public  justice,  are  indeed 
strong ;  but  they  will  certainly  be  overpowered  by  tenderness  for  life. 
What  is  punished  with  severity,  contrary  to  our  ideas  of  adequate  retri- 
bution, will  be  seldom  discovered  ;  and  multitudes  will  be  suffered  to  ad- 
vance, from  crime  to  crime,  till  they  deserve  death,  because,  if  they  had 


472  me:\ioirs,  speeches  and  writings 

been  sooner  prosecuted,  they  would  have  suffered  death  before  they 
deserved  it. 

The  celebrated  Sir  Thomas  More,  chancellor  of  England  more  than 
three  hundred  years  ago,  expressed  a  decided  opinion  against  the  pun- 
ishment of  death  for  crimes  against  property.  "  It  seems  to  me  a  very 
unjust  thing,"  says  he,  "  to  take  away  a  man's  life  for  a  little  money  ;  for 
nothing  in  the  world  can  be  of  equal  value  with  a  man's  life.  And  if  it 
is  said  that  it  is  not  for  the  money  that  one  suffers,  but  for  his  breaking 
the  law,  I  must  say,  extreme  justice  is  an  extreme  injury ;  for  we  ought 
not  to  approve  of  these  terrible  laws  that  make  the  smallest  offence  cap- 
ital, nor  of  that  opinion  of  the  stoics,  that  makes  all  crimes  equal ;  as  if 
there  were  no  difference  to  be  made  between  the  killing  a  man  and  the 
taking  his  purse,  between  which,  if  we  examine  things  impartially,  there 
is  no  likeness  nor  proportion,  God  has  commanded  us  not  to  kill ;  and 
shall  we  kill  so  easily  for  a  little  money  ?  God  having  taken  from  us  the 
right  of  disposing  of  our  own  or  of  other  people's  lives,  if  it  is  pretended 
that  the  mutual  consent  of  men  in  making  laws  frees  people  from  the 
obligation  of  the  divine  law,  and  so  makes  murder  a  lawful  action  ;  what 
is  this  but  to  give  a  preference  to  human  laws  before  the  divine  ?  If  a 
robber  sees  that  his  danger  is  the  same,  if  he  is  convicted  of  theft,  as  if 
he  were  -guilty  of  murder,  this  will  naturally  incite  him  to  kill  the  per- 
son whom  otherwise  he  would  only  have  robbed ;  since,  if  the  punishment 
is  the  same,  there  is  more  security  and  less  danger  of  discovery,  when 
he  that  can  best  make  it  is  put  out  of  the  way  ;  so  that  terrifying  thieves 
too  much  provokes  them  to  cruelty."  He  also  represents  John  Morton, 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  his  predecessor  in  the  office  of  chancellor,  and 
the  principal  adviser  of  Henry  YIL,  "  a  man  not  less  venerable  for  his 
wisdom  and  virtues  than  for  his  high  character,  eminently  skilled  in  the 
law,  and  of  a  vast  understanding,  whose  excellent  talents  were  improved 
by  study  and  experience,"  as  renin,rking  that  an  experiment  might  be 
made  of  substituting  hard  labor  for  death ;  "  and  if  it  did  not  succeed, 
the  worst  would  be,  to  execute  the  sentence  on  the  condemned  persons 
at  last."  This  experiment  he  did  not  believe  "  would  be  either  unjust, 
inconvenient,  or  at  all  dangerous,"  an  opinion  in  which  his  Excellency 
the  Governor,  in  his  observations  already  quoted,  concurs. 

This  branch  of  our  subject  is  practically  important.  From  Novem- 
ber, 1813,  to  January,  1831,  there  were  eighteen  persons  ordered  for 
execution,  under  our  State  laws.  Of  these,  two  committed  suicide  in 
prison,  and  sixteen  were  hanged.  Eight  were  executed  for  crimes  other 
than  murder,  being  just  half  the  number  of  sufferers. 

Of  the  crime  against  female  honor,  we  shall  say  but  few  words.  It  is 
now  generally  unpunished,  from  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  capital  con- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  473 

viction.  When  we  consider  the  tremendous  power  which  this  law  would 
put  into  the  hands  of  a  bad  and  revengeful  woman,  if  jurors  were  not 
unwilling  to  convict,  we  cannot  wonder  at  their  reluctance.  There  is 
generally  but  one  witness,  and  the  acquittal  of  the  accused  after  her  tes- 
timony has  been  heard,  where  it  is  clear  and  conclusive,  seems  to  add  a 
new  burden  of  dishonor  to  a  wrong  already  too  great  to  be  endured ; 
while  a  conviction  and  execution  only  agonizes  the  injured  party  with 
the  idea,  that  through  her  instrumentality,  a  wretch  has  been  prematurely 
launched  into  eternity,  and  that  the  outrage  she  has  suffered,  and  the 
evidence  she  has  given,  which  she  would  wish  to  be  buried  in  oblivion, 
are  the  subjects  of  general  conversation,  perhaps  of  misconstruction,  cer- 
tainly of  levity  and  ribaldry  among  the  abandoned  and  vicious  through 
a  wide  region.  The  mere  chance  of  loss  of  life,  which  a  soldier  will 
brave  for  sixpence  a  day,  and  which  cannot  prevent  a  crime  carried  on 
as  deliberately  as  larceny,  and  for  as  small  temptation,  cannot  have  much 
effect  in  restraining  those  insensible  to  higher  motives.  An  execution 
which  took  place  at  Worcester,  for  this  crime,  on  the  8th  of  December, 
1825,  was  soon  afterwards  followed  by  an  attempt,  by  a  brother  of  the 
criminal,  to  commit  the  same  crime  for  which  his  relative  had  just  suf- 
fered the  loss  of  his  life.  The  experience  of  England,  Ireland,  and 
France,  does  not  show  that  the  fear  of  death  is  a  preventive  of  this 
crime,  but  does  show,  that  capital  punishment  for  the  offence  often  causes 
the  murder  of  the  victim  of  the  outrage.  Several  cases  of  this  effect 
have  been  known  in  the  United  States  ;  and  one  not  long  ago  excited 
much  attention  in  a  neighboring  State.  To  substitute  a  punishment 
which  would  not  lead  to  murder,  and  which  being  more  likely  to  be  in- 
flicted, would  be  more  effectual,  would  be  a  most  salutary  reform. 

The  crime  of  treason,  under  monarchical  governments,  and  by  the  ad- 
vocates of  arbitrary  power,  has  been  magnified  into  guilt  of  the  most 
malignant  dye.  But  a  little  reflection  upon  the  nature  of  the  various 
revolutions  recorded  in  history,  will  show  us  that  treason  and  patriotism 
have  often  been  convertible  terms,  and  that  it  depends  upon  the  failure 
or  the  success  of  his  undertaking  whether  the  adventurer  shall  be  crowned 
with  laurel  or  branded  with  inflimy,  so  far  as  government  is  the  dispenser 
of  good  and  evil  fame.  More  and  Fisher,  Sidney  and  Russel,  died  the 
death  of  traitors  ;  while  Henry  Tudor  ascended  the  throne,  and  Crom- 
well attained  a  power  greater  than  that  of  many  kings.  Ney,  and  Labe- 
doyere  perished  for  adhering  to  the  army  and  the  nation  against  a  fam- 
ily hated  by  both,  while  men  who  had  voted  for  the  death  of  Louis  XVI. 
were  honored  with  offices  of  the  highest  trust  under  his  legitimate  suc- 
cessor. Riego  was  sent  to  a  scaffold  because  a  revolution  had  turned  and 
gone  backward,  as  Washington,  Hancock,  and  Adams  might  have  been 

40* 


474  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

if  ours  had  not  triumphed.  Treason  then  is  the  crime  of  being  defeated 
in  a  struggle  with  the  government,  whether  wrongfully  undertaken,  or 
in  a  just  and  holy  cause.  "  The  Hungarians  were  called  rebels  first,'* 
says  Lord  Bolingbroke,  "  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  that  they  would 
not  be  slaves."  Tekeli  and  the  malecontents  demanded  the  preservation 
of  their  ancient  privileges,  liberty  of  conscience,  and  the  convocation  of 
a  free  parliament.  What  precise  proportion  of  all  the  treasons  ever 
committed  have  been  of  the  same  character  might  be  difficult  to  deter- 
mine, but  it  is  certainly  very  large. 

For  this  offence,  the  most  cruel  tortures  have  been  inflicted  npon  the 
miserable  victims  of  tyranny.  Sycophantic  and  corrupt  legislators  and 
judges  had  so  far  enlarged  and  extended  its  definition,  that  at  some  pe- 
riods of  English  history,  a  man  could  hardly  tell  what  actions  of  his  life 
might  not  be  interpreted  to  amount  to  constructive  treason.  Under 
Ilenry  VIII.,  clipping  an  English  shilling,  or  believing  that  the  king  was 
lawfully  married  to  one  of  his  wives,  was  no  less  than  high  treason. 
The  heart  of  the  offender  was  torn  out  from  his  living  body,  dashed  in 
his  face,  and  then  burnt ;  but  the  punishment  was  too  shocking  to  be  de- 
scribed in  all  its  horrid  details.  It  was  inflicted  upon  prince  David,  a 
W^elsh  patriot,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  First,  in  1283,  and  continued  to 
be  the  law  of  the  land  for  about  five  hundred  years  afterwards,  until  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly,  to  whom  the  British  nation  is  indebted  for  other  melio- 
rations in  their  criminal  code,  and  for  his  disinterested  and  unwearied 
efforts  to  effect  reforms  which  he  did  not  live  to  witness,  by  his  eloquence 
and  weight  of  character  was  able  to  abolish  the  most  revolting  of  the 
barbarities  it  included.  It  was  frequently  inflicted,  during  that  long  pe- 
riod, for  "  having  been,  during  a  civil  war,  faithful  to  an  unfortunate 
king  ;  or  for  having  spoken  freely  on  the  doubtful  right  of  the  conquer- 
or." Such  a  law  was  suffered  to  remain  in  force  five  centuries,  as  if  to 
warn  mankind  how  easily  the  most  execrable  example  may  be  intro- 
duced, and  with  what  difficulty  a  country  is  purified  from  its  debasing 
influence. 

In  this  Commonwealth  w^e  have  no  reason  to  complain  that  treason  is, 
by  judicial  construction,  extended  beyond  its  proper  limits.  With  us  it 
consists  in  levying  war  against  the  Commonwealth,  or  in  adhering  to  the 
enemies  thereof,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort.  Our  Revised  Statutes 
adopted  this  definition  from  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  No 
State  of  this  Union  needs  a  treason  law,  for  in  every  case  likely  to  arise, 
the  federal  law  will  be  applicable  and  sufficient.  In  a  coUision  between 
a  State  and  the  federal  government,  in  case  of  rebellion,  organized  under 
the  State  authorities,  a  State  treason  law  would  come  into  action.  Under 
its  provisions,  the  man  who  adhered  to  his  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  475 

United  States,  might  be  hanged  for  his  fidelity,  while  in  retaliation,  he 
who  obeyed  the  State  authorities  might  be  hanged  by  the  general  gov- 
ernment for  treason  against  them.  If  it  is  wise  to  anticipate  and  pro- 
vide for  such  a  state  of  things,  then  a  State  treason  law  may  be  expe- 
dient, otherwise  it  would  seem  to  be  unnecessary. 

If  a  law  against  treason  be  needed,  still  there  is  no  need  that  the  pun- 
ishment should  be  capital.  The  class  of  men  who  take  the  lead  in  such 
enterprises  are  not  to  be  deterred  by  the  fear  of  death ;  but  the  prospect 
of  it  only  makes  them  more  desperate,  after  they  have  once  embarked.  The 
government  cannot  go  through  the  judicial  forms,  and  execute  the  sen- 
tence against  a  traitor,  while  he  continues  to  be  dangerous  :  after  the 
danger  is  over,  they  may,  but  it  would  then  be  a  gratuitous  cruelty. 

In  preparing  the  Revised  Statutes,  we  have  gone  back  to  revive  the 
statute  of  1777,  enacted  during  the  war  of  the  revolution,  and  which 
was  never  before  reiinacted  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of 
1780.  The  first  treason  law  in  the  colony,  our  Ancestors  enacted  in 
1678,  the  year  of  the  popish  plot,  to  show  their  abundant  loyalty,  "that 
whatsoever  person  within  this  jurisdiction  shall  compass,  imagine,  or  in- 
tend the  death  or  destruction  of  our  sovereign  lord  the  king,  whom 
Almighty  God  preserve,  with  a  long  and  prosperous  reign,  or  to  deprive 
or  depose  him  from  the  style,  honor,  or  kingly  name  of  the  imperial 
crown  of  England,  or  of  any  other  of  his  majesty's  dominions,  *  *  *  * 
shall  suffer  the  pains  of  death."  This  sovereign  lord  was  the  dissolute 
and  depraved  Charles  II.,  already  stained  with  the  blood  of  some  of 
New  England's  best  friends.  This  law  grew  out  of  the  same  excitement 
which  produced,  and  was  further  inflamed  by  the  perjuries,  forever  in- 
famous, of  Doctor  Titus  Gates.  Gne  hundred  years  afterwards  it  was 
law,  that  if  any  one  who  had  sworn  allegiance  to  George  III.  attempted 
to  resist  those  who  were  depriving  their  sovereign  lord  of  a  very  consi- 
derable part  of  his  majesty's  dominions,  should  suffer  the  pains  of  death  : 
thus  not  merely  repealing  the  former  law,  but  decreeing  death  to  those 
who  should  act  under  it.  In  1G9G,  a  statute  enlarged  the  definition  of 
treason,  so  as  to  include  imagining  the  death  of  the  queen,  or  of  the 
heir  apparent,  or  counterfeiting  the  king's  great  seal,  or  privy  seal,  or 
the  seal  of  the  province. 

In  1786,  there  were  several  convictions  of  treason,  the  last  that  have 
occurred  in  this  State.  The  State  was  burdened  with  a  heavy  debt,  and 
so  was  almost  every  town  and  parish  in  it ;  the  debts  due  from  individ- 
uals were  immense  ;  there  was  a  general  relaxation  of  manners,  a  decay 
of  trade,  a  scarcity  of  money,  mutual  distrust,  a  universal  want  of  con- 
fidence and  credit,  the  natural  consequences  of  an  eight  years'  war.  The 
taxes  granted  for  State  purposes  for  1786,  amounted  to  $1,038,097.54. 


476  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

The  taxable  property  of  tlie  Commonwealth  was  probably  less  than  one 
fifth  of  its  present  value.     Including  the  inhabitants  of  Maine,  the  popu- 
lation was  less  than  the  present  number  in  this  State  alone.     A  State 
tax  of  five  millions  of  dollars  now,  would  be  much  less  onerous  than  the 
tax  of  1786.     Such  were  the  causes  of  the  discontent  which  ripened  into 
Shay's  rebellion.     Although  Shay  embodied  eleven  hundred  men,  it 
was  quelled  with  the  loss  of  very  few  lives  ;  notwithstanding  the  convic- 
tions, no  executions  followed,  and  the  Commonwealth  has  enjoyed  in- 
ternal quiet  fifty  years.     If  these  misguided  men  had  been  dealt  with 
after  the  fashion  of  the  old  world,  and  half  the  Commonwealth  clothed 
in  mourning  by  the  execution  of  the  law,  could  this  happy  result  have 
ensued  ?     The  bitter  feehngs  of  resentment  implanted  in  the  breasts  of 
those  who  had  lost  fathers,  brothers,  sons,  friends,  and  relatives,  dear  to 
their  hearts,  and  victims  of  a  popular  delusion,  would  have  long  survived 
the  occasion  which  gave  them  birth.     This  spirit  of  revenge  would  have 
burst  out  in  another  insurrection,  perhaps  successful,  as  soon  as  circum- 
stances conspired  to  favor  it.     Had  Massachusetts  been  involved  in  a 
series  of  civil   commotions,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  federal 
Constitution  would  have  been  adopted,  and  what  would  have  been  the 
fate  of  this  nation  without  the  federal  union,  we  may  conjecture  from 
the  anarchy,  and  ceaseless  wars,  and  frequent  despotisms,  of  all  the 
leagued  republics  of  our  own  or  former  ages.     The  paternal  conduct  of 
our  government  allayed  the  passions  of  those  implicated  in  the  affliir, 
and  reconciled  all  to  a  patient  endurance,  until  better  times,  of  evils  which 
could  not  be  at  once  removed.     Many  doubted,  then,  whether  mercy  or 
severity  would  be  the  better  policy.   The  result  has  settled  that  question. 
Your  committee  suggest,  respectfully,  whether  it  be  wise  and  prudent  to 
place  in  the  hands  of  government  an  instrument,  which  in  a  period  of 
excitement  may  be  employed  to  inflict  a  lasting  injury,  and  which  can 
never,  under  any  circumstances,  be  necessary  or  useful.     Either  the 
State  treason  law  should  be   struck  from  the  statutes  entirely,  or  the 
crime  should  cease  to  be  capital. 

The  case  of  wilful  murder  remains  to  be  considered.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  hang  the  murderer  in  order  to  guard  society  against  him,  and  to 
prevent  him  from  repeating  the  crime.  If  it  were,  we  should  hang  the 
maniac,  who  is  the  most  dangerous  murderer.  Society  may  defend  itself 
by  other  means  than  by  destroying  life.  Massachusetts  can  build  prisons 
strong  enough  to  secure  the  community  forever  against  convicted  felons. 
Some  will  justify  capital  punishment  on  the  ground  that  it  may  pre- 
vent the  perpetration  of  the  crime  by  others  ;  a  most  shocking  sort  of 
experimenting  upon  human  nature,  to  kill  one  man  in  order  to  reform  or 
confirm  the  virtue  of  another  !     This  idea  seems  to  involve  an  absurd, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  477 

but  an  awful  perversion  of  all  moral  reasoning.  Of  all  the  means  of 
exerting  a  good  moral  influence  upon  society,  that  of  shedding  human 
blood  would  seem  to  be  the  wildest  and  the  worst  that  has  ever  been 
resorted  to  by  reformers  and  philanthropists  ! 

But  if  any  thing  can  be  judged  by  history,  observation,  and  experience, 
it  has  long  been  demonstrated  that  crimes  are  not  diminished,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  increased  by  capital  punishments.  Whenever  and  wherever 
punishments  have  been  severe,  cruel,  and  vindictive,  then,  and  there, 
crime  has  most  abounded.  They  are  mutually  cause  and  effect.  If 
severe  punishments  do  not  tend  directly  to  produce  the  very  crimes  for 
which  they  are  inflicted,  as  in  some  cases  it  may  be  shown  statistically 
that  they  have  done,  they  indirectly,  by  ministering  to  bad  passions,  and 
diminishing  the  natural  sensibility  of  man  for  the  suflferings  of  his  fellow 
man,  induce  that  hardness  of  heart  which  prepares  the  way  for  the  com- 
mission of  the  most  ferocious  acts  of  violence.  Under  no  form  of  gov- 
ernment have  severe  corporal  punishments,  frequently  and  publicly 
administered,  improved  the  public  morals.  The  spectacle  of  capital 
punishments  is  most  barbarizing,  and  promotive  of  cruelty  and  a  disre- 
gard of  life.  Whoever  sees  life  taken  away  by  violent  means  experi- 
ences a  diminution  of  that  instinctive  horror  which  for  wise  purposes  we 
are  made  to  feel  at  the  thought  of  death.  Let  the  idea  of  crime,  horrible 
crime,  be  indissolubly  and  universally  associated  with  the  voluntary 
and  deliberate  destruction  of  life  under  whatever  pretext.  Whoever 
strengthens  this  association  in  the  public  mind,  does  more  to  prevent 
murders  than  any  punishment,  with  whatever  aggravation  of  torture, 
can  effect  through  fear.  The  denomination  of  Friends  have  always  been 
educated  in  this  idea,  and  among  them  murders  are  unknown.  The 
strongest  safeguard  of  life,  is  its  sanctity ;  and  this  sentiment  every  exe- 
cution diminishes. 

That  the  fear  of  death  has  not  that  effect  on  criminals  which  a  mere 
theorist  might  suppose,  is  well  known  to  every  practical  observer. 
Robberies  are  planned  under  the  gallows,  by  the  accomplices  of  the 
sufferer  in  his  last  crime.  Mr.  Dymond  relates  the  story  of  a  man  exe- 
cuted for  uttering  forged  bank  notes,  whose  body  was  delivered  to  his 
friends.  With  the  corpse  lying  on  a  bed  before  them,  they  were  seized  in 
the  act  of  carrying  on  the  same  trafhc,  and  the  officer  coming  upon  them 
suddenly,  the  widow  thrust  a  bundle  of  the  bills  into  the  mouth  of  her 
dead  husband  for  concealment.  A  committee  of  the  legislature  of  IVIaine, 
in  their  excellent  report  made  last  year  upon  this  subject,  remark,  that 
"  those  whom  it  would  be  desirable  to  affect  solemnly,  and  from  whom 
we  have  the  most  reason  to  fear  crime,  make  the  day  of  public  execution 
a  day  of  drunkenness  and  profanity.     These,  with  their  attendant  vices, 


478  MEMOIES,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

quarrelling  and  fighting,  were  carried  to  such  an  extent  in  Augusta,  (at 
Sager's  execution,)  that  it  became  necessary  for  the  police  to  interfere, 
and  the  jail,  which  had  just  been  emptied  of  a  murderer,  threw  open  its 
doors  to  receive  those  who  came  to  profit  by  the  solemn  scene  of  a  public 
execution."  The  circumstances  j^receding  the  execution  of  Prescott,  at 
Hopkinton,  New  Hampshire,  a  few  months  ago,  illustrate  the  moral 
effect  of  the  law.  The  riot  of  a  mob  thirsting  for  his  blood,  and  desirous 
to  take  revenge  with  their  own  hands,  rather  than  lose  the  spectacle  of 
that  wretch's  last  agonies,  resulted  in  the  death  of  a  tender  wife,  daughter, 
and  mother,  for  whose  known  danger  the  revengers  of  blood,  in  their 
fury,  felt  no  pity.  Such  examples  must  have  a  fearfully  hardening 
effect :  the  spectators  go  away  with  their  virtuous  sensibility  lessened, 
their  hearts  more  callous,  and  with  less  power  of  resistance,  if  any  strong 
temptation  shall  urge  them  to  a  deed  of  blood. 

That  hanging  adds  no  new  terrors  to  that  death  which  all  must  sooner 
or  later  meet,  is  evident  from  its  having  become  so  common  a  mode  of 
suicide,  for  which  purpose  it  was  almost  unknown  among  the  ancients. 
Nof  only  the  mode  is  borrowed,  but  the  act  itself  is  often  suggested,  from 
public  executions.  Often,  very  often  has  it  happened,  that  an  execution 
has  been  followed  on  the  next  day,  or  within  a  few  weeks  by  suicides 
among  those  who  witnessed  the  scene.  It  cannot  be  expected,  therefore, 
that  it  should  have  any  peculiar  virtue  to  deter  from  crime  ;  least  of  all 
from  that  crime  for  which  it  steels  the  breast,  and  braces  up  the  nerves. 
Very  lately,  in  the  State  of  Ohio,  and  the  day  on  which  a  man  was  ex- 
ecuted for  the  murder  of  his  wife,  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  cruel- 
ty, another  man,  near  the  place  of  execution,  murdered  his  wife  in  the 
same  manner ;  and  this  is  by  no  means  the  only  instance  where  the 
crime  seems  to  have  been  directly  suggested  by  the  punishment  intended 
to  prevent  it.  Howard  tells  us  that  in  Denmark,  where  executions  are 
seldom  known,  women  guilty  of  child  murder  were  sent  to  the  spin- 
houses  for  life,  a  sentence  dreaded  so  much  more  than  death,  that  since 
the  change  the  crime  has  been  much  less  frequent.  He  also  noticed  the 
fact,  that  in  Amsterdam,  there  had  not  been  a  hundred  executions  for  a 
hundred  years,  while  in  London  from  1749  to  1771,  there  were  six  hun- 
dred and  seventy-eight,  or  nearly  thirty  a  year  ;  yet  the  morals  of  Lon- 
don are  certainly  not  improved  in  proportion ;  and  the  English  are  be- 
coming convinced,  by  experience,  that  it  is  not  by  the  prodigal  waste  of 
the  blood  of  offenders  that  offences  are  to  be  checked,  and  least  of  all, 
those  high  crimes  springing  from  ungovernable  passions,  or  a  depravity 
or  stupidity  beyond  the  reach  of  motives  not  competent  to  restrain  lesser 
criminals  from  lesser  guilt.  In  France  capital  punishments  do  not  di- 
minish the  number  of  murders,  which  in  1831  amounted  to  two  hundred 


OF  ROBERT   RAIS^TOUL,  JR.  479 

and  sixty-seven,  while  the  average  of  five  preceding  years  Avas  only 
two  hundred  and  twenty-seven.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  where  mur- 
der is  the  only  crime  punished  with  death,  the  other  five  crimes  capital 
among  us  are  "  as  rare  as  anywhere  in  Christendom."  In  Maine,  four 
of  these  offences  have  ceased  to  be  capital,  with  such  favorable  results 
that  no  one  proposes  to  go  backward,  but  there  is  a  strong  disposition  to 
abolish  all  capital  punishments.  In  Kew  Hampshire,  where  they  pun- 
ish only  murder  and  treason  with  death,  the  proportion  of  convicts  to 
the  state  prison  to  the  population,  is  only  one  in  twelve  thousand  two 
hundred  and  eight,  while  in  Massachusetts,  with  six  capital  crimes,  it  is 
one  to  seven  thousand  and  sixteen.  In  Tuscany,  while  there  were  no 
capital  punishments,  there  were  but  four  murders  in  twenty-five  years, 
while  in  Rome  there  were  twelve  times  that  number  in  a  single  year, 
death  being  the  penalty.  Under  the  stern  severity  of  the  British  law, 
crimes  have  increased  in  fourteen  years,  as  twenty-four  to  ten,  that  is 
more  than  doubled !  Of  one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  convicts  under 
sentence  of  death,  Mr.  Roberts  found  that  one  hundred  and  sixty-four 
had  attended  executions^  A  punishment  cannot  be  necessary  to  repress 
the  crime  of  murder,  which  has  not  so  strong  a  tendency  to  repress  it  as 
milder  punishments.  A  punishment  cannot  be  necessary  which  fosters 
the  propensities  which  occasion  murder. 

This  punishment  is  not  only  unnecessary  for  protection,  which  would 
seem  to  be  its  only  legitimate  object,  but  so  crude  and  ill  considered 
have  been  the  opinions  heretofore  entertained  upon  the  subject,  that  this 
committee  feel  compelled  to  go  one  step  further,  and  urge,  that  it  is  not 
justifiable  for  revenge.  This  may  appear  to  some  superfluous,  but  there 
is  strong  ground  to  believe,  that  the  vindictive  feelings  are  at  the  bottom 
of  much  of  the  zeal  manifested  in  favor  of  "  cruel  and  unusual  punish- 
ments," among  those  who  do  not  weigh  their  opinions  so  carefully  as  the 
members  of  this  house.  There  can  be  no  need  to  prove,  it  suffices  to 
suggest,  that  revenge  is  an  unholy  passion,  itself  the  parent  of  many 
crimes,  often  of  the  crime  of  murder,  and  that  it  cannot  be  that  the  law 
should  gratify  and  foster  in  the  breasts  of  men  the  spirit  of  demons. 
The  law  should  be  wholly  passionless,  unbiassed  by  resentment  or  par- 
tiality, sitting  in  calm  serenity  in  the  temple  of  justice,  to  mete  out  penal- 
ties by  the  measure  of  absolute  necessity,  and  staying  the  hand  of  the 
wrongdoer :  thus,  and  thus  only,  should  it  guard  the  public  good,  and 
protect  individual  rights.  There  may  have  been  many  cases  where  gov- 
ernment found  it  expedient  to  employ  revenge,  as  well  as  other  bad  pas- 
sions, to  execute  its  decrees  :  such  a  necessity  is  to  be  regretted,  and  the 
practice  abandoned  as  soon  as  the  necessity  ceases.  Encouraging  com- 
mon informers  was  an  expedient  of  this  sort,  very  common  in  our  own 


480  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

laws,  but  it  has  been  wisely  stricken  out  in  almost  every  instance  from 
the  Revised  Statutes.  Fixing  a  price  upon  the  head  of  a  refugee  was 
once  thought  just  and  useful,  but  is  now  condemned.  Promising  pardon 
to  an  accomplice,  to  induce  him  to  testify  against  his  fellow  criminal,"  is 
a  use  now  made  of  the  treachery  which  is  despised  while  it  is  used. 

In  a  state  of  nature,  every  man  revenges  to  the  utmost  of  his  power 
the  injury  that  he  has  received  :  retaliation  is  the  only  rule  of  punish- 
ment. In  a  rude  state  of  society  these  practices  are  suffered  to  continue, 
because  they  cannot  be  prevented.  The  law  only  undertakes  to  restrict 
them  within  certain  limits,  and  to  forbid  their  most  cruel  excesses.  The 
legislator  who  should  enact  laws  which  presuppose  a  more  elevated  stand- 
ard of  morality,  would  find  that  public  opinion  did  not  sustain  him,  and 
that  his  statutes  would  remain  inoperative  and  useless.  It  has  been  ob- 
served, that  among  a  people  hardly  yet  emerged  from  barbarity,  punish- 
ments should  be  most  severe,  as  strong  impressions  are  required ;  but  in 
proportion  as  the  minds  of  men  become  softened  by  their  intercourse  in 
society,  the  severity  should  be  diminished,  if  it  be  intended  that  the  ne- 
cessary relation  between  the  infliction  and  its  object  should  be  main- 
tained. For  this  reason,  the  indulgence  of  individual  revenge  is  much 
less  an  evil  while  society  is  obliged  to  tolerate  it,  than  it  would  be  in  a 
later  stage,  when  it  might  be,  and  ought  to  be  suppressed.  We  must  carry 
these  ideas  with  us,  v/hile  w^e  inquire  whether  regulations  promulgated 
in  the  infancy  of  our  race,  or  adapted  afterwards  to  a  peculiarly  stiff- 
necked  and  obdurate  people,  are  obligatory  upon  mankind  in  their  pre- 
sent refinement  and  civilization. 

Sundry  passages  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures  have  been  adduced,  as  au- 
thorizing and  enjoining  capital  punishments.  These  injunctions  were 
addressed  to  people  but  a  few  removes  from  the  condition  of  savages, 
and  almost  universally  addicted  to  the  most  heinous  acts  of  wickedness. 
For  the  hardness  of  their  hearts,  their  great  lawgiver  wrote  them  the 
sanguinary  precepts,  which  a  blind  attachment  to  antiquity  still  invokes, 
in  part,  though  all  of  them  unsuited  to  our  circumstances,  and  most  of 
them  universally  confessed  to  be  so.  In  those  days,  when  the  constant 
exhibition  of  the  most  stupendous  miracles  could  not  soften  their  ada- 
mantine hearts,  which  seem  to  have  been  almost  as  hard  as  Pharaoh's, 
nor  subdue  that  stubborn  unbelief  of  the  rebellious  Hebrews,  which  is 
perhaps  the  most  wonderful  feature  in  their  whole  amazing  history,  (see 
Numbers,  chapter  xi,  also  chapter  xii,  10  and  11,  22,  and  39  to  45,  also 
chapter  xvi,  and  many  other  instances  from  their  departure  out  of  Egypt, 
down  to  the  present  time,)  when,  after  the  carcasses  of  that  whole  "  evil 
congregation,"  even  six  hundred  thousand  footmen,  had  fallen  in  the 
wilderness  for  their  obdurate  impenitence,  their  sons  grew  up  "  an  in- 


OF  EGBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  481 

crease  of  sinful  men,"  and  took  no  warning  by  the  plagues  in  which 
their  fathers  perished,  it  is  obvious  why  the  most  terrible  national  judg- 
ments must  be  denounced  upon  them,  for  their  national  sins,  such  as  are 
unheard  of  in  modern  history.  (Deuteronomy  iv.  24-28,  xxvii.  and 
three  following  chapters,  —  utter  perdition ;  to  be  scattered  and  banished; 
their  land  to  become  brimstone  and  salt,  and  be  cursed  like  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  ;  to  be  smitten  with  war,  famine,  and  pestilence,  and  driven 
to  eat  their  own  children.)  It  is  equally  obvious  that  the  severest  pun- 
ishments for  private  offences,  (stoning  to  death  and  burning  to  death,) 
though  they  might  be  necessary  to  produce  an  effect  upon  a  character 
constituted  like  theirs,  are  not  therefore  suited  to  our  times,  when,  far 
from  exercising  a  salutary  influence,  they  would  universally  be  deemed 
degrading  and  demoralizing  spectacles.  In  those  days,  when  there  was 
no  king  in  Israel,  nor  any  other  government  capable  of  preserving  its 
authority,  and  maintaining  social  order,  when  every  man  did  that  which 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes,  (Judges  xvii.  6,  also  xxi.  25,)  it  would  have 
been  impracticable,  without  a  perpetual  miracle,  even  if  it  had  been  de- 
sirable, to  exclude  from  cases  of  crime  and  punishment  the  operation  of 
revenge.  The  fact,  that  it  was  permitted,  and  legalized,  therefore,  does 
not  furnish  us,  who  can  exclude  that  passion,  with  a  profitable  example 
for  imitation.  During  their  forty  years'  w^anderings  in  the  wilderness, 
through  the  long  period  of  anarchy  and  slavery,  alternately  prevailing, 
w4iich  preceded  their  kings,  and  during  the  bloody  series  of  treasons, 
successful  rebellions,  civil  wars,  and  foreign  invasions,  which  followed 
the  first  assumption  of  the  royal  dignity,  and  ceased  not  till  the  final  de- 
struction of  the  nation  under  those  awful  circumstances  so  often  foretold, 
imprisonment  for  life,  or  even  for  a  term  of  years,  would  have  been  incon- 
venient and  insecure  :  nor  would  the  prison,  as  among  civilized  people, 
have  inspired  the  beholders  with  a  wholesome  terror  ;  amid  such  appal- 
ling scenes  as  fill  their  annals,  to  many  a  wretch  it  might  well  appear  a 
refuge  from  despair,  and  the  abode  of  peace.  There  was  then  no  fit 
substitute  for  capital  punishments,  and  they  were  resorted  to  almost  of 
necessity.  But,  because  a  peculiar  people,  under  the  most  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances, by  as  express  an  interposition  of  heaven,  as  that  wdiich  di- 
rected Abraham  to  offer  up  Isaac,  were  commanded  to  punish  certain 
crimes  with  death,  shall  we,  a  polished  and  humane  people,  whose  moual 
sensibility  is  deeply  wounded  by  the  spectacle,  under  circumstances  es- 
sentially opposite  to  theirs,  without  warrant,  violate  the  great  command, 
which  says  to  the  legislator  as  well  as  to  the  subject,  thou  shalt  not  kill? 
This  is  the  command  both  of  nature  and  of  revelation  ;  it  grows  out  of 
no  local  or  temporary  occasion,  but  is  eternal  and  universal  in  the  obli- 
gation it  imposes.     How,  then,  dare  any  man  disobey  it ;  and  how  is  it 

41 


482  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

an  excuse  for  our  disobedience,  that  the  man  we  kill  has  broken  this  law 
before  we  break  it,  and  that  we  have  taken  into  our  own  hands  to  ex- 
ercise upon  him  that  vengeance  which  the  Almighty  has  declared  be- 
longs to  himself,  because  he,  in  his  inscrutable  purposes,  some  thousands 
of  years  ago,  specially  authorized  a  particular  people,  in  specified  cases, 
to  be  the  executors  of  his  vengeance  ?  We  have  no  message  from 
heaven,  as  they  had,  exempting  from  this  law  the  six  cases  which  our 
statutes  exempt.  This  commandment  made  a  part  of  the  Mosaic  code, 
with  various  exceptions.  In  the  New  Testament  it  is  reenacted  as  a 
positive  and  unyielding  text,  and  as  such  makes  a  part  of  the  Christian 
system.  The  sanction  of  that  part  of  the  commandments  relating  to 
moral  conduct  is  recorded  by  three  of  the  evangelists.  (Matthew  xix. 
18,  19;  Mark  x.  19  ;  Luke  xviii.  20.)  They  all  enumerate  the  third, 
sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  commandments,  to  which  one  adds  the 
words,  "Defraud  not,"  —  and  another,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself,"  and  they  all  relate  that  lesson  of  self-devotion  and  comprehen- 
sive charity  which  illustrates  so  happily  the  spirit  in  which  these  pre- 
cepts are  to  be  observed,  upon  hearing  which  the  rich  man,  or  ruler,  as 
Luke  calls  him,  went  away  sorrowful,  for  he  had  great  possessions.  No 
qualification  is  anywhere  attached  to  either  of  these  rules.  We  are  not 
forbidden  to  steal  except  in  certain  cases,  to  bear  false  witness  except  in 
certain  cases,  to  defraud  except  in  certain  cases,  or  to  love  our  neighbor 
as  ourselves  except  in  certain  cases.  It  is  to  be  proved,  then,  before  it 
can  be  admitted,  that  the  command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is  any  less 
universal  than  these.  Surely  the  direction,  immediately  after  the  re- 
capitulation, given  to  the  young  man  to  dedicate  all  his  vast  possession 
to  the  relief  of  the  helpless  and  the  destitute,  affords  no  countenance  to 
the  assumption  that  Christians  are  allowed  to  kill  any  one,  for  any  breach, 
however  aororravated,  either  of  conventional  or  natural  law.  Your  com- 
mittee  can  conceive  of  but  one  excuse  which  could  ever  justify  that 
assumption,  the  imperative  necessity  which  they  have  endeavored  to 
show  does  not  exist  with  either  of  our  six  capital  crimes  in  the  present 
state  of  society. 

It  is  sometimes  supposed,  that,  although  remarks  like  these  may  be 
justly  applied  to  all  other  capital  punishments,  yet  that  there  is  one 
solitary  exception ;  that  the  life  of  the  murderer  we  may  rightfully  take 
away,  because  such  authority  was  given  to  Noah,  by  a  law  intended  to 
be  universal  and  perpetual.  Is  not  this  impression  founded  upon  an 
entire  misapprehension  of  the  passage  which  has  given  rise  to  it  ?  If 
there  is  reason  to  doubt  whether  this  passage  justifies  the  construction 
so  often  put  upon  it,  the  true  import  ought  to  be  ascertained  by  a  careful 
examination. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  483 

The  ninth  chapter  of  Genesis  contains  the  covenant  with  Noah.  In 
the  first  verse,  God  blesses  the  patriarch  and  his  sons.  The  second  verse 
continues,  "  And  the  fear  of  you,  and  the  dread  of  you,  shall  be  upon 
every  beast  of  the  earth,"  etc.  The  third  verse  authorizes  the  eating 
of  animals,  as  well  as  vegetables.  The  fourth  verse  annexes  a  restric- 
tion upon  this  liberty,  and  with  the  two  succeeding  verses  is  as  follows  : 
"  4.  But  flesh  with  the  life  thereof,  which  is  the  blood  thereof,  shall  ye 
not  eat.  5.  And  surely  your  blood  of  your  lives  will  I  require  ;  at  the 
hand  of  every  beast  will  I  require  it,  and  at  the  hand  of  man  ;  at  the 
hand  of  every  man's  brother  will  I  require  the  life  of  man.  G.  AVhoso 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed :  for  in  the  image 
of  God  made  he  man."  It  is  here  to  be  remarked  that  the  Hebrew 
participle  translated  "  whoso  sheddeth,"  answers  to  our  English  word 
"  shedding,"  and  might,  with  quite  as  much  or  more  propriety,  be  ren- 
dered, "  whatsoever  sheddeth  ; "  and  the  grammatical  construction  will 
be  consulted  by  substituting  "  its  "  for  "  his."  The  clause  will  then  read, 
"  whatsoever  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  its  blood  be  shed." 
This  makes  it  consistent  with  the  context.  The  object  seems  to  be,  to 
inculcate  the  sanctity  of  human  life.  The  fear  and  dread  of  man  shall 
be  upon  every  beast ;  the  beasts  may  be  eaten  for  food,  but  not  with  the 
sacred  principle  of  life,  the  blood.  For  life  is  sacred,  and  if  your  blood 
of  your  lives  shall  in  any  case  be  shed,  I  will  require  a  strict  account  of 
it,  whether  it  be  shed  by  beast  or  man.  I  will  myself  call  to  a  strict 
account  the  man  who  shall  shed  the  blood  of  his  brother,  but  if  a  heast 
has  shed  man's  blood,  by  man  let  that  beast  be  slain,  because  that  beast 
has  profanely  marred  the  image  of  God  in  the  human  frame.  The  pro- 
vision conforms  naturally  with  that  dread  and  fear,  with  which  beasts 
are  to  regard  their  appointed  lord ;  it  accords  precisely  with  the  main 
object  of  the  law  itself,  that  blood  shall  not  be  eaten,  in  order  to  cultivate 
a  reverence  for  the  principle  of  life ;  and  we  see  the  force  of  the  reason 
for  it,  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  the  Deity,  which  would  not  be 
very  apparent,  if  it  were  understood  to  mean,  that  because  murder  was 
a  marring  of  God's  image,  therefore,  whenever  that  image  had  been  once 
marred,  it  should  be  marred  again.  That  the  Divine  Wisdom  did  pre- 
scribe both  these  regulations,  to  eat  no  blood,  and  to  slay  the  beast  which 
destroyed  a  man,  is  an  unquestioned  fact,  and  the  latter  would  seem  likely 
to  be  as  effectual  as  the  former  in  heightening  the  estimation  of  human  life, 
which  a  second  marring  of  the  divine  image,  in  revenge  for  the  first, 
would  only  tend  to  cheapen.  Both  these  regulations  were  reenacted  at 
a  later  date  ;  the  first  in  Leviticus  xvii.  10  to  14,  where  we  read,  "I 
will  even  set  my  face  against  that  soul  that  eateth  blood,  and  will  cut 
him  off  from  among  his  people.    For  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood." 


484  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

And  again,  "  tlie  life  of  all  flesli  is  the  blood  thereof ;  whosoever  eateth 
it  shall  be  cut  off."  The  other  of  these  regulations  is  to  be  found  in 
Exodus  xxi.  28.  "  If  an  ox  gore  a  man  or  woman  that  they  die,  then 
the  ox  shall  be  surely  stoned,  and  his  flesli  shall  not  be  eaten  ;  but  the 
owner  of  the  ox  shall  be  quit." 

If  this  be  not  the  true  interpretation  of  the  sixth  verse  of  the  ninth 
chapter  of  Genesis,  but  is  to  be  understood  to  mean  the  man  who 
sheds,  and  not  the  beast  who  sheds,  it  is  still  far  from  evident  that  the 
passage  contains  a  law.  "  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  hy  man  shall 
Ms  blood  he  shed,'"  is  an  expression  precisely  parallel  to  that  of  the  New 
Testament,  "  All  they  that  take  the  sword,  shall  perish  with  the  sicord  ;" 
but  it  was  never  imagined  that  this  latter  passage  contained  a  divine 
command  to  Christians  to  exterminate  with  the  sword  every  member  of 
the  military  profession  ;  why,  then,  should  the  former  be  thought  to 
enjoin  capital  punishment  ?  The  two  passages,  if  the  former  refers  to 
man  and  not  to  beasts,  would  seem  to  be  merely  declaratory  of  the 
natural  and  general  consequences,  the  one  of  murder,  the  other  of  war. 
If  this  were  a  law,  it  would  be  peremptory  in  all  cases,  death  for  death, 
making  no  distinction  between  murder,  manslaughter,  excusable  and 
justifiable  homicide,  much  as  the  law  now  is  among  some  oriental  na- 
tions. If  this  law  is  obligatory  upon  us,  it  is  obligatory  in  this  form,  yet 
no  member  of  this  legislature  would  be  willing  so  to  receive  it.  If  it 
were  meant  for  a  universal  law,  why  was  it  not  given  when  the  first  case 
happened,  that  of  Cain,  and  why  was  it  not  ordered  to  be  enforced  in 
so  many  cases  occurring  throughout  the  historical  parts  of  the  Old 
Testament,  such  as  those  of  Moses  and  David,  to  instance  no  more  ?  A 
law  which  is  not  stated  to  have  been  enforced  in  a  single  case  for  many 
hundred  years  after  it  was  given,  under  a  theocracy,  and  while  it  was 
often  broken,  cannot  have  been  meant  for  universal  observation,  ages 
after,  under  governments  far  from  infallible,  and  when  milder  manners, 
and  the  extinction  of  that  ferocity  of  character  prevalent  in  early  times, 
call  for  milder  punishments. 

If  the  antiquity  of  this  supposed  law  is  alleged  to  give  it  a  perpetual 
binding  authority,  go  back  to  a  much  more  ancient  decision  upon  the 
same  point,  much  more  likely  to  be  intended  for  an  everlasting  precedent. 
For  the  hardness  of  their  hearts,  precepts  suited  to  a  rude  and  half 
barbarous  race  were  given  to  the  Jews,  and  for  the  same  reason  were 
even  more  likely  to  be  given  to  the  immediate  descendants  of  Noah  ;  but 
in  the  beginning  it  was  not  so.  Cain  was  sentenced  to  be  a  fugitive  and 
a  vagabond,  and  in  his  despair  he  cried  out,  "  my  punishment  is  greater 
than  I  can  bear."  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him.  Therefore,  whosoever 
slayeth  Cain,  vengeance  shall  he  tahen  on  him  sevenfold.     And  the  Lord 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  485 

set  a  mark  upon  Cain,  lest  any  finding  him  should  hill  him."  A  few 
verses  farther  on,  we  find  Lamech  saying  to  his  wives,  "  I  have  slain  a 
man  to  my  wounding,  and  a  young  man  to  my  hurt :  if  Cain  shall  be 
avenged  seven  fold,  truly  Lamech  seventy  and  seven  fold."  From  which 
we  may  infer  that  the  precedent  established  in  the  case  of  the  first  mur- 
derer was  followed  in  that  of  the  second,  and  that  he  who  first  violated 
the  sanctity  of  life  was  judged  less  worthy  of  protection  than  he  who 
should  afterwards  follow  that  evil  example.  If  capital  punishment  was 
not  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  best  interests  of  society  in  the 
time  of  Cain  and  Lamech,  when  imprisonment  was  impossible,  and  not 
even  attempted,  and  that  it  was  not,  appears  from  the  judgment  of  that 
wisdom  from  which  there  is  no  appeal,  how  can  it  be  needed  now,  when 
we  have  the  most  perfect  arrangements  both  for  securing  and  reforming 
the  offender  ? 

That  this  law,  if  it  be  a  law,  is  more  ancient  than  the  law  of  Moses,  is 
no  reason  for  believing  it  was  not  abolished  or  superseded  by  Christianity. 
Circumcision  was  the  sign  of  the  covenant  made  with  Abraham  and  his 
posterity  ages  before  Moses,  and  Moses  himself  was  threatened  with  the 
punishment  of  death  for  the  non-performance  of  this  rite,  even  before 
the  departure  out  of  Egypt.  (Exodus  iv.  24,  25,  26.)  Yet  it  appears 
in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Acts,  that  the  apostles  after  a  full  discussion 
of  the  matter,  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  no  Gentiles  need  be  circum- 
cised, (Acts  XV.  1-29,  also  xxi.  25,)  although  the  command  was  given 
to  the  patriarch  and  to  all  his  descendants,  including  whole  nations  of 
Gentiles,  and  to  all  their  slaves,  also  Gentiles,  under  penalty  of  death, 
and  "  for  an  everlasting  covenant."  (Genesis  xviii.  9-14.)  This  com- 
mand bears  much  more  the  appearance  of  being  literally  everlasting  in 
its  obligations  than  the  phrase  in  question,  yet  Christians  now  make 
great  exertions  to  convert  Jews  from  their  observance  of  it,  believing  it 
to  have  become  for  the  last  eighteen  centuries  null  and  void.  A  much 
more  ancient  institution  than  this,  the  sabbath  of  the  seventh  day,  sanc- 
tified at  the  creation,  (Gen.  ii.  3,)  and  seeming  to  be  of  universal  obliga- 
tion from  that  circumstance,  for  the  slightest  infraction  of  which  the 
penalty  of  death  was  inflicted  ;  (Ex.  xxxi.  14;  xxxv.  2  ;  Numbers  xv. 
32-36)  ;  was  abolished  by  the  Christian  religion.  But  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  believe  that  this  part  of  the  covenant  given  to  Noah,  extends  any 
further  than  the  rest.  It  is  no  more  than  coextensive  with  the  prohibi- 
tion to  eat  blood,  which  was  renewed  by  the  apostles  and  applied  to  the 
Gentiles,  when  they  released  them  from  that  intolerable  yoke  the  Jewish 
law  ;  and  by  breaking  which  a  man  forfeited  his  life,  while  the  injunction 
to  punish  murder  with  death  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment.   That  part  of  the  command  which  the  apostles  especially  retained 

41* 


486  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  recommended  to  the  Gentiles,  we  have  abandoned  as  being  unsuited 
to  our  circumstances  ;  why,  then,  should  we  adhere  to  that  other  part  of 
it  which  the  apostles  did  not  retain,  and  which  is  not  once  alluded  to  in 
the  whole  New  Testament,  but  is  diametrically  opposite  to  its  pervading 
spirit  ?  This  apparent  sanction  of  revenge,  for  to  that  it  would  amount 
if  it  were  a  command,  not  being  a  part  of  the  Christian  system,  can 
claim  no  preeminence  above  the  Mosaic  code,  but  must  stand  or  fall  with 
the  provisions  of  this  code,  according  as  it  is  suited  or  otherwise  to  the 
existing  state  of  society. 

The  Mosaic  code  was  a  code  of  blood.  It  had  one  general  penalty,  like 
the  code  of  Draco,  and  that  penalty  was  death.  The  soul  that  presumptu- 
ously broke  any  of  the  commandments  should  be  utterly  cut  off :  Numbers 
XV.  22,  23,  30,  31.  The  children  of  Israel  are  represented  as  crying  out, 
"  Behold,  we  die,  we  perish,  we  all  jDcrish,"  —  which  was  literally  true, 
for  sentence  of  death  was  pronounced  against  them,  all  that  were  over 
twenty  years  of  age,  except  Caleb  and  Joshua,  for  their  unbelief:  (Num. 
xiv.  29,  32,  35,)  and  their  carcasses  fell  in  the  wilderness,  as  was  de- 
nounced against  them  when  they  murmured  at  Kadesh.  Moses  and 
Aaron  died  for  their  sin' at  Meribah,  one  upon  Mount  Hor,  and  the  other 
on  Mount  Nebo  :  Numbers  xx.  12,  28 ;  Deuteronomy  xxxii.  50,  51 ;  xxxiv. 
0.  For  an  idea  of  the  strength  of  the  motives  it  was  necessary  to  set 
before  such  a  people,  one  may  consult  the  twenty-seventh  and  several 
following  chapters  of  Deuteronomy.  The  severity  with  which  they  were 
chastised  may  be  seen  in  the  destruction  of  Korah  and  his  company,  and 
of  fourteen  thousand  seven  hundred  men  the  very  next  day :  Numbers 
xvi.  of  twenty-four  thousand  men  :  Numbers  x?:v.  of  Achan,  burnt  with 
his  wife  and  children  for  purloining  forbidden  plunder  ;  in  the  extermi- 
nation of  all  the  women  and  children,  and  most  of  the  men  of  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin  for  the  sin  of  a  part  of  the  men ;  and  of  the  men  of  Kadesh 
Barnea,  because  they  would  not  assist  in  the  slaughter.  Yet  none  of 
these  punishments  appear  to  have  had  any  lasting  effect  upon  them.  It 
would  seem  as  reasonable  to  urge  that  Christians  ought  to  adopt  their 
rules  of  war  against  the  Canaanites,  as  to  pretend  that  a  criminal  code 
suited  to  their  character  could  be  suited  to  ours.  Polygamy  was  not 
forbidden  by  that  code  ;  bigamy  was  expressly  recognized  :  Deuteronomy 
xxi.  15.  The  trial  by  ordeal  was  instituted  :  Numbers  v.  11-13. 
"Witches  and  wizards  were  sentenced  to  death  :  Exodus  xxii.  18 ;  Lev. 
XX.  6,  27.  When  all  these  regulations  were  proper  and  necessary,  it 
was  no  doubt  equally  proper,  and  for  precisely  the  same  reasons,  that 
murder  should  be  punished  with  death. 

It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  a  different  punishment  had  been 
decreed  for  murder.     Of  the  ten  commandments,  one,  the  tenth,  cannot 


OF  ROBEET  RANTOUL,  JR.  487 

be  enforced  by  any  human  tribunal,  because  coveting  cannot  be  known 
until  it  manifests  itself  in  an  overt  act.  But  every  one  of  the  other  nine 
commandments  was  in  some  cases  sanctioned  with  the  penalty  of  death. 
This  penalty  for  infractions  of  the  first  and  second  commandments  may 
be  found  established  in  Deuteronomy  xiii.  1-5  ;  the  false  prophet  to  be 
put  to  death :  G-11  ;  one  who  entices  to  the  service  of  false  gods  to  be 
stoned:  12-16;  city  serving  false  gods  to  be  sacked,  burnt,  and  never 
rebuilt,  all  the  inhabitants  and  cattle  utterly  destroyed  with  the  edge  of 
the  sword  :  xvii.  2-7  ;  any  worshipper  of  sun  or  moon  or  other  gods  to  be 
stoned :  prophet  in  the  name  of  other  gods  or  without  authority  :  xviii. 
20,  to  die.  So  he  that  sacrificed  to  any  other  god  :  Exodus  xxii.  20  ;  or 
worshipped  Molech  :  Leviticus  xx.  1-5.  This  law  Avas  executed  in  the 
slaughter  of  three  thousand  worshippers  of  the  golden  calf:  Exodus  xxxii. 
27,  28.  So  strictly  was  religious  worship  guarded  with  this  penalty, 
that  it  was  denounced  for  not  keeping  the  passover,  for  sacrificing  at 
home,  for  eating  the  fat  of  the  ox,  sheep,  or  goat,  or  of  any  animal  used 
in  sacrifice,  for  eating  blood,  counterfeiting  the  holy  ointment  used  by 
priests  :  Exodus  xxx.  33  ;  or  the  holy  perfume  :  38  ;  or  touching,  or  seeing, 
or  coming  nigh  the  holy  things  :  Numbers  iv.  1^,  20 ;  xviii.  7,  22,  32. 

The  laws  under  this  head  have  been  enumerated  more  particularly,  to 
show  in  a  striking  light  how  opposite  was  their  government  in  its  nature 
and  objects  to  ours,  since  for  these  and  analogous  crimes,  which  they 
punished  with  death,  we  have  no  punishment  whatever,  and  by  our  Con- 
stitution they  are  left  to  every  man's  own  conscience. 

The  breach  of  the  third  commandment,  when  it  amounted  to  blas- 
phemy, was  punished  by  stoning  to  death:  Leviticus  xxiv,  10-1 G;  the 
execution  is  recorded  in  the  twenty-third  verse.  The  observation  of  the 
fourth  commandment  was  guarded  with  the  same  penalty  :  Exodus  xxxi. 
14;  XXXV.  2  ;  Numbers  xv.  32-36.  This  penalty  was  extended  to  the 
keeping  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month :  Leviticus  xxxiii.  29,  30. 
The  slightest  infraction  of  the  prescribed  rest,  gathering  a  few  sticks, 
was  enough  to  justify  death.  The  sanction  of  the  fifth  commandment 
may  be  found  in  Deuteronomy  xxl.  18-21 ;  in  Exodus  xxi.  15-17  ;  and 
in  Leviticus  xx.  9.  For  smiting  or  cursing  them,  or  for  disobedience, 
on  the  testimony  of  his  parents,  the  stubborn  son  was  stoned  to  death. 

Under  the  seventh  commandment,  adultery  was  punished  with  death : 
Lev.  XX.  10  ;  -Deut.  xxii.  22  ;  so  when  only  constructive  :  Deut.  xxii.  23  ; 
so  the  violation  of  a  betrothed  damsel :  Deut.  xxii.  25  ;  though  if  she  were 
not  betrothed  the  punishment  was  merely  a  fine.  So  death  was  the 
penalty  for  incest,  bestiality,  and  sodomy  :  Lev.  xx.  12-16  ;  Ex.  xxii.  19. 
The  daughter  of  a  priest  who  should  offend  against  chastity  was  burnt  to 


488  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

death  :  Leviticus  xxi.  9.     The  bride  suspected  not  to  be  a  maid,  upon  a 
very  uncertain  test,  was  stoned  to  death.     Deuteronomy  xxii.  20,  21. 

One  breach  of  the  eighth  commandment  was  capital,  man-stealing : 
Deuteronomy  xxiv.  7  ;  Exodus  xxi.  16.  So  also  was  the  violation  of  the 
ninth  commandment,  wlien  the  witness  falsely  charged  another  with  a 
capital  crime  :  Deuteronomy  xix.  21 ;  upon  the  principle  of  retaliation. 
Thus  were  all  the  commandments  sanctioned  by  the  same  bloody  penalty, 
and  they  are  described  by  the  Deity  himself  in  these  remarkable  words : 
"  Wherefore  I  gave  them  statutes  which  were  not  good,  and  judgments 
whereby  they  should  not  live  : "  Ezekiel  xx.  25.  Under  such  a  system 
it  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  the  punishment  of  death  had  not 
been  inflicted  for  murder,  but  because  it  was  naturally  a  part  of  that 
system,  it  cannot  follow  that  it  should  be  a  part  of  ours.  The  command 
"  thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is  undoubtedly  a  part  of  the  Christian  system, 
indeed  it  is  repeated  by  the  Saviour,  and  it  seems,  standing,  as  it  does, 
without  any  qualification,  to  forbid  capital  punishment,  quite  as  peremp- 
torily as  it  does  murder.  If  we  are  to  look  back  to  the  Mosaic  code  for 
qualifications  and  exceptions,  and  for  the  rule  of  punishment,  then  we 
are  called  on  to  adopt  a^ain  the  unchristian  spirit  of  revenge,  and  the 
rule  of  retaliation  so  pointedly  condemned  by  the  Saviour  in  his  sermon 
on  the  mount :  Matthew  v.  38,  39.  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been 
said,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ;  but  I  say  unto  you  that 
ye  resist  not  evil.  *  *  *  *  Love  youv  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse 
you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,"  etc.  The  old  law  of  murder  is 
alluded  to  in  the  twenty -first  verse  of  the  same  chapter,  but  instead  of 
approving  it,  the  Great  Teacher  turns  abruptly  from  it,  to  inculcate 
lessons  of  good  will,  forgiveness,  and  love,  and  to  contrast  the  mild  and 
pure  spirit  of  a  religion  seated  in  the  heart  with  the  crude,  gross,  and 
imperfect  ideas  of  morality  and  religion,  which  prevailed  among  his 
hearers.  No  principle  of  the  old  law  does  he  censure  more  distinctly 
and  decidedly  than  that  of  retaliation,  upon  which  the  punishment  of 
murder  is  grounded.  The  principle  is  laid  down  in  Deuteronomy  xix. 
19-21,  and  applied  to  perjury.  "  Then  shall  ye  do  unto  him,  as  he  had 
thought  to  do  unto  his  brother.  *  *  And  thine  eye  shall  not  pity ;  but 
life  shall  go  for  life ;  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot  for 
foot."  So  in  Exodus  xxi.  23-25  :  "  And  if  any  mischief  follow,  then 
thou  shalt  give  life  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot 
for  foot,  burning  for  burning,  wound  for  wound,  stripe  for  stripe  ; "  and 
V.  28  :  the  ox  that  gores  a  man  shall  be  stoned.  So  in  Leviticus  xxiv. 
17-22  :  "  And  he  that  killeth  any  man  shall  surely  be  put  to  death. 
And  he  that  killeth  a  beast  shall  make  it  good  ;  beast  for  beast.     And 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  489 

if  a  man  cause  a  blemish  in  his  neighbor ;  as  he  hath  done  so  shall  it  be 
done  to  him  ;  breach  for  breach,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth  ;  as  he  hath 
caused  a  blemish  in  man,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  him  again.  And  he  that 
killeth  a  beast  he  shall  restore  it ;  and  he  that  killeth  a  man  he  shall  be 
put  to  death."  In  all  these  passages  the  principle  is,  to  return  to  the 
criminal  the  amount  of  evil  he  had  inflicted.  The  Jews  were  taught  to 
love  their  neighbor  and  hate  their  enemy,  whom  they  regarded  as  the 
enemy  of  God,  to  be  "  utterly  destroyed."  See  instances  in  Deut.  ii. 
34;  XX.  17  ;  Joshua  vi.  21  ;  viii.  2G  ;  x.  28,  30,  32,  33,  35,  37,  39,  40, 
and  numerous  others.  Christ  in  teaching,  love  your  enemy,  rebukes  this 
propensity,  and  commands  to  do  good  to  them  which  hate  you,  and,  like 
the  Highest,  to  be  kind  unto  the  unthankful  and  the  evil.  "  Judge 
not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  judged :  condemn  not,  and  ye  shall  not  be  con- 
demned :  forgive,  and  ye  shall  be  forgiven."  "  Be  ye  therefore  merciful, 
as  your  Father  also  is  merciful :  "  Luke  vi.  27,  38  ;  these  are  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  gospel,  which  the  apostle  sums  up  in  a  rule  precisely  op- 
posite to  the  Mosaic  law  of  retaliation,  condemned  by  Christ ;  "  Recom- 
pense to  no  man  evil  for  evil:'^  Romans  xii.  17. 

In  case  of.  murder,  the  Mosaic  law  allowed  revenge  to  have  free  scope, 
as  it  does  among  our  North  American  Indians.  There  was  no  judge 
called  in,  but  the  nearest  relative  revenged  the  wrong.  The  improve- 
ment which  this  system  introduced  into  the  natural  law  of  savages  was 
simply  providing  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  man  who  had  accidentally 
slain  another :  Ex.  xxi.  12-14;  Deut.  iv.  41;  xix.  1-13;  Joshua  xx. 
1-9.  It  would  seem  that  manslaughter  was  punished  with  death  as  well 
as  murder,  though  of  this  there  may  be  a  doubt :  Leviticus  xxiv.  17,  21  ; 
Numbers  xxxv.  11-30.  Our  fathers  understood,  from  these  passages,  that 
manslaughter  was  a  capital  crime,  and  they  enacted,  Colony  Laws,  page 
59,  '"'  If  any  person  slayeth  another  suddenly,  in  his  anger  or  cruelty  of 
passion,  he  shall  be  put  to  death."  By  the  passage  last  cited  it  appears, 
that  even  in  case  of  purely  accidental  homicide,  where  one  killed  another 
unawares,  "  and  was  not  his  enemy,  neither  sought  his  harm,"  the  re- 
venger of  blood  was  allowed  to  kill  the  slayer,  if  he  could  find  him  any- 
where without  the  city  of  refuge,  before  the  death  of  the  high-priest. 

The  principles  developed  in  this  law  are  as  diametrically  opposed  to 
the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  as  unsuited  to  the  circumstances  of  our 
times,  and  the  existing  state  of  society,  as  the  law  which  directs  circum- 
cision under  pain  of  death:  Gen.  xvii.  14;  Ex.  iv.  24;  or  the  law 
which  punishes  with  death,  contempt  of  court,  or  disobedience  of  the 
court,  in  not  hearkening  unto  the  priest  or  judge:  Deut.  xvii.  13.  We 
might  as  well  adopt  their  law  of  Mayhem,  which  rests  on  the  same  prin- 
ciples, —  we  might  as  well  adopt  polygamy,  which  was  permitted  to  the 


490  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

patriarchs,  recognized  in  the  law  of  Moses,  practised  in  the  time  of 
Christ  and  the  apostles,  and  not  forbidden  by  them,  as  to  legalize  the 
passion  of  revenge,  which  they  did  forbid,  by  borrowing  the  Jewish  law 
of  murder,  manslaughter,  and  accidental  homicide.  If  we  are  to  inflict 
capital  punishment  for  murder,  because  private  revenge  was  allowed  to 
operate  unimpeded  among  the  Jews,  we  have  the  same  authority  for  the 
practice  of  assassination.  We  are  told,  in  Judges  iii.  15,  30,  that  the 
Lord  raised  up  Ehud  a  deliverer,  who,  under  the  pretence  of  a  secret 
errand  to  Eglon,  king  of  Moab,  obtained  an  audience  of  him  in  his  pri- 
vate parlor,  and  drawing  with  his  left  hand  a  two-edged  dagger,  stabbed 
him  in  the  abdomen,  and  going  out,  locked  the  door  upon  the  dead  body 
of  the  tyrant.  In  chapter  fourth,  is  an  account  of  the  treacherous  mur- 
der of  Sisera,  captain  of  the  host  of  Jabin,  by  Jael,  the  wife  of  Heber, 
who  was,  at  the  time,  at  peace  with  Jabin.  She  enticed  him  into  her 
tent  by  an  offer  of  hospitality  :  he  partook  of  her  refreshment,  and  trust- 
ing to  her  friendly  protection,  was  soon  fast  asleep.  Then  Jael  went 
softly  to  him  with  a  nail  and  a  hammer,  and  smote  the  nail  into  his  tem- 
ples, and  fastened  it  into  the  ground.  In  Christian  morality,  and  with^ 
out  the  divine  warrant,  which,  indeed,  nowhere  appears  in  the  history, 
this  whole  transaction  would  be  one  of  unequivocal  baseness,  yet  the 
whole  of  the  next  chapter  is  an  anthem  of  exultation  over  the  betrayed 
and  slaughtered  chief;  and  in  the  twenty-fourth  verse,  Deborah,  the 
prophetess,  says  of  the  assassin,  "  blessed  above  women  shall  Jael,  the 
wife  of  Heber,  the  Kenite,  be,  blessed  shall  she  be  above  women  in  the 
tent ; "  and  this  is  followed  by  bitter  mockery  of  the  bereaved  mother  of 
Sisera,  by  Deborah,  who  styles  herself  "  a  mother  in  Israel,"  (v.  7,)  and 
the  song  of  praise  and  triumph  closes  with  a  prayer,  "  so  let  all  thine 
enemies  perish,  O  Lord,  etc."  Upon  whatever  principles  these  passages 
are  to  be  explained,  the  purpose  for  which  we  quote  them  is  indisputable, 
that  the  acts  of  Ehud  and  Jael  are  not  examples  for  the  imitation  of 
Christians,  neither  are  those  maxims  of  revenge,  which  make  up  their 
penal  code,  to  whom  Moses  gave  precepts  for  the  hardness  of  their 
hearts.  The  government  of  the  Jews  was  altogether  peculiar,  and  in- 
tended to  effect  peculiar  ends.  It  will  not  answer  to  imitate  it  without 
the  special  assistance  which  was  vouchsafed  to  the  heads  of  that  govern- 
ment ;  least  of  all,  to  imitate  it  in  those  particulars,  in  which  it  is  furthest 
from  the  benignant  spirit  of  the  gospel.  , 

If  any  one  were  to  propose  to  restore  the  whole  Jewish  law  of  homi- 
cide, the  absurdity  would  be  perfectly  apparent ;  yet,  that  part  which  we 
retain,  seems  no  less  repugnant  to  Christian  principles  than  those  pro- 
visions which  we  so  long  ago  abandoned. 

Our  ancestors  appear  to  have  looked  for  precedents  in  the  Jewish  code, 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  491 

and,  accordingly,  they  punished,  with  death,  breaches  of  the  first  and 
second  commandments,  witchcraft,  blasphemy,  even  in  pagan  Indians, 
murder,  manslaughter,  bestiality,  sodomy,  adultery,  actual  or  construc- 
tive, manstealing,  perjury  against  life,  conspiracy,  rebellion,  cursing  a 
parent,  smiting  a  parent,  disobedience  of  parents,  ravishing  a  maid,  but 
not  a  married  woman,  abusing  a  child  under  ten  years.  Most  of  these 
crimes  have  long  ceased  to  be  capital,  but  the  consequences  of  that  early 
mistake  were  too  awful  ever  to  be  forgotten.  The  warning  should  not  be 
lost,  but  we  should  learn  from  it  to  construct  our  penal  laws  upon  the 
principles  of  reason,  and  from  a  knowledge  of  human  nature,  instead  of 
blindly  copying  what  was  intended  for  a  character  unlike  our  own,  under 
circumstances  in  many  respects  opposite  to  ours. 

Your  comnriittee  are  aware,  that  a  scriptural  argument  is  not  the  or- 
dinary mode  of  treating  a  question  of  modern  legislation  ;  but,  believing 
that  difficulties  existed  in  many  minds  from  a  narrow  view  of  the  bear- 
ing of  Jewish  law  on  modern  society,  from  a  misunderstanding  of  some 
passages,  and  a  neglect  of  others,  and  omitting  to  apply  to  the  question 
the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  Christian  dispensation ;  they 
thought  it  their  duty  to  endeavor  to  remove  these  difficulties.  They  are 
aware,  also,  that  their  remarks  on  this  branch  of  the  subject,"'contain  no 
new  information  to  those  who  are  familiar  with  their  Bibles;  but  Scrip- 
ture is  so  often  quoted  by  those  who  appear  not  to  have  examined  it, 
that  it  may  be  useful,  by  means  of  numerous  references,  to  make  an 
examination  of  the  whole  subject  easy  to  any  one  wishing  to  enter 
upon  it. 

Your  committee  have  confined  themselves  to  the  discussion  of  three 
questions:  1.  Has  society  a  right, from  the  social  compact,  to  take  away 
life  ?  2.  Is  there  any  thing  peculiar  to  either  of  our  six  capital  crimes 
which  requires  the  punishment  of  death  ?  3.  Is  there  any  command  in 
Scripture  which  enjoins  on  us  to  inflict  that  punishment  in  any  case  ? 
They  have  preferred  to  give  somewhat  thorough  and  extended  answers 
to  each  of  these  questions,  rather  than  to  go  over  the  whole  ground  which 
they  might  have  occupied.  To  enter  upon  important  considerations 
which  remain  untouched,  would  enlarge  the  limits  of  this  report  beyond 
what  customary  usage  would  justify.  They  therefore  conclude  with  the 
words  of  his  Excellency,  "  the  people  of  America  should  be  the  last 
blindly  to  adhere  to  what  is  established  merely  as  such  ;  and  it  may 
sometimes  be  our  duty  to  imitate  our  forefathers  in  the  great  trait  of 
their  characters,  —  the  courage  of  reform,  —  rather  than  to  bow  impli- 
citly to  their  authority  in  matters  in  which  the  human  mind  has  made 
progress  since  their  day." 


492  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

And  tliey  ask  leave  to  introduce  a  bill  to  abolish  the  punishment  of 
death. 

All  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 

Per  order  of  the  Committee, 

Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  Chairman. 


LETTErtS  o:n^  the  death  penalty. 

Number  I. 

To  Ms  Excellency  the  Governor^  and  to  the  honorable  members  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Hepresentatives  of  the  Commonivealth  of  3Iassa- 
chusetts. 

Your  Excellency  having  recommended,  and  your  two  houses  having 
instituted  an  inquiry  into  the  expediency  of  reforming  the  laws  which 
now  regulate  the  death  penalty  among  the  people  for  whom  you  are 
called  to  legislate,  I  propose  to  submit  to  your  attention  a  few  facts 
which  seem  to  me  pregnant  with  important  inferences. 

A  heathen  writer,  whose  sentiment  on  this  subject  no  Christian  need 
be  ashamed  to  repeat,  Seneca,  has  said.  Nemo  prudens  punit  quia pecca- 
turn  est,  sed  ne  peccatur.  Revocari  enim  prceterita  non  possunt ;  futura 
prohibentur.  The  wase  man  punishes,  not  because  an  offence  has  been 
committed,  but  that  offences  may  cease.  For  the  past  cannot  be  re- 
called ;  what  has  not  yet  occurred  may  be  prevented. 

The  founder  of  the  modern  science  of  the  philosophy  of  law,  the 
illustrious  Montesquieu,  has  announced  an  axiom,  which  no  one  in  the 
nineteenth  century  will  be  hardy  enough  to  gainsay.  Tout  chatiment 
dont  la  necessite  n'est  pas  absolue  devient  tyranique.  {Esprit  des  Lois. 
Published  in  1748.)  Every  act  of  punishment  not  demanded  by  abso- 
lute necessity,  is  tyranny. 

Is  the  death  penalty  necessary ;  is  it  effectual  to  prevent  crime  ?  If 
not,  it  cannot  be  justified. 

Since  1810,  more  than  fourteen  hundred  human  beings  have  been  ex- 
ecuted in  England  and  Wales,  for  crimes  which  have  now  ceased  to  be 
capital. 

For  no  one  of  these  crimes  was  the  death  penalty  repealed,  until  facts 
were  known  and  published,  sufficient  to  establish,  by  a  perfect  demon- 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  493 

stration,  that  that  specific  crime  was  rendered  more  frequent  by  the  then 
existing  state  of  the  law. 

In  all  these  changes,  the  beneficial  effects  expected  and  predicted,  have 
been  realized,  and  more  than  realized.  In  no  case  have  the  evils  appre- 
hended by  those  who  despise  the  teachings  of  experience,  followed  the 
reform. 

In  reducing  the  capital  crimes  of  England  from  two  hundred  and 
twenty-six  to  ten,  there  were  at  least  fifteen  of  the  crimes  made  non- 
capital, which  occurred  frequently  enough  to  afford  a  fair  test  of  the 
effect  of  the  change.  The  new  laws  have  been  in  operation  long  enough 
to  allow  us  to  divide  the  time  into  three  equal  parts,  and  compare  each 
of  these  parts  with  three  equal  periods  before  the  repeal.  This  would 
give  nine  comparisons  for  the  state  of  each  crime,  or  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  experiments  in  all,  for  the  whole  of  England  and  Wales. 
But  we  may  take  London  and  Middlesex,  and  each  of  the  eight  circuits 
separately,  and  still  have,  in  each  of  these  nine  sections,  a  population 
more  than  twice  as  large  as  that  of  Massachusetts ;  large  enough  there- 
fore to  be  worth  examination.  Each  of  these  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  experiments  has,  therefore,  been  tried  nine  times  over  in  the  subdi- 
visions of  the  kingdom,  making,  together  with  the  comparisons  of  the 
whole  aggregate,  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  fifty  trials  of  the  re- 
peal of  the  death  penalty,  besides  all  those  for  crimes  less  frequent,  for 
Scotland,  and  for  Ireland,  and  for  the  Welsh  circuits. 

So  decisive  are  these  results,  that  I  have  never  heard  of  any  English- 
men, at  the  present  time,  insane  enough  to  wish  to  restore  the  bloody 
rubric  from  which  the  present  generation  has  escaped ;  any  more  than 
to  restore  those  holocausts  of  human  sacrifices,  scarcely  more  detesta- 
ble and  equally  efficacious,  which  our  British  ancestors  offered  to  demons, 
when  their  island  was  invaded  by  Ca3sar. 

If  the  legislators  of  Great  Britain,  who,  after  1810,  continued  so  long 
in  force,  a  rule  of  penal  law,  which,  like  a  moral  Bohon  Upas,  poisoned 
and  blasted  the  conscience  of  the  nation,  had  known  beforehand  what 
they  now  know,  —  that,  as  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
church,  so  the  blood  of  the  criminal  becomes  fruitful  in  the  multiplica- 
tion of  crime,  and  that  each  one  of  those  offences  for  which  they  then 
retained  the  now  abolished  death  penalties,  would  be  committed  many 
times,  and  all,  in  the  aggregate,  many  hundred  times  more  frequently,, 
because  they  persisted  in  trying  again  and  again,  an  experiment  which 
had  never  been  tried  without  a  failure  —  if  they  had  known  all  tins,  I 
say,  wherein  would  those  fourteen  hundred  executions  have  differed  fronii 
fourteen  hundred  gratuitous  murders,  except  that  there  was  superadded. 

42 


494  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

to  them  all  the  deplorable  consequences,  the  vast  aggregate  of  sin  and 
misery  which  they  undeniably  generated  ? 

But  as  it  was  through  ignorance  that  they  obstinately  kept  open  the 
floodgates  of  such  terrible  evils,  let  not  the  sin  which  they  should  have 
prevented,  be  laid  to  their  charge,  but  let  us  study  their  errors  only  to 
profit  by  the  lessons  they  teach  us  ;  and  let  us  see  whether  there  be  not 
remaining  in  our  own  code,  crimes,  as  to  which  we  should  do  well  to 
avoid  persevering  in  a  severity  which  is  found  to  be  not  only  ineffectual 
for  good,  but  absolutely  and  clearly  pernicious ;  to  avoid  subjecting 
another  child  of  our  common  Father,  to  an  ignominious  death,  when,  so 
far  from  protecting  the  best  interests  of  society  by  the  dreadful 
infliction,  we  thereby  undeniably  occasion  an  augmentation  of  crime. 

If  there  be  on  our  statute  book  even  one  such  offence,  who  would 
knowingly  assume  the  tremendous  responsibility  of  launching  into  eter- 
nity his  erring  brother,  to  try  once  more  the  desperate  experiment  which 
is  already  decided  against  the  destroyer  ? 

As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the 
sinner  that  repenteth,  but  rather  that  he  should  turn  and  live.  What 
Christian  government  would  not  gladly  aflbrd  space  for  repentance  to 
the  most  grievous  offender,  when  assured,  that  while  so  doing,  it  may 
protect,  not  only  as  well,  but  more  effectually,  all  those  interests  which 
punishment  is  wielded  to  defend  ? 

I  have  already  laid  before  the  committee  of  the  two  houses,  and  will 
soon  address  to  you  in  this  public  manner,  facts  which  show  that  crime 
diminishes  in  proportion  as  the  denunciations  and  administration  of  the 
criminal  law  are  rendered  milder,  and  the  rule  of  a  barbarous  retaliation 
abandoned ;  whence  I  infer  that  it  will  be  our  duty,  as  it  will  be  our 
happiness,  to  introduce  and  extend,  until  it  shall  pervade  our  whole  leg- 
islation, the  spirit  of  benevolence,  compassion,  and  sympathy,  which  is 
the  spirit  of  heaven,  and  to  banish  from  our  code  the  spirit  of  malice, 
hatred,  and  revenge,  which  is  the  spirit  of  hell.  When  men  act  con- 
sistently upon  the  belief  which  they  now  generally  admit  in  theory,  that 
the  whole  purpose  of  punishment  is  precautionary  and  not  retributive, 
that  brutal  cruelty  does  not  humanize  him  who  suffers,  him  who  inflicts, 
or  him  who  beholds  it;  that  after  every  instance  in  which  the  law  vio- 
lates the  sanctity  of  human  life,  that  life  is  held  less  sacred  by  the  com- 
munity among  whom  the  outrage  is  perpetrated ;  that  prisons  are  hos- 
pitals for  the  restraint  of  persons  whose  liberty  would  endanger  the 
well-being  of  society,  and  for  the  remedial  treatment  of  aggravated 
moral  disease ;  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  frightful  catalogue  of 
ci'imes  committed  in  civilized  countries  be  curtailed  as  rapidly  as  the  re- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  495 

maining  obstacles  of  intemperance,  ignorance,  and  extreme  destitution, 
and  those  untamed  passions  which  the  spectacle  of  blood  stimulates,  will 
allow.  Your  friend  and  servant, 

R.  Rantoul,  Jii. 
Boston,  Mass.,  February  4,  1846. 


Number  II. 

When  one  casts  his  eye  upon  the  history  of  crime  and  punishment  in 
modern  Europe,  the  phenomenon  which  first  attracts  his  notice  is  the 
prodigality  with  which  the  death  penalty  was  formerly  dispensed,  and 
the  prodigious  advance  which  a  milder  system  of  repressive  policy  has 
made  during  the  eighteenth,  and  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
turies ;  and  still  more  remarkably,  during  the  last  twenty  years.  As 
this  mitigation  of  punishment  has  been  tried  in  every  part  of  Christen- 
dom, if  any  evil  consequences  had  followed  from  it,  some  one  would 
have  been  able  to  point  them  out,  and  to  tell  us  when,  where,  how,  and 
how  long  the  mischief  manifested  itself.  Yet  among  more  than  two 
hundred  authors  upon  this  subject,  whose  writings  I  have  examined,  I 
have  never  found  but  two  who  have  seriously  attempted  to  exhibit  the 
evils  which  these  successive  meliorations  of  the  law  must  have  occa- 
sioned, if  those  wise  men  against  whose  indignant  remonstrances  these 
changes  were  effected  were  right  in  their  prognostications.  The  two 
champions  of  blood  were  the  authors  of  "  Hanging  not  punishment 
enough,"  published  in  1701,  and  "Thoughts  on  Executive  Justice," pub- 
lished in  1785 ;  both  which  works  are  now  reprinted  and  distributed  by 
the  opponents  of  the  death  penalty,  to  show  the  absurdities  into  which 
men  of  great  learning  and  talents  are  forced,  when  they  attempt  to  vin- 
dicate the  operation  of  the  gallows. 

Most  of  those  who  have  regarded  with  favor  existing  death  penalties, 
have  united  in  the  chorus  of  condemnation  of  those  which  have  been 
repealed ;  so  that  no  sooner  is  any  one  item  stricken  from  the  bloody 
catalogue,  than  the  voices  of  its  former  defenders  are  silenced,  and  all 
the  world  seems  to  discover  at  once,  that  it  has  been  practising  for  ages, 
without  the  shadow  of  a  justification,  a  revolting  cruelty. 

When  we  propose  to  take  further  steps  in  the  path  which  thus  far  has 
been  found  to  lead  us  in  the  right  direction,  the  class  of  persons  who  sel- 
dom admit  that  the  world  may  grow  wiser,  raise  the  warning  cry  that 
we  set  at  nought  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors.  It  is  best  to  inquire  then, 
without  going  back  too  far,  what  was  the  wisdom  of  the  last  two  or  three 


496  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

generations,  in  the  matter  of  death  penalties,  how  far  have  we  departed 
from  it,  and  what  have  been  the  consequences  of  that  departure. 

It  is  quite  immaterial  what  country  we  select  for  this  investigation,  as 
the  results  are  everywhere  the  same.  Some  governments,  however, 
afford  us  official  data,  much  more  complete  and  accurate  than  we  can 
obtain  elsewhere,  and  an  argument  founded  on  facts  thus  ascertained,  is 
to  be  preferred,  because  it  avoids  the  long  controversies  about  the  evi- 
dence of  the  facts  advanced,  to  which  we  should  otherwise  be  exposed. 
Let  us  first  consult,  then,  the  experience  of  the  two  neighboring  nations 
of  Holland  and  Belgium.  Both  have  spilled  blood  till  they  sickened  at 
the  spectacle.  Both  have  laid  aside  the  axe  at  last,  to  rust  unused  or 
very  rarely  to  be  drawn  from  its  depository  among  the  other  relics  of  a 
barbarous  age. 

In  the  city  of  Amsterdam,  during  the  greater  part  of  the  last  century, 
executions  diminished  as  follows  :  From  1693  to  1735,  there  were  in  43 
years,  288 ;  1736  to  1745,  10  years,  20  ;  1746  to  1766,  21  years,  28 ; 
1776  to  1783,  8  years,  5.     Total,  in  82  years,  341. 

This  table  gives  between  four  and  five  executions,  or,  to  be  precise, 
4.15  per  year  for  the  eighty-two  years  included  in  it.  But  for  the  period 
ending  in  1735,  it  gives  6.7  per  year  ;  1745,  2  ;  1766,  1.3  ;  1783,  .6. 

That  is,  the  annual  number  of  executions  was  about  eleven  times  as 
great  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  in  the  latter  part  of 
it,  during  the  time  of  our  revolutionary  war. 

Howard,  the  philanthropist,  in  1785,  speaking  of  Holland,  says,  "  of 
late  in  all  the  seven  provinces,  seldom  more  executions  in  a  year  than 
from  four  to  six." 

In  the  kingdom  of  Holland  from  1831  to  1835,  inclusive,  five  years, 
there  were  five  executions,  or  one  per  year.  Holland,  therefore,  had 
five  times  as  many  executions  in  a  year,  half  a  century  before,  as  she 
had  in  this  last  period,  and  if  the  proportion  was  the  same  as  in  Amster- 
dam for  the  preceding  periods,  then  she  had  fifty -five  times  as  many  in  a 
year  in  the  period  preceding  1735,  as  in  the  period  preceding  1835. 
Were  their  morals  better  ?  or  their  lives,  their  limbs,  their  goods  safer, 
with  fifty-five  times  as  many  executions  ?  No  !  The  sword  dropped 
from  the  wearied  hands  of  vindictive  justice.  They  had  learned  the 
lesson  of  the  French  sage,  une  hi  rigoureuse  produit  des  crimes  —  Harsh 
laws  beget  crimes.  They  had  arrived,  after  wading  through  a  sea  of 
blood,  to  the  conclusion  of  Bentham  :  "  If  the  legislator  be  desirous  to 
inspire  humanity  amongst  the  citizens,  let  him  set  the  example ;  let  him 
show  the  utmost  respect  for  the  life  of  man.  Sanguinary  laws  have  a 
tendency  to  render  man  cruel,  either  by  fear,  by  imitation,  or  by  revenge. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR. 


497 


But  laws  dictated  by  mildness  humanize  the  manners  of  a  nation,  and 
the  spirit  of  government." 

That  Holland  is  better  governed,  dispensing  with  fifty-four  parts  out 
of  the  ancient  death  penalties,  no  man  denies.  These  fifty-four  parts 
have  been  abandoned  not  only  without  detriment,  but  with  positive  ad- 
vantage. Is  it  unreasonable  to  suppose,  that  the  remaining  fifty-fifth 
part  is  of  the  same  deleterious  nature,  and  might  be  discarded  forever, 
with  the  same  safety  and  certain  utility  ? 

Instead  of  attempting  a  detailed  examination  of  the  criminal  statistics 
of  Holland,  which  would  so  far  as  I  can  carry  it,  strengthen  the  general 
inference  I  have  drawn,  but  which  would,  after  all,  be  unsatisfactory  and 
open  to  objection,  because  of  the  imperfection  of  the  materials  within  my 
reach,  I  pass  on  to  Belgium,  where,  fortunately,  we  have  tables  contain- 
ing much  valuable  information  for  thirty-nine  consecutive  years,  and 
of  unquestionable  accuracy. 

Total  number  of  criminals  sentenced  to  death  in  Belgium,  excluding 
Limbourg  and  Luxembourg,  in  each  year  from  1796  to  1833,  inclusively, 
distinguishing  also  those  condemned  for  murder  and  attempts  to  murder, 
including  under  the  head  of  murder  the  three  crimes  of  murder,  poison- 
ing, and  parricide :  — 


Years.    Condemned. 

For  mxirder. 

1796 

8 

7 

1797 

27 

27 

1798 

71 

31 

1799 

60 

38 

1800 

34 

14 

1801 

90 

29 

1802 

85 

38 

1803 

86 

44 

1804 

58 

25 

180.5 

25 

15 

1806 

42 

17 

1807 

38 

25 

1808 

24 

6 

1809 

23 

19 

1810 

20 

10 

1811 

30 

22 

1812 

25 

15 

1813 

30 

12 

1814 

8 

5 

19  years 

784 

399 

Per  annum 

41.2 

21 

Executed 

531 

Per  annum 

28 

Years. 


Condemned.    For  murder.. 


1815 

8 

3 

1816 

18 

10 

1817 

20 

15 

1818 

11 

5 

1819 

14 

9 

1820 

8 

5 

1821 

18 

4 

1822 

9 

7 

1823 

6 

5 

1824 

20 

17 

1825 

18 

13 

1826 

12 

5 

1827 

14 

4 

1828 

20 

8 

1829 

10 

4 

1830 

2 

0 

1831 

8 

2 

1832 

17 

9 

1833 

8 

2 

19  years 

241 

127 

12.6 

6.S 

71 

3.7 

From  this  table  it  appears,  that  during  the  nineteen  years  ending  in 
1814,  in  which  were  531  executions,  or  28  per  annum,  the  number  con- 
victed of  capital  crimes  was  784,  or  a  little  more  than  41  per  annum, 
and  the  number  convicted  of  murder  399,  or  21  per  annum..    But  in  the 

42* 


498 

next  nineteen  years,  when  the  executions  were  71  only,  or  less  than  4 
per  annum,  the  convictions  were  241,  or  less  than  13  per  annum,  and 
those  for  murder  127,  or  less  than  7  per  annum.  So  that  under  the  un- 
restricted operation  of  severity,  when  executions  were  more  than  seven 
times  as  numerous  as  in  the  latter  period,  capital  crimes  were  more  than 
three  times,  and  murders  also  more  than  three  times  as  frequent. 

Not  only  does  this  result  follow  from  the  table  taken  as  a  whole,  but 
each  period  in  which  a  change  in  the  degree  of  severity  occurs,  teaches 
the  same  lesson. 

The  three  years  in  which  more  than  fifty  executions  occurred  in  each 
year,  were  followed  respectively  by  the  three  years  of  most  numerous 
murders.  In  1798,  the  executions  were  60  ;  1799,  condemned  for  mur- 
der, 38  ;  1801,  executions  were  76  ;  1802,  52  ;  condemned  for  murder, 
38  ;  1803,  condemned  for  murder,  44. 

These  three  years,  presenting  an  average  of  63  executions  a  year,  or 
little  more  than  double  the  average  of  the  first  19  years,  were  thus  fol- 
lowed by  three  years  of  120  murders,  or  40  murders  per  year,  about 
double  the  average  of  the  period  in  which  they  are  included. 

The  dragon's  teeth  sown  in  the  judicial  butcheries  of  1798  and  1801-2, 
springing  up  in  this  unexampled  harvest  of  murders  in  1799  and  1802-3, 
ought  to  teach,  every  government  how  the  evil  example  of  vengeance 
returns  with  its  bloody  instructions  to  plague  the  inventor. 

After  1808,  criminal  justice  became  milder ;  the  number  of  executions 
which  for  ten  years  previous  had  been  411,  or  41  a  year,  was  suddenly 
reduced  to  93  in  the  next  seven  years,  or  13  a  year.  Did  this  mildness 
enicourage  crime  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  table  already  given  shows,  that 
t3iere  were  not  so  many  condemned  annually,  for  all  capital  offences, 
during  these  seven  years,  as  for  murder  alone  during  the  reign  of  blood 
that  preceded  them. 

The  mitigation  of  severity  during  the  next  period  is  still  more  remark- 
able, as  are  also  its  effects.  In  the  ten  years  ending  in  1824,  there  were 
49  executions ;  in  the  ten  years  ending  in  1834,  only  22.  The  convic- 
tions for  murder  diminish,  as  is  already  seen  in  the  table,  in  almost  as 
rapid  proportion. 

I  shall  fihow  that  the  results  from  other  criminal  returns  are  similar 
to  these. 

R.  Rantoul,  Jr. 

Boston,  FekiG,  1846. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  499 


Number  III. 

Enough  lias  been  said  of  tlie  experience  of  Belgium  in  abandoning 
death  penalties,  were  it  not  for  an  objection  brought  forward  by  M. 
Ernst,  minister  of  justice,  in  the  Belgian  chambers  in  the  debate  of  31st 
January,  1835,  and  afterwards  in  his  official  report  published  at  Brussels, 
in  1835,  drawn  from  the  results  of  the  year  1834,  which  I  have  not  yet 
given.  The  unsoundness  of  this  objection  was  demonstrated  in  the 
Chambers  by  M.  Van  Brouckere,  who  on  the  3d  of  February  revived  his 
former  motion  to  abolish  the  death  penalty ;  by  M.  Ed.  Ducpetiaux, 
inspector-general  of  the  prisons  of  Belgium,  in  his  work  on  the  statistics 
of  capital  punishment,  published  at  Brussels  in  1835  ;  by  M.  Lucas,  in 
the  Revue  Etrangere,  1835,  p.  271 ;  and  by  M.  Vischers,  in  the  Critical 
Journal  of  Jurisprudence,  Vol.  VIII.  No.  4,  p.  118. 

It  is  also  perfectly  easy  to  refute  the  objection  of  M.  Ernst,  from  the 
data  furnished  in  his  own  report. 

In  1834,  M.  Ernst  states  that  there  were  in  all  Belgium,  twenty-eight 
capital  convictions,  of  which  nine  were  for  murder,  two  for  arson,  and 
fifteen  for  dangerous  larceny.  But  in  order  to  compare  this  year  with 
those  given  in  our  former  table,  we  must  give  the  year  as  stated  by  Duc- 
petiaux, omitting  the  provinces  of  Limbourg  and  Luxembourg.  It  will 
then  stand  thus  :  condemned  twenty-three,  for  murder  seven,  arson  two, 
dangerous  larceny  twelve.  Now  taking  these  facts  without  the  explana- 
tions which  we  shall  give  directly,  what  do  they  seem  to  prove  ?  No 
inference  can  be  safely  drawn  from  a  single  year.  If  our  table  had 
stopped  at  1824,  it  would  have  shown  for  that  year  the  largest  number 
of  convictions  and  condemned  for  murder  since  1813,  and  yet  the  aver- 
ages show  that  they  were  constantly  decreasing.  Let  us  then  take  aver- 
ages for  periods  of  five  years,  and  include  1834  in  the  last  total.  The 
first  period  has  but  four  years.  The  effect  of  the  executions  is  to  be 
studied. 

Number  of  criminals  executed,  whole  number  convicted  of  capital 
crimes,  and  whole  number  convicted  of  murder  iri  Belgium,  excluding 
Limbourg  and  Luxembourg,  from  1799  to  1834  inclusive,  divided  as 
nearly  as  may  be  into  eight  equal  periods,  with  the  average  of  each  class 
per  year :  — 


500  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Time.  Total  conv.    Exec.    Cond.  for  m.    Total  per  an,    Ex.  per  an.    Cond.  for  m.  per  an. 


4  }TS  to  1799 

166 

137 

103 

41 

34 

26 

5   " 

1804 

353 

135 

150 

71 

47 

30 

5   " 

1809 

1.52 

88 

82 

30 

18 

16 

5   " 

1814 

113 

71 

64 

23 

14 

13 

5   " 

1819 

71 

26 

42 

14.2 

5.2 

8.4 

5   " 

1824 

61 

23 

38 

12.2 

4.6 

7.6 

5   " 

1829 

74 

22 

34 

14.8 

4.4 

6.8 

5   " 

1834 

58 

0 

20 

11.6 

0. 

4. 

39  yrs.  to  1834  1048  602  533  26.9  15.4  13.7 

It  appears  from  this  table,  that  while  executions  increased  murders  in- 
creased. Executions  reached  their  highest  point  in  1801  and  1802, 
averaging  for  those  two  years  sixty-eight  a  year ;  and  murders  accord- 
ingly reached  their  highest  point  one  year  later,  in  1802  and  1803,  aver- 
aging for  those  two  years  forty-one  a  year.  After  executions  declined, 
murders  declined  also,  until  they  averaged  but  four  a  year,  including 
that  very  year  1834  on  which  the  supposed  objection  is  grounded.  If  a 
diminution  in  the  average  of  murders,  while  there  were  no  executions, 
to  less  than  one  tenth  the  average  of  1802  and  1803,  does  not  show  a 
sufficient  change,  in  only  thirty-two  years'  time,  to  warrant  a  favorable 
inference  for  the  modern  practice,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  any  facts, 
short  of  the  cessation  of  crime  altogether,  from  which  such  an  inference 
might  be  drawn.  Observe  also  the  uniformity  between  the  falling  off  in 
the  number  of  executions,  and  in  that  of  convictions  for  murder. 

After  the  period  ending  in  1799,  the  executions  increase  thirteen,  the 

convictions  for  murder  increase  four.     In  all  the  following  periods,  they 

decrease.     After 

1804,  Ex.  decrease,  29  Com.  for  murder,  14 

1809,              "4  "3 

1814,              "              8.8  "                 4.6 

1819,              *•                .6  "                   .8 

1824,              "                 .2  "                    .8 

1829,              "              4.4  "                  2.8 

This  is  not  because  the  executions  are  always  a  certain  proportion  of 
the  total  convictions,  or  of  those  for  murder,  for  such  is  not  the  case. 
In  the  first  nineteen  years,  the  convictions  for  murder  are  three  hundred 
and  ninety-nine,  and  the  executions  five  hundred  and  thirty-one.  In  the 
last  twenty  years,  the  convictions  for  murder  are  one  hundred  and 
thirty-four,  and  the  executions  only  seventy-one.  Of  the  total  convicted, 
the  proportion  who  escaped  the  death  penalty  by  pardon,  commutation, 
or  otherwise,  rose  from  about  17  to  100  per  cent.     Thus  in  the 

4  years  ending  in  1799,        17  1-2 

5  "     1804,        33  1-2 
5       "     1809,        42 

5  "  1814,  34 

5  "  1819,  63  1-3 

5  "  1824,  62  1-3 

5  "  1829,  70  1-4 

5  "  1834,  100 


OF  EGBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  501 

As  the  sentences  pronounced  in  contumaciam,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
absence  of  the  absconding  criminal,  are  included  in  the  tables  given,  our 
argument  will  not  be  complete  unless  we  inquire  how  it  is  aiFected  by 
deducting  these.  This  is  perhaps  a  fairer  mode  of  comparison,  as  many 
of  these  sentences  are  afterwards  reversed  upon  trial. 

Without  giving  a  table  for  the  separate  years,  it  is  sufficient  to  furnish 
the  totals  for  the  first  and  second  periods  of  nineteen  years  :  — 

In  19  years  ending  in  1814,  of        784  convicts, 
were  convicted  in  contum.  122 

Othenvisc,  662 

In  19  years  ending  in  1833,  of        241  convicts, 
were  convicted  in  contum.  70 

Otlierwise,  171 

Subtracting  the  convictions  in  contumaciam,  we  have  only  ten  con- 
demned in  1832,  instead  of  seventeen,  and  seven  in  1833,  instead  of 
eight. 

As  the  extraordinary  number  of  murders  in  1799,  and  in  1802  and 
1803,  were  preceded  by  years  of  cruelty  in  the  execution  of  the  law,  so 
the  only  years  in  which  the  number  condemned  for  murder  did  not  ex- 
ceed three,  excluding  those  in  contumaciam,  followed  the  years  when 
there  had  been  a  remarkable  mitigation  in  the  use  of  the  death  penalty. 

Excluding  those  con.  in  contum. 


Tears. 

Executed. 

Cond.  for 

1813 

23 

1814 

3 

1815 

3 

1819 

9 

1820 

2 

1821 

4 

1825 

5 

1826 

2 

1827 

4 

1828 

11 

1829 

3 

1830 

0  ^ 

0 

1831 

0  * 

2 

1832 

0 

1833 

0 

2 

These  six  years,  each  following  so  remarkable  a  change  from  the 
harsher  practice,  have  in  all,  nine  condemned  for  murder,  excluding  the 
cases  i7i  contumaciam,  or  one  and  a  half  per  annum  on  an  average,  in- 
stead of  the  forty-one  per  annum,  which  immediately  followed  the  cruelty 
of  1801  and  1802. 

After  weighing  all  these  facts,  it  may  perhaps  seem  unnecessary  to 
say  one  word  in  explanation  of  the  total  for  the  year  1834,  but  as  they 
have  been  made  the  text  for  many  comments,  it  is  as  well  to  understand 
them.     Of  the  capital  convictions  for  that  year,  fifteen  cases  are  com- 


502  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

prised  in  one  band  of  robbers,  organized  many  years  before,  deja  an- 
cienne,  and  tried  for  crimes  committed  long  before.  These  cases  there- 
fore have  no  bearing  on  the  argument,  and  might  have  been  fairly  omit- 
ted in  all  the  reasoning  on  this  question. 

Of  the  seven  cases  included  under  the  head  of  murder,  two  only  are- 
cases  of  actual  murder,  namely,  those  of  Thonus  and  Dominick  Nyss. 
The  other  five  are  assaults  with  intent  to  kill,  a  capital  crime  by  Belgian 
law. 

Whether  capital  crimes  generally,  have  increased  in  Belgium  under 
the  milder  system,  may  be  judged  by  the  following  table  of  the  numbers 
of  prosecutions  in  two  periods  of  five  years  each. 

Crimes.  No.  of  prosec.  fm  1826  to  1830.        No.  of  prosec.  fm  1831  to  1834. 

Murder  and  homicide,  185  169 

Poisoning,  28  17 

Arson,  35  28 

Infanticide,  rape,  and  forcible  I        -.  qq  ck 

attempts  on  chastity,  ) 

Aggravated  wounding,  490  351 

That  lesser  crimes  increased  in  Belgium  during  these  four  last  years, 
so  far  as  it  is  true,  strengthens  the  argument  to  be  drawn  from  these 
figures. 

R.  Rantoul,  Jr. 

Boston,  February  10,  1846. 


Number  IV. 

Before  proceeding  further  in  our  examination  of  the  administration 
of  criminal  justice  in  other  countries,  I  will  furnish  complete  statistics 
of  the  death  penalties  in  this  Commonwealth  since  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  October,  1780. 

As  there  has  been  no  capital  convictions  since  the  present  year  com- 
menced, these  tables  will  terminate  on  the  31st  December,  1845,  em- 
bracing the  entire  period  of  sixty-five  years.  These  tables  are  now 
published  for  the  first  time  ;  and  they  are  the  more  valuable  because 
there  are  none  covering  so  long  a  space  for  any  other  State  of  our  Union, 
or  indeed  for  any  country  on  the  American  continent. 

Convictions  for  capital  crimes  in  Massachusetts  from  1780,  October,  to 
1845  inclusive,  with  the  result  of  the  several  cases  :  — 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  503 


Crimes. 

Ex. 

Died  in  prison. 

Com. 

Par. 

Tota 

Arson, 

4 

0 

2 

0 

6 

Burglary, 

16 

0 

3 

2 

21 

Highway  robbery 

9 

0 

0 

0 

9 

Eobbery, 

2 

0 

0 

1 

3 

Murder, 

23 

2 

7 

5 

37 

Piracy, 

1 

0 

0 

0 

1 

Rape,"^ 

6 

0 

1 

1 

8 

Treason, 

0 

0 

2 

14 

16 

61  2  15  23  101 

Of  one  hundred  and  one  convictions  there  have  been  sixty-one  execu- 
tions, or  GO  jier  cent.  For  treason  there  has,  fortunately,  been  no  capi- 
tal punishment,  neither  in  this  State  nor  in  any  other  State  of  the 
Union  ;  but  for  the  other  crimes  included  in  this  catalogue,  the  punish- 
ment has  been  much  more  uniformly  inflicted  after  conviction,  than  in 
most  countries  of  the  Old  World.  The  proportion  of  the  executions  to 
convictions  is  for  each  oifence  as  follows  :  piracy,  100  per  cent. ;  highway 
robbery,  100  ;  robbery,  66  ;  or  all  robberies,  92  ;  burglary,  76  ;  rape,  75  ; 
arson,  66;  murder,  62;  treason,  0;  all  oflTences,  60.  Excluding  treason, 
for  all  other  oifences,  about  72  per  cent.  This  stern  and  unrelenting 
rigor  in  the  executive  is  not  witnessed  elsewhere  in  Christendom,  cer- 
tainly not  in  any  civilized,  portion  of  it.  In  England,  whose  govern- 
ment we  justly  denounce  as  sanguinary,  in  twenty-one  years  from  1813, 
there  were  convicted  for  murder  eight  hundred  and  seventy-seven ;  ex- 
ecuted three  hundred  and  twenty-six,  or  31  per  cent.  For  arson,  con- 
victed one  hundred  and  ninety-three ;  executed  eighty  one,  or  42  per 
cent.  For  rape  and  unnatural  crimes,  convicted  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  ;  executed  one  hundred  and  sixteen,  or  52  per  cent.  Total  for  the 
crimes  just  mentioned,  convicted  twelve  hundred  and  ninety-one  ;  ex- 
ecuted five  hundred  and  twenty-three,  or  40  per  cent. 

In  France,  in  eight  years  ending  in  1832,  the  convictions  were  for 
murders  of  the  different  classes,  highway  robbery  and  arson,  eleven  hun- 
dred and  twenty-nine,  and  the  executions  for  all  crimes,  were  only  five 
hundred  and  thirty-seven,  or  47  per  cent.  For  the  next  three  years,  the 
executions  were  but  seventy-four,  or  less  than  twenty-five  per  year,  for 
more  than  thirty  milHons  of  people. 

In  Prussia,  in  fifteen  years  ending  in  1834,  there  were  convicted  for 
murder  one  hundred  and  sixty-two,  of  whom  were  executed  eighty-nine, 
or  55  per  cent. 

In  Belgium,  in  the  twenty  years  ending  in  1834,  the  convictions  were, 
according  to  the  tables  already  given,  two  hundred  and  sixty-four ;  ex- 
ecutions seventy-one,  or  27  per  cent.  Almost  the  whole  of  these  Bel- 
gian convictions  were  for  crimes  capital  in  Massachusetts. 

In  Saxony,  in  twenty  years  ending  in  1835,  there  were  one  hundred 


504 

and  tliirty-four  capital  convictions  for  murder,  arson,  robbery,  and  rape ; 
and  thirty-six  executions,  or  nearly  27  per  cent. 

In  England,  France,  Prussia,  Belgium,  and  Saxony,  as  well  as  many 
other  nations  that  might  be  mentioned,  where  the  proportion  of  execu- 
tions to  convictions  is  much  smaller  than  in  Massachusetts,  and  much 
smaller  than  fifty  years  ago  in  the  same  countries,  murders  have  rapidly 
diminished  in  those  countries,  in  which  executions  are  scarcely  known  ; 
slightly  in  France,  where  the  change  of  policy  was  not  so  great ;  while 
in  England,  down  to  about  1835,  murders  and  attempts  to  murder  in- 
creased, since  which,  under  a  milder  administration  of  the  law,  there  has 
been  a  change  for  the  better. 

In  Massachusetts,  with  less  executive  clemency  than  in  any  other 
State  or  nation  of  which  I  have  read,  for  the  nineteenth  century,  murder 
seems  to  have  increased.  For  if  we  divide  our  period  of  sixty-five 
years  into  three  periods  of  twenty  years  each,  and  place  by  itself  the 
last  period  of  five  years,  we  have  the  following  result : 

From  1780  to  1800  convicted  for  murder,         7  in  20  years. 

"      1800    "    1820         "  "  12 

"      1820    "    1840         "  "  13 

"      1840    "    1845         "  "  5         5 

Or  at  the  rate  of  "  "  20       20        " 

Convictions  for  murder,  then,  are  about  three  times  as  frequent  as 
they  were  fifty  years  ago,  notwithstanding  the  constantly  increasing  dif- 
ficulty in  obtaining  convictions,  a  fact  felt  by  every  one,  notwithstanding 
greater  temperance,  better  education,  and  the  diminution  of  the  crime  of 
murder  in  almost  every  country  in  Christendom. 

Although  it  has  appeared,  wherever  the  experiment  has  been  tried,  that 
frequent  executions  are  followed  by  frequent  murders,  and  on  the  con- 
trary, when  executions  seldom  occur,  murders  soon  become  very  rare, 
yet  so  strong  is  prejudice,  that  the  lesson  must  be  a  thousand  times  re- 
peated before  men  will  cease  to  deny  its  truth.  Let  us  see,  then,  how  far 
our  own  experience  corroborates  the  inferences  drawn  from  the  experi- 
ment of  Belgium. 

To  obtain  the  total  number  of  executions  in  Massachusetts,  I  shall 
add  to  those  under  the  laws  of  the  State,  those  within  our  limits  under 
the  authority  of  the  United  States,  and  compare  the  total  for  each  five 
years,  with  the  convictions  for  murder  for  the  same  time  :  — 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  505 


Five  years. 

Ex.  by  Mass. 

Ex.  by  U.  S. 

Total  Ex. 

Con.  for  mur.        Fifteen  yrs. 

1780  to  1785 

13 

0 

13 

2 

1785  to  1790 

16 

0 

16 

2 

1790  to  1795 

3 

3 

6 

3                      7 

1795  to  1800 

1 

0 

1 

0 

1800  to  1805 

4 

0 

4 

2 

1805  to  1810 

3 

0 

3 

4                       6 

1810  to  1815 

3 

1 

4 

4 

1815  to  1820 

3 

7 

10 

2 

1820  to  1825 

6 

I 

7 

3                       9 

1825  to  1830 

5 

1 

6 

6  . 

1830  to  1835 

0 

9 

9 

1 

1835  to  1840 

3 

0 

3 

3                      10 

1840  to  1845 

1 

0 

1 

5       rate        15 

1780  to  1845 

61 

22 

83 

37 

The  average  number  of  executions  for  each  period  of  five  years  is 
6.4.  Take  then  all  the  periods  in  which  the  executions  exceeded  this 
average,  and  see  whether  more  murders  were,  or  were  not  proved  to 
have  been  committed  in  the  periods  immediately  succeeding.  Then 
make  also  the  same  comparison  for  all  those  periods  in  which  the  num- 
ber of  executions  falls  below  the  average. 

Total  executions  in  Massachusetts  in  each  period  in  which  the  number 
exceeded  the  average,  with  the  conviction  for  murder  for  the  same  and 
for  the  succeeding  five  years  :  — 


Executions. 

Convictions 

;  same  five  years. 

Convictions  next  five  years. 

13 

2 

2 

16 

2 

3 

10 

2 

3 

7 

3 

6 

9 

1 

3 

55  10  17 

Periods  which  fall  below  the  average  of  executions. 
6  3  0 

10  2 

4  2  4 

3  4  4 

4  4  2 
6  6  1 
3                                   3                                                    5^ 

27  22  18 

If  in  this  second  series,  the  twenty-two  convictions  had  increased  in 
the  same  proportion  as  the  ten  in  the  first  series,  the  result  would  have 
been  thirty-seven  convictions,  or  more  than  double  the  eighteen  which 
actually  occurred.  But  they  should  have  increased  in  a  much  greater 
ratio  than  in  the  first  series,  if  the  absence  of  the  terror  of  the  death 
penalty  multiplies  murders,  for  the  executions  in  the  first  series  are 
eleven  for  every  five  years,  while  in  the  second  series  they  are  only  3.8 
for  every  five  years,  about  one  third  the  former  average. 

43 


506  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

These  facts  do  not  encourage  us  to  persevere  in  the  experiment  of 
death. 

R.  Rantoul,  Jr. 
Boston,  February  12,  1846. 


Number  V. 

The  facts  stated  in  my  last  letter  do  not  show  that  frequent  execu- 
tions diminish  murders  in  Massachusetts  any  more  than  in  Holland,  or 
Belgium,  or  other  countries. 

For  convenient  comparison  I  will  give  the  executions  in  England  and 
"Wales  for  fifteen  years  ending  in  1840,  including  the  period  in  which 
the  most  material  changes  in  their  rubrics  of  blood  went  into  operation :  — 


Years. 

Mur. 

Rob. 

Burg,  and  house  break. 

Arson. 

Rape. 

Other  crimes. 

Total. 

1826 

10 

15 

10 

1 

2 

19 

57 

1827 

11 

17 

10 

0 

2 

33 

73 

1828 

18 

5 

14 

0 

3 

19 

59 

1829 

13 

12 

14 

3 

3 

29 

74 

1830 

14 

5 

8 

6 

3 

10 

46 

1831 

12 

7 

5 

16 

4 

8 

52 

1832 

15 

4 

5 

16 

7 

7 

54 

1833 

6 

8 

1 

9 

1 

8 

33 

1834 

12 

2 

0 

8 

4 

8 

34 

1835 

21 

0 

1 

7 

0 

5 

34 

1836 

8 

4 

1 

2 

1 

1 

17 

1837 

8 

8 

1838 

5 

1 

6 

1839 

9 

1 

10 

1840 

9 

9 

Total,  171  79  69  68  30  149  566 

In  the  five  years  ending  in  In  the  five  years  ending  in 
1830  there  were  309  or  62  per  annum.  1830  for  murders,  66  or  13  per  annum. 

1835         "  207  or  41  "  1835         "  66  or  13 

1840         "  50  or  10  "  1840         "  39  or    8 

Certainly  this  change  is  sufficiently  great  and  sudden  to  furnish  the 
fairest  possible  test  of  its  effects. 

Let  us  examine  its  effects,  then,  first  on  the  crime  of  murder ;  and  as 
the  milder  system  was  first  tried  in  London  and  Middlesex,  we  will  first 
record  the  result  of  that  experiment. 

The  first  dawning  of  mercy  towards  the  convicted  murderer,  in  Lon- 
don and  Middlesex,  was  in  1827.  For  sixteen  years  no  convicted  mur- 
derer had  been  spared ;  for  the  next  sixteen  years,  37  per  cent,  were 
spared.  Did  the  cruelty  diminish,  or  the  mercy  increase  the  murders 
committed  ? 

Number  committed,  convicted,  and  executed  in  London  and  Middle- 
sex, in  sixteen  years,  ending  in  1826,  and  in  1842,  for  the  crime  of 
murder :  — 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  507 

Committed,  16  years  to  1826,  188,         16  years  to  1842,  90 
Convicted,      "       "  "        34,  "       "  "       27 

Executed,      "       "  "        34,  "       "  "17 

Of  convictions  were  executed,    100  per  cent.  do.  63 

Of  committals  were  convicted,     18         "  do.  30 

When  all  convicted  were  executed,  only  18  per  cent,  of  those  com- 
mitted could  be  convicted,  and  there  were  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
committed.  When  only  63  per  cent,  were  executed,  30  per  cent,  of 
those  arrested  were  convicted,  and  the  committals  sank  to  ninety,  where- 
as had  they  increased  in  proportion  to  the  population,  they  would  have 
amounted  to  about  two  hundred  and  fifty. 

In  Massachusetts  we  have  executed  62  per  cent,  of  those  convicted, 
and  have  convicted  about  20  per  cent,  of  those  indicted,  which  is  less 
than  18  per  cent,  of  those  committed,  as  many  murderers  are  indicted 
for  manslaughter.  Our  jurors  have  a  greater  horror  of  the  death  pen- 
alty than  those  of  London  and  Middlesex. 

Capital  crimes  generally  did  not  increase  in  London  and  Middlesex, 
when  executions  ceased  there  after  1833,  nor  in  the  intermediate  period 
while  they  were  so  rapidly  diminishing. 

Interrogate  experience  as  you  will,  and  you  still  receive  the  same 
answer,  —  the  answer  never  at  variance  with  the  voice  of  humanity. 
The  proportion  of  convictions  increases  as  you  abandon  an  inhuman 
punishment ;  and  punishment  is  efficient  to  prevent  crime,  much, 
rather  in  proportion  to  the  certainty  of  its  infliction,  than  the  degree  of 
its  severity. 

London  and  Middlesex  —  offences  capital  in 

Executed.        Committed.      Convicted. 
1828  and  1829  46  679  299  or  44  per  cent. 

1834    "    1835  none  543  352  or  65  per  cent. 

The  per  centage  of  convictions  had  increased  from  44  to  65  per  cent., 
a  sufficient  reason  why  the  committals  should  fall  off  one  hundred  and 
thirty-six,  or  20  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number,  in  only  six  years  time, 
and  while  all  other  crimes  had  increased  about  25  per  cent. ! 

Trace  the  progress  of  this  suppression  of  crimes  ;  study  its  course  in ' 
this  and  the  thousand  other  instances  within  your  reach,  from  which  I 
am  offering  but  a  scanty  selection,  and  see  how  crime  disappears  before 
the  majesty  of  the  law,  just  so  soon  as  reason  and  humanity  resume 
their  empire  in  the  administration  of  the  law. 

London  and  Middlesex  —  offences  capital  in  1828,  and  1829  :  — 


Executed. 

Committals. 

Three  years  ending  December,  1830 

53 

960 

1833 

12 

896 

1836 

none 

823 

508  MEIMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

If  crimes  had  increased  from  the  first  period  only  as  fast  as  popula- 
tion, we  should  have  added  about  one  hundred  to  the  nine  hundred  and 
sixty  then  given.  If  these  crimes  had  increased  as  fast  as  crimes  not 
capital  during  the  same  time,  we  should  have  added  about  two  hundred 
.to  the  same  number.  Instead  of  which,  the  committals  have  fallen  off 
one  hundred  and  thirty-seven,  and  if  we  consider  the  greater  readiness 
to  inform,  and  to  arrest  where  the  punishment  is  moderate,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  the  crimes  actually  committed  had  fallen  off  in  a  much 
greater  ratio  than  the  committals  for  trial. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  table  that  the  executions  for  other  crimes 
than  murder,  were  much  fewer  after  1833,  than  before  it,  so  that  this 
dividing  point  affords  a  test  to  measure  the  effect  of  death  penalties  on 
capital  crimes  generally,  which  down  to  1833,  had  been  very  rapidly 
increasing. 

Persons  executed  for  other  crimes  than  murder,  with  total  committals 
for  crimes  capital  in  1828  and  1829,  in  England  and  Wales :  — 

Executed.  Committed. 

Five  years  ending  December,  1833  199  11,982 

1838  45  11,332 

With  less  than  one  fourth  the  executions  for  other  crimes  than  mur- 
der, the  committals  for  crimes  capital  at  the  commencement  of  this 
.period,  fell  off  six  hundred  and  fifty  instead  of  increasing  as  they  should 
have  done,  to  keep  pace  with  population,  nine  hundred  or  one  thousand. 
Allowing  for  increase  of  population,  these  crimes,  therefore,  diminished 
about  one  thousand  six  hundred,  or  over  13  per  cent.,  while  other  crimes 
increased  much  faster  than  population. 

For  murder,  the  table  shows  that  there  had  been  no  material  mitiga- 
tion of  severity  until  after  1835,  the  two  years  1834  and  1835  having 
a  greater  average  of  executions  for  murder  than  any  other  two  years  in 
the  table.  Afterwards  they  fell  to  half  that  average,  and  the  uniform, 
the  inevitable  effect  follows  : 

Murder  —  En":land  and  Wales  :  — > 


Executed. 

Commit  t 

Three  years  ending  December,  183.5 

39 

216 

1838 

21 

191 

But  the  full  effect  of  such  a  change  is  hardly  felt  under  an  interval  of 
a  year  from  its  occurrence ;  examine  then  the  comparison  from  the  close 
of  the  year  1836. 

As  all  experience  shows  that  frequent  executions  foster  the  propensity 
to  murder,  I  add  the  total  of  execution,  for  all  offences. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  509 

Number  committed  and  executed  for  murder,  and  total  of  executions 
in  England  and  Wales,  for  four  periods  of  six  years  each  :  — 


Committed. 

Executed. 

Total. 

iix  years  ending  December,  1824 

407 

91 

529 

1830 

411 

75 

358 

1836 

413 

74 

234 

1842 

351 

50 

52 

A  falling  oiF  in  the  last  six  years  of  sixty-two  committals  for  murder, 
or  about  15  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number. 

As  it  is  now  perfectly  well  established  that  the  private  "  avenger " 
stays  his  hand  the  more  readily  when  the  law  ceases  to  deal  out  ven- 
geance, and  that  the  subject  reveres  God's  image  in  his  fellow  man  the 
more  devoutly  when  the  law  displays  no  longer  to  his  view  its  whole- 
sale slaughters ;  as  it  is  proved  that  we  need  not  violate  the  divine  com- 
mand —  thou  shall  not  hill,  in  order  to  protect  society  against  the  in- 
crease of  crime  ;  nay,  that  the  blood  we  shed  will  but  cause  the  shedding 
of  more  blood,  in  an  endless  vicious  progression,  is  it  not  natural  to 
pause,  and  inquire  whether  the  strangling  of  one  of  our  fellow-creatures 
is  a  spectacle  of  so  great  a  moral  beauty,  such  an  exercise  of  the  finer 
feelings  of  nature,  that  society  must  provide  for  its  occasional  exhibition, 
a  choice  and  private  exhibition,  now,  even  at  the  expense  of  the  infinite 
evils  which  flow  from  it,  as  implicitly  as  crime  begets  crime  ? 

R.  Rantoul,  Jr. 

Boston,  February  14,  1846. 


Number  VI. 

I  have  given,  already,  strong  evidence  of  the  immediate  influence  pro- 
duced in  the  diminution  of  the  crime  of  murder,  as  well  as  all  other 
capital  crimes,  wherever  a  milder  punishment  is  substituted  for  the 
death  penalty. 

I  know  the  question  which  must  naturally  arise  in  the  mind  of  any  one 
unacquainted  with  the  criminal  statistics  of  the  Old  World,  as  he  reads 
these  letters.  He  will  ask  whether  the  progress  of  education  and  civili- 
zation, during  the  present  century,  have  not  tended  to  banish  crime,  and 
especially  the  most  aggravated  classes  of  crimes,  from  among  a  culti- 
vated and  Christian  people,  like  the  subjects  of  the  British  empire.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  the  progress  has  been  all  in  the  contrary  direction.  The 
frightful  rush  into  criminal  courses,  demonstrated  by  the  annual  returns, 
is  almost  too  amazing  for  belief,  too  awful  for  contemplation.  How 
much  more  decisive,  then,  is  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  few  exceptions 

43* 


510 


MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


to  this  general  augmentation  of  crime,  in  the  cases  of  the  repeal  of  the 
death  penalties.  To  see  how  general  is  this  augmentation,  first  measure 
the  growth  of  crime  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

Committals  for  serious  crime  in  the  United  Kingdom,  with  the  ratio 
to  the  population  at  several  periods :  — 


Years. 

Eng.  &  Wales. 

Scotland. 

Ireland. 

Total. 

Popvilation. 

Ratio  one  to 

1805 

4605 

89 

3600 

8294 

15,800,000 

1907 

1819 

14254 

1380 

13251 

28885 

20,600,000 

713 

1830 

18107 

2603 

15794 

36504 

23,927,407 

650 

1834 

22451 

2711 

21381 

46543 

24,912,170 

537 

1842 

31309 

3884 

21352 

56545 

27,031,100 

478 

In  1805,  there  was  one  committal  to  every  one  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  seven  inhabitants,  and  in  1842,  one  to  every  four  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  inhabitants ;  in  other  words,  in  thirty-seven  years,  crimes 
had  quadrupled  in  proportion  to  population.  If  crime  had  advanced  in 
Ireland,  for  the  last  eight  years  in  this  table,  as  rapidly  as  it  did  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  the  last  total  would  have  been  about  sixty-five  thousand, 
and  the  ratio  to  population,  one  to  four  hundred  and  sixteen.  But  Ire- 
land, which  had  increased  in  crime  much  more  rapidly  than  England 
and  Wales,  from  1805  down  to  1834,  has  been  operated  upon  by  very 
different  influences  since  1834,  and  the  crimes  for  1842,  are  less  than 
those  for  1834,  and  the  average  for  1840,  1841,  and  1842,  is  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  per  annum  less  than  that  for  1834,  1835,  and  1836. 
Severity  had  been  tried  in  Ireland,  until  the  rod  of  justice  was  broken 
in  her  hands.  Death,  and  the  severest  forms  of  punishment  next  to 
death,  were  dealt  out  more  lavishly  in  Ireland  than  in  England,  Wales, 
or  Scotland,  and  the  consequence  was,  an  impossibiHty  to  convict.  Take 
.the  first  four  years  of  the  returns  as  an  example. 

•Committals  and  convictions  in  Ireland,  from  1805  :  — 


Committals. 

Convictions. 

1805 

3,600 

609     • 

1806 

3,781 

643 

1807 

3,522 

608 

1808 

3,704 

668 

Total  for  four  years,  14,607 


2,528  or  17  1-3  per  cent. 


Only  17  1-3  per  cent,  could  be  convicted,  while  the  number  of  crimes 
actually  perpetrated  was  undoubtedly  greater  than  that  of  the  com- 
mittals. What  is  this  but  the  successful  struggle  of  the  best  instincts  of 
a  great  nation  against  the  detestable  cruelty  of  their  government;  a 
struggle  which,  however,  reduces  the  forms  of  justice,  in  four  cases  out 
«of  five,  to  a  mere  unmeaning  mockery.  Notwithstanding  this  practical 
impunity,  thus  resulting,  as  it  always  does,  from  an  intolerable  severity, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  511 

the  experiment  of  cruelty,  so  far  as  the  death  penalty  is  concerned,  was 
continued  down  to  1834,  after  which  a  milder  system  begins. 

Recollect  that  the  population  of  Ireland  is  about  half  that  of  En«-- 
land  and  Wales,  and  then  compare  the  numbers. 

Executions  in  England  and  Wales,  compared  with  those  in  Ireland :  — 


England  &  Wales. 

Ireland. 

Total. 

1822 

97 

101 

198 

1823 

54 

61 

115 

1824 

49 

60 

109 

Total  of  three  years,  200  222  422 

Take  then  the  period  ten  years  later,  during  which  the  milder  system 
beojan  to  be  tried  for  other  crimes  than'  murder. 


England  &  Wales. 

Ireland. 

Total. 

1832                                         54 

39 

93 

1833                                         33 

39 

72 

1834                                         34 

43 

77 

Total  of  three  years,  121 

121 

242 

I  have  shown  in  former  letters,  the  failure  and  gradual  abandonment 
of  the  experiment  of  cruelty  in  England,  as  well  as  in  Holland  and 
Belgium.  Let  us  see  where  the  experiment  of  still  greater  cruelty  left 
Ireland,  just  before  the  change  of  the  system  there  commenced,  a  change 
prompted  by  the  noblest  motives,  and  crowned  with  triumphant  success. 

From  1805  to  1834,  twenty-nine  years  only,  crime  in  England  and 
Wales  increased  387  per  cent.  ;  but  in  Ireland  during  the  same  period, 
crime  increased  494  per  cent.  But  if  we  take  our  starting  point  four 
years  later,  in  1809,  and  reckon  to  1836,  twenty-seven  years  only,  crime 
had  increased  in  Ireland  556  per  cent.  A  similar  increase  for  twenty- 
seven  years  longer  would  give  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
criminals  in  Ireland  in  1863,  and  reduce  the  whole  island  to  the  condi- 
tion of  kSodom.and  Gomorrah  by  the  close  of  the  century.  While 
Ireland  was  thus  rushing  towards  her  destruction  with  the  swiftness  and 
force  of  this  torrent  of  crime,  the  action  of  that  great  conservative  engine, 
the  gallows,  was  suddenly  checked,  its  restraining  and  purifying  influ- 
ences were  almost  wholly  withdrawn  from  this  unhappy  people,  who  for 
more  than  three  hundred  years  had  enjoyed  the  perpetual  presence  of 
the  hangman  in  a  richer  measure  than  almost  any  other  people,  either 
in  or  out  of  Christendom.  What  then  followed  the  loss  of  that  salutary 
dread,  which  to  the  cannibal  imagination  of  such  as  still  worship  Moloch 
enshrined  in  the  temple  of  justice,  seems  the  only  sure  preventive  of 
crime  ?     "  The  corner  stone  of  the  moral  -government  of  the  world  "  was 


512  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

shaken  almost  out  of  its  place,  and  can  we  not  trace  the  sad  effects  of 
this  appalling  calamity? 

Executions  in  England  and  Wales  compared  with  those  in  Ireland, 
since  the  mitijration  :  — 


Year. 

England  and  Wales. 

Ireland. 

Total. 

1835 

34 

27 

61 

1836 

17 

14 

31 

1837 

8 

10 

18 

1838 

6 

3 

9 

1839 

10 

17 

27 

1840 

9 

0 

9 

1841 

10 

5 

15 

Total  of  seven  years,  94  76  170 

Was  Ireland  better  governed  in  1822,  with  101  executions,  than  in 
1840  with  none  2  In  1822,  with  but  little  more  than  half  the  population 
of  England,  she  had  a  larger  list  of  crimes  than  England.  In  1835,  the 
lists  are  nearly  equal.     Since  1840,  mark  the  difference  :  — 


Year. 

Committals  in  England  and  Wales. 

Committals  in  Ireland, 

1822 

12,241 

15,251 

1835 

20,731 

21,205 

1840 

27,187 

23,833 

1841 

27,760 

20,796 

1842 

31,309 

21,352 

The  total  number  of  crimes,  however,  affords  but  a  faint  idea  of  the 
condition  of  Ireland  under  the  reign  of  terror.  The  capital  crimes,  and 
those  for  which  death  was  ordinarily  inflicted,  when  convictions  could  be 
obtained,  were  far  more  numerous  in  proportion  to  those  of  England, 
than  those  not  capital. 

In  1832,  there  were  in  Ireland,  homicides,  242;  robberies,  1179; 
burglaries,  401 ;  malicious  burnings,  5G8  ;  firing  with  intent  to  kill,  328 ; 
felonious  attacks  on  houses,  723.  In  all,  2441  ;  besides  many  other 
atrocious  crimes  not  comprehended  in  these  classes.  Since  1834,  crime 
has  diminished,  and  atrocious  crimes  much  more  rapidly  than  lesser 
offences. 

Not  the  hangman  and  the  halter,  but  Father  Mathew  with  his  temper- 
ance medals  has  done  this.  Not  by  building  scaffolds,  prisons,  transport 
ships,  and  pillories,  but  by  shutting  up  the  distilleries,  the  grog-shops, 
bar-rooms,  alehouses,  those  manufactories  of  murder,  arson,  rape,  and 
robbery,  as  well  as  of  all  other  crime  and  misery,  has  this  blessed  refor- 
mation been  thus  far  accomplished. 

While  diminished  in  Ireland  from  1834  to  1842,  in  England  and 
Wales  the  committals  increased  8,858,  or  39.5  per  cent.,  and  in  Scotland 
1,173,  or  43  per  cent,  in  the  same  eight  years. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  513 

While  this  terrible  march  of  crime  thus  overruns  the  kingdom,  no 
sooner  is  ii  death  penalty  repealed,  than  the  crime  for  which  that  penalty- 
had  been  denounced  is  suddenly  arrested  in  its  progress,  while  all  other 
crimes  continue  to  advance  as  before. 

The  capital  crimes  created  by  statute  bear  date  as  follows  :  There 
were  4  made  capital  under  the  Plantagenets  ;  27  under  the  Tudors  ;  36 
under  the  Stuarts  ;  and  156  under  the  House  of  Brunswick. 

More  crimes  were  denounced  as  capital  during  the  reign  of  George 
III.  than  in  the  reigns  of  all  the  Plantagenets,  Tudors,  and  Stuarts  com- 
bined together. 

The  advance  of  crime  was  never  so  rapid  as  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
reign  of  George  HI.  In  1814,  the  committals  in  England  and  Wales 
were  6,390,  and  in  1817  they  were  13,932.  They  had  more  than  doubled 
in  three  years  !     There  is  nothing  like  this  in  the  history  of  Ireland. 

The  death  penalty  for  coining  was  repealed,  23  May,  1832,  for  horse- 
stealing, sheep-stealing,  cattle-stealing,  larceny  in  dwellings,  (£5,)  11  July, 
1832  ;  forgery  and  uttering,  etc.,  16  August,  1832,  and  house-breaking, 
14  August,  1833.  For  these  oifences,  in  the  four  years  ending  with 
1831,  there  had  been  condemned  to  death  3,786  persons,  of  whom  GQ 
were  executed. 

Let  us  divide  crimes  into  three  classes,  and  compare  those  from  which 
the  death  penalty  had  just  been  removed,  first,  with  those  which  were 
previously  non-capital,  second,  with  those  which  still  continued  to  be 
capital.     First,  non-capital  offences  :  — 

Commitments. 
46,833 
51,623 
51,701 

Here  the  commitments  rose  four  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight,  or  more  than  10  per  cent,  in  six  years. 

Second,  offences  for  which  death  penalties  continued  :  — 


In  three  years, 

1827 

1828 

1829 

1830 

1831 

1832 

1833 

1834 

1835 

Commitments. 

Executions. 

In  three  years, 

1827 

1828 

1829 

1,705 

108 

1830 

1831 

1832 

2,236 

120 

1833 

1834 

1835 

2,247 

102 

Here  again  the  commitments  rose  five  hundred  and  forty-two,  or  about 
32  per  cent.,  in  defiance  of  the  executions,  in  six  years. 

Third,  oflTences  before  named,  in  which  death  penalties  were  repealed 
in  1832-3,  including  burglary  with  house-breaking,  because  it  was  so 
often  indicted  as  house-breakinj? :  — 


514  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 


Commitments. 

Executions. 

In  three  years, 

1827 

1828 

1829 

4,622 

96 

1830 

1831 

1832 

4,724 

23 

1833 

1834 

1835 

4,292 

2 

In  this  class  alone  the  commitments  fell  four  hundred  and  thirty-two, 
or  about  9  per  cent,  in  the  last  three  years. 

Does  this  change  arise  from  any  peculiarity  of  the  crimes  selected  for 
the  repeal  of  the  death  penalty  ?  No  ;  for  so  fast  as  other  crimes  are 
selected  for  the  same  experiment,  the  same  result  follows,  and  this,  too, 
whether  the  mitigation  be  by  a  repeal  of  the  law  or  by  an  almost  total 
disuse  of  the  penalty. 

England  and  Wales.  Robbery,  —  mitigation  commencing  in  1834  :  — 

Executed.  Committals. 

Five  years  ending  December,      1833  36  1,949 

1838  5  1,634 

Attempts  to  murder,  etc.,  —  mitigation  commencing  in  1835  :  — 

Executed.  Committals. 

Four  years  ending  December,     1834  14  520 

1838  4  528 

To  have  borne  the  same  proportion  to  population,  the  last  number 
should  have  been  551  instead  of  528. 

Capital  assaults  on  females,  —  mitigation  commencing  in  1835  :  — 

Four  years  ending  December, 


Executed. 

Committals. 

1834 

16 

222 

1838 

1 

223 

To  have  kept  up  the  same  ratio  to  population,  the  last  number  should 
have  been  235  instead  of  223. 

Arson,  —  mitigation  commencing  in  1837  :  — 

Two  years  ending  December,      1836 

1838 

Take  also  longer  periods  for  three  of  the  crimes  included  in  the  former 
table,  —  horse-stealing,  burglary,  and  forgery. 

Horse-stealing,  —  mitigation  commencing  1830  :  — 


icutcd. 

Committals. 

9 

148 

0 

86 

Executed. 
Nine  years  ending  December,      1829                                     46 
1838                                        0 

Committals. 
1626 
1565 

Burglary  and  house-breaking,  —  mitigation  commencing 

1833:  — 

Executed. 
Six  years  ending  December,      1832                                    56 
1838                                        3 

Committals. 
5199 
4621 

OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  515 

Forgery, — mitigation  commencing  1830:  — 


Executed. 

Committals. 

Ten  years  ending  December, 

1829 

64 

746 

1839 

0 

731 

For  these  seven  crimes  in  tlie  periods  named,  there  were,  before  the 
mitigation :  — 

Executed.  Committals. 

241  10,410 

In  the  same  time  after  the  mitigation,  1^  9,388 


A  falhng  oif  in  the  committals  of  nearly  10  per  cent.  1,022 

In  January,  1835,  I  proposed  to  repeal  the  death  penalty  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  in  the  debate  which  followed,  argued  on  general  principles 
the  certainty  of  results  like  these.  Experience  now  confirms  what  then 
was  called  theory. 

R.  Rantoul,  Jk. 

Boston,  Feh.  17,  184G. 


CHAPTER  VII 


HIS  OPINIONS  ON  BANKING  AND  THE  CUKEENCY,  AND  HIS  EFFOETS  TO 
COEEECT  SOME  PEEVALENT  EEEOES  ON  THESE  SUBJECTS. 

As  a  watchful  observer  of  every  cause  which  affects  the 
prosperity  of  a  State,  Mr.  Rantoul,  from  an  early  period,  had 
felt  a  deep  interest  in  the  subject  of  banks,  banking,  and  the 
currency.  Whatever  history  could  teach  in  relation  to  it,  what- 
ever facts  passed  before  his  observant  eyes,  suited  to  throw 
light  upon  it,  all  were  seized  upon  by  his  logical  mind,  carefully 
analyzed,  and  reduced  to  clear,  practical,  invincible  principles. 
Hence  his  writings  and  speeches  on  the  subject  are  not  only 
full  of  thought,  but  they  display  a  thorough  and  comprehensive 
mastery  of  all  its  details.  Nor  was  he  idle  in  the  use  of  this 
knowledge.  Few  writers  in  the  country,  and  no  public  speaker 
out  of  congress,  afforded  a  more  efficient  support  to  the  meas- 
ures which  President  Jackson  found  himself  obliged  to  take  for 
crushing  the  factious,  if  not  treasonable  proceedings  of  the 
United  States  Bank,  —  that  monster  of  financial  iniquity,  under 
the  management  of  Nicholas  Biddle,  and  his  unscrupulous 
associates  and  hirelings.  While  the  remembrance  of  that  bank 
shall  endure,  —  and,  as  a  warning  to  the  country  of  the  tremen- 
dous evils  of  such  an  institution,  its  remembrance  should  never 
die,  —  so  long  will  be  cherished  the  recollection  of  Mr.  Rantoul's 
able,  effective,  and  brilliant  writings  and  speeches,  in  support  of 
the  course  pursued  by  the  president  of  the  Union.  The  power 
and  success  of  Mr.  Eantoul's  efforts,  much  as  they  were  aided 
by  his  eloquence,  were  founded  on  his  thorough  and  capacious 
knowledge  of  every  question  relating  to  the  currency. 

In  1832,  he  delivered  a  speech  of  singular  eloquence  and 
ability,  in  support  of  the  veto  of  the  United  States  Bank.     In 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  517 

October,  1833,  and  March,  1834,  his  speeches  in  vindication  of 
the  removal  of  the  deposits  were  of  unsurpassed  excellence 
and  efficiency ;  the  latter,  addressed  to  the  largest  meeting  ever 
held  in  Salem,  contains  an  argument  in  support  of  that 
measure,  as  sound  and  convincing  as  the  clearest  deductions  of 
reason,  or  the  positive  testimony  of  unquestionable  facts.  In 
the  following  pages,  it  is  again  presented  to  the  reader. 

In  his  speech,  and  in  that  on  the  veto,  Mr.  Rantoul  defined 
the  law,  which  governs  the  fluctuations  of  paper  money,  and  in 
February,  1835,  in  a  speech  in  the  house  of  representatives,  ap- 
plying this  law  to  the  then  condition  of  the  banks,  predicted 
they  would  stop  payment  in  1837.  He  repeated  this  prediction 
in  1836,  in  his  speech  on  the  Ten  Million  Bank.  Of  his  three 
speeches  in  the  house  on  the  sub-treasury,  in  1838,  only  one, 
the  shortest,  was  printed.  It  is  ever  to  be  lamented  that  the 
democratic  press,  of  the  capital  of  the  State,  never  did  justice 
to  Mr.  Rantoul,  in  the  only  way  in  which  justice  could  be  done, 
namely,  by  giving  to  the  public,  who  much  needed  them,  full 
and  fair  reports  of  those  admirable  speeches,  in  which  he  elo- 
quently supported  democratic  truth  and  liberty.  Those  of  the 
speeches  above  referred  to  which  have  been  printed,  will  con- 
stitute the  most  interesting  and  valuable  part  of  this  chapter  of 
his  memoirs.  But  it  would  be  an  injustice  to  his  memory  not 
to  include  in  it,  also,  some  of  the  excellent  essays  which  he 
published  in  the  Gloucester  Democrat,  upon  the  same  great 
topics.  In  December,  1834,  he  commenced  the  publication  of 
a  series  of  papers,  in  seven  numbers,  on  banks  ;  and  these 
essays,  evidently  prepared  with  great  care  and  research,  will 
continue  to  be  interesting  and  instructive,  while  banks  shall 
exist.     Without  further  preface,  they  are  as  follows:  — 


BANKS. 

No.  1.  The  origin  of  banking  institutions  is  ascribed  to  the  Italians. 
In  the  free  cities  of  Italy,  there  were,  in  early  times,  "  lumber  houses," 
or  "  Lombard  Houses,"  which  were  no  other  than  what  are  now  called 
banks.  No  doubt  but  that  the  beginning  of  traffic  among  mankind  was 
by  exchanging  one  commodity  for  another,  as  men  could  suit  each  other's 
occasions.     But  the  necessities  of  men  being  so  various  and  different  in 

44 


518  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

respect  to  the  quantity  of  requisites,  money  was  instituted  as  the  most 
convenient  medium  for  commerce,  whereby  people  might  procure  what- 
soever they  stood  in  need  of,  in  quantities  according  to  their  wants. 
This  changed  bartering  into  buying  and  selling.  Yet  all  trade  resulted 
in  a  general  barter.  For  he  who  sells  for  money,  buys  what  he  wants 
with  the  same  money.  Money,  then,  becomes  the  principal  engine  for 
circulating  the  bulk  of  commodities.  Money  is  used  in  minuter  deal- 
ings when  it  is  commuted  for  all  kinds  of  labor,  and  to  furnish  the 
necessary  provisions  for  daily  use.  This  requires  its  being  divided  into 
the  smallest  denominations  of  the  pieces,  as  dimes,  half  dimes,  and 
cents,  so  that  this  way  of  trading  is  not  capable  of  being  conveniently 
transacted  by  bills  and  assignments.  The  experiment  has  been  often 
tried  in  this  country,  of  substituting  bills  of  a  very  small  denomination 
for  hard  money,  but  always  with  loss,  vexation,  and  disappointment. 
The  smallest  denomination  of  bank  bills,  that  are  now  allowed  to  circu- 
late, are  those  of  one  dollar.  Most  of  those  who  consider  the  effect  of 
a  paper  currency,  as  a  substitute  for  coin  of  the  smaller  denominations, 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  injurious  to  the  community  to  cir- 
culate bank  bills  of  so  small  a  denomination  as  one  dollar,  or  even  of 
any  denomination  less  than  twenty  or  twenty-five  dollars,  which  last 
sum  would  correspond  well  with  the  five  pound  notes  of  the  Bank  of 
England,  the  smallest  that  are  now  issued  by  that  moneyed  institution ; 
whose  example  in  many  other  respects,  has  unbounded  influence  in  the 
management  of  money  concerns  in  our  own  country. 

In  coincidence  with  the  progress  of  public  opinion,  in  regard  to  the 
circulation  of  small  bills,  the  congress  of  the  United  States  prohibit  the 
United  States  Bank  from  issuing  any  bill  of  a  less  denomination  than 
five  dollars,  and  the  States  of  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
Georgia,  prohibit  the  circulation  of  any  bills  of  a  less  sum.  The  State 
of  New  York  have  prohibited  the  circulation  of  bills  of  other  States  of 
less  than  five  dollars,  within  the  limits  of  that  State ;  and  from  the  re- 
sult of  the  late  elections,  we  may  reasona'bly  expect  that  the  legislature 
will  hasten  to  take  the  next  step  by  prohibiting  their  circulation  alto- 
gether. We  have  even  some  hopes  of  a  better  state  of  the  currency  in 
Massachusetts,  founded  upon  the  sentiments  contained  in  the  opening 
message  of  Governor  Davis  to  the  general  court,  in  the  session  of 
1834.  The  opinion  expressed  by  Daniel  Webster  in  some  of  his 
speeches,  but  above  all,  in  the  good  sense  of  the  yeomanry  of  our  State, 
who  will  no  longer  submit  to  the  interested  views  of  those  partisans, 
whose  mental  pen  rarely  extends  beyond  the  profits  of  some  bank,  or 
other  moneyed  institutions. 

Perhaps  the  only  effectual  remedy  of  the  existing  evil  will  be  found 


OF  ROBERT  RxiNTOUL,  JR.  519 

in  the  power  of  congress  to  impose  a  stamp  duty  upon  all  bank  bills 
hereafter  to  be  issued,  or  paid  out  by  any  bank,  of  a  less  denomination 
than  is  consistent  with  the  general  interest,  and  to  prohibit  under  suffi- 
cient penalties,  the  circulation  of  unstamped  bills  of  the  denomination 
required  to  be  stamped.  But  let  not  the  suggestion  of  the  expediency 
of  the  interference  of  congress  retard  State  legislation,  as  without  this 
manifestation  of  public  sentiment,  through  the  legislatures  of  the  princi- 
pal States,  the  measure  cannot  be  expected  to  obtain  in  congress,  in  op- 
position to  the  interest  of  more  than  four  hundred  banking  institutions, 
spread  over  the  whole  territory  of  the  United  States. 

Whenever  this  prohibition  of  the  circulation  of  small  bills,  directly  or 
indirectly  brought  about,  shall  obtain,  through  the  United  States,  the 
place  of  these  bills,  as  fast  as  they  disappear  from  circulation,  will  be 
supplied  with  silver  and  gold  coin,  —  the  only  proper  medium  for  all  the 
smaller  transactions  of  business.  Most  of  the  buying  and  selling  of  three 
quarters  of  the  whole  community,  would  then  be  carried  on  with  some- 
thing more  tangible  in  the  hands  of  laboring  men,  than  slim  strips  of 
paper,  less  liable  to  be  worn  out,  destroyed,  and  lost,  and  much  less 
liable  to  be  counterfeited. 

Counterfeiters  understand  well  that  they  meet  with  much  better  suc- 
cess, and  with  larger  profits,  by  putting  into  circulation  bills  of  the 
smallest  denomination,  rather  than  those  of  the  larger.  These  last  be- 
ing more  used  by  those  who  are  better  qualified  to  detect  the  fraud,  and 
from  their  greater  amount,  adding  the  stimulus  of  greater  interest,  to 
induce  a  critical  examination  of  each  bill  as  it  passes  from  hand  to  hand. 
The  poor  and  the  ignorant  suffer  an  undue  proportion  of  the  loss, 
arising  from  the  circulation  of  small  bills,  whether  it  occur  from  coun- 
terfeits, or  from  the  wearing  out  and  loss  of  bills  of  this  class ;  and  this 
is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  their  universal  use  in  this  part  of  the 
country,  as  a  substitute  for  coins  of  gold  and  silver. 

No.  2.  Money  is  also  employed  in  the  more  extensive  and  wholesale 
way  of  trade,  wherein  large  sums  are  negotiated ;  and  this  occasions 
frequent  payments  from  one  trader,  or  merchant,  to  another.  In  these 
payments,  although  strictly  speaking  ready  cash  may  be  required  as 
often  as  contracts  are  made,  yet,  as  commerce  generally  consists  in  the 
mutual  dealings  and  transactions  of  many  traders,  it  may  often  fall  out 
by  means  of  interchangeable  debts  and  credits,  that  divers  traders  may 
satisfy  each  other's  occasions  without  making  any  payments  in  specie,  by 
transferring  their  debts  to  each  other.  But  when  such  mutual  con- 
veniences do  not  occur,  traders  receive  their  money  in  specie,  and  so  pay 
it  from  one  to  the  other.  Yet  this  way  of  payment  is  attended  with 
many  inconveniences,  as  trouble  in  counting  the  money,  liazard  in  secur- 


520  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

ing  it  from  thieves,  and  the  loss  from  trusting  it  in  the  care  of  unfaithful 
persons  ;  for  the  prevention  of  all  which,  cities  of  large  commerce  in 
every  part  of  the  world  have  very  naturally  introduced  the  use  of  banks. 
And  while  hanks  are  confined  to  the  legitimate  objects  of  deposit  and 
transfer,  or  are  extended  to  the  lending  of  the  money  which  may  belong 
to  those  who  are  the  proprietors  of  the  bank,  or  that  which  is  deposited 
for  the  purpose  of  loans,  the  benefit  to  the  community  is  manifest,  and 
is  attended  with  very  few  evils.  Of  these  banks,  some  are  public,  con- 
sisting of  a  company  of  moneyed  men,  who,  being  duly  incorporated  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  the  country  where  they  are  resident,  agree  to  de- 
posit a  considerable  fund  or  joint  stock,  to  be  employed  in  various  ways 
for  the  use  of  the  society ;  or  they  are  private,  being  such  as  are  set  up 
by  private  persons  or  partnerships,  who  trafhc,  in  the  same  way,  upon 
their  own  single  stock  or  credit.  Of  the  public  banks,  the  most  ancient 
is  that  of  Venice,  which  was  established  about  11 7G. 

The  Bank  of  England  was  established  in  the  year  1694,  and  has  be- 
come the  greatest  bank  of  circulation  in  the  world.  Its  notes  and  bills 
in  circulation  being  about  $90,000,000,  and  its  capital  £14,000,000, 
equal  to  about  $62,000,000.  In  addition  to  this  public  bank,  there  are 
about  four  hundred  private  banks,  dispersed  over  every  part  of  England, 
that  do  an  immense  amount  of  business.  These  private  banks  consist  of 
an  individual's  carrying  on  business  on  his  own  account  solely,  or  of  part- 
nerships, composed  of  two  or  more  individuals,  doing  business  under  a 
firm,  for  their  joint  account.  The  private  bankers  of  England  are  well 
known  in  every  part  of  the  commercial  world,  and  enjoy  the  highest  ■ 
degree  of  confidence.  By  their  integrity,  punctuality,  and  prudent  pre- 
caution, they  obtain  the  management  of  vast  sums  of  money  both  at 
home  and  abroad.  For  money  deposited  with  them  they  generally 
allow  a  rate  of  interest,  and  with  this  money  and  their  own  funds,  they 
discount  loan  money  at  higher  rate  of  interest,  and  by  this  and  other 
money  transactions  many  of  them  acquire  large  fortunes. 

There  are  two  public  banks  in  Edinburgh,  the  Bank  of  Scotland, 
which  dates  from  1695,  and  the  Koyal  Bank  established  by  the  royal 
charter  in  1727.  There  are  also  private  banks  in  every  considerable 
town  in  Scotland.  The  banks  of  Scotland  have  transacted  their  busi- 
ness upon  a  principle  more  accommodating  than  those  of  other  coun- 
tries. They  receive  small  sums  of  money  on  deposit,  and  allow  interest 
thereon  upon  very  liberal  conditions  ;  and  by  opening  "cash  accounts" 
with  merchants  and  allowing  them  to  draw  for  money  at  their  pleasure, 
to  a  limited  extent,  for  which  they  take  adequate  security,  and  allow  of 
repayments  in  any  sums,  charging  interest  on  their  advances  and  allow- 
ing the  same  rates  of  interest  upon  their  repayments,  to  the  time  for  set- 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  521 

tling  the  account.  By  means  of  these  cash  accounts,  every  merchant 
can,  without  imprudence,  carry  on  a  greater  trade  than  he  otherwise 
could  do.  The  receiving  small  sums  in  deposit,  and  allowing  interest 
thereon,  combines  some  of  the  advantages  resulting  from  savings  banks. 
The  Bank  of  Ireland,  which  was  the  first  public  bank  in  that  island,  was 
established  in  1783. 

No.  3.  The  first  bank  established  by  law  within  the  United  States 
subsequent  to  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution,  was  the  Bank  of 
North  America,  and  for  several  years  this  was  the  only  bank. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1781,  in  the  midst  of  the  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence, at  a  time  when  the  finances  were  in  a  crisis  almost  desperate, 
when  public  credit  was  at  an  end,  when  no  means  were  afforded  ade- 
quate to  the  public  expenses,  when  the  money  and  credit  of  the  United 
States  were  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  some  members  of  the  board  of  war 
declared  that  they  had  not  the  means  of  sending  an  express  to  the  army, 
—  on  the  11th  of  May  of  that  year,  the  superintendent  of  finance  sub- 
mitted to  Congress  a  plan  for  establishing  a  national  bank,  for  the 
United  States  of  North  America.  By  this  plan  it  was,  among  other 
things,  proposed  that  the  subscribers  to  the  bank  should  be  incorporated, 
that  the  capital  stock  should  consist  of  $400,000,  in  shares  of  four  hun- 
dred dollars,  payable  in  gold  or  silver,  and  that  it  might  be  increased  by 
new  subscriptions,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  directors ;  that  the  manage- 
ment of  the  affairs  of  the  bank  should  be  in  the  hands  of  twelve  direct- 
ors, to  be  chosen  by  the  stockholders  ;  and  that  the  notes  of  the  bank, 
payable  on  demand,  should  by  law  be  made  receivable  in  the  payment  of 
the  duties  and  taxes,  as  specie. 

On  the  26th  of  May,  1781,  Congress  passed  the  following  resolution 
concerning  it :  Resolved,  That  Congress  do  approve  of  the  plan  for 
establishing  a  national  bank  in  these  United  States,  submitted  to  their 
consideration  by  Mr.  Robert  Morris,  the  lltli  of  May,  1781,  and  that 
they  will  promote  and  support  the  same  by  such  ways  and  means,  from 
time  to  time,  as  may  appear  necessary  for  the  institution,  and  consistent 
with  the  public  good.  That  the  subscribers  to  the  said  bank  shall  be 
incorporated,  agreeably  to  the  principles  and  terms  of  the  plan,  so  soon 
as  the  subscription  shall  be  filled,  the  directors  and  president  chosen,  and 
application  for  that  purpose  made  to  congress  by  the  president  and 
directors  elected. 

Resolved,  That  it  be  recommended  to  the  several  States,  by  proper 
laws  for  that  purpose,  to  provide  that  no  other  bank  or  bankers  shall  be 
established  or  permitted  within  the  said  States,  during  the  war. 

Resolved,  That  the  notes  hereafter  to  be  issued  by  the  said  banks, 
payable  on  demand,  shall  be  received,  in  payment  of  all  taxes,  duties, 

44* 


522  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  debts  due  or  that  may  become  due  or  payable  to  the  United 
States. 

Resolved,  That  Congress  will  recommend  to  the  several  legislatures  to 
pass  laws  making  it  felony  without  benefit  of  clergy,  for  any  person  to 
counterfeit  its  notes,  or  to  pass  such  notes  knowing  them  to  be  counter- 
feit, also  making  it  felony  without  benefit  of  the  clergy,  for  any  presi- 
dent, inspector,  director,  or  servant  of  the  bank,  to  convert  to  his  own 
use,  or  in  any  other  way  to  be  guilty  of  fraud  or  embezzlement,  as  an 
offic3r  or  servant  of  the  bank.  Under  tliese  resolutions,  a  subscription 
was  opened  for  the  national  bank,  and  was  not  confined  to  Pennsylvania, 
but  extended  to  the  citizens  of  other  States.  During  the  summer  and 
autumn  the  subscriptions  were  filled.  On  the  olst  of  December,  1781, 
Congress  passed  an  ordinance,  creating  the  subscribers  to  the  bank  a 
corporation.  In  this  ordinance  the  leading  features  of  the  plan  origin- 
ally proposed  were  prescribed,  but  the  corporation  was  restricted  from 
holding  property  above  the  value  of  ten  millions  of  dollars.  In  the 
preamble  to  the  ordinance  it  is  declared,  that  the  exigencies  of  the  United 
States  render  it  indispensably  necessary  that  such  an  ordinance  shoidd  be 
immediately  passed. 

On  the  7th  of  January,  1782,  the  bank  commenced  its  operations. 
Tlobert  Morris,  the  superintendent  of  finances,  is  chiefly  entitled  to  the 
merit  of  instituting  the  first  bank  In  the  United  States.  For  merit  we 
must  call  it,  as  we  view  the  establishment  of  tliis  bank  and  many  others 
that  followed  it,  in  the  state  of  the  country  which  existed  at  the  time  of 
the  establishment  of  them,  as  intimately  connected  with  the  prosperity 
and  growth  of  the  country  ;  but  the  utility  of  this  or  of  a  few  institu- 
tions of  the  kind,  by  no  means  justifies  the  monstrous  extravagance  to 
which  banking  has  been  and  now  is  carried  on  in  the  United  States.  Such 
was  the  want  of  faith  in  this  first  banking  institution,  or  of  capital  in  the 
States,  that  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1781,  of  the  one  thousand  shares 
proposed,  two  hundred  had  not  been  subscribed,  and  it  was  some  time 
•after  the  business  of  the  bank  was  set  on  foot,  that  the  sum  received 
upon  all  the  subscriptions  put  together,  amounted  to  seventy  thousand 
dollars.  A  sum  no  larger  than,  at  this  day,  would  be  subscribed  in 
almost  any  of  the  trading  villages  in  Massachusetts  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  bank. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  superintendent  of  finance  subscribed 
above  $250,000  dollars,  for  account  of  the  United  States. 

Upon  this  fund  principally,  the  operations  of  the  institution  were  com- 
menced. The  bank  was  soon  viewed  as  the  source  and  as  the  support 
of  credit,  both  private  and  public.  In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1782, 
the  United  States  owed  large  sums  of  money.     The  requisitions  of  Con- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  523 

gress  upon  the  States  for  $8,000,000  for  the  expenses  of  the  coming 
year,  were  not  payable  until  the  first  day  of  April,  and  as  late  as  the 
thirtieth  of  June  only  $30,000  was  paid.  By  having  recourse  to  the 
bank  the  superintendent  of  finance  was  enabled  to  get  through  his  diffi- 
culties ;  and  so  much  was  he  indebted  to  this  institution  for  aid  in  sus- 
taining the  credit  of  the  United  States,  that  it  was  conceded  that  with- 
out the  establishment  of  the  national  bank,  the  business  of  the  depart- 
ment could  not  have  been  performed. 

The  State  of  Pennsylvania  also  derived  great  assistance  from  this  in- 
stitution. Notwithstanding  the  great  utilit}^  of  this  institution  during 
the  war  of  the  revolution,  yet  very  soon  after  the  peace,  those  prejudices 
and  jealousies  against  all  moneyed  institutions  which  have  always  ex- 
isted in  the  mass  of  every  community  that  are  watchful  over  their  rights 
and  liberties,  were  revived  and  excited  against  this.  In  addition  to  the 
charter  granted  to  this  institution  by  the  congress  of  the  old  confedera- 
tion, the  legislature  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  had  incorporated  it 
under  the  laws  of  that  State.  In  September,  1785,  this  last  charter  was 
repealed,  but  the  bank  continued  to  do  business  ;  and  in  1787,  the  legis- 
lature revived  its  charter  for  fourteen  years ;  and  by  subsequent  laws  it 
has  been  continued  to  this  day,  and  is  now  doing  business  in  Philadel- 
phia, under  the  laws  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  subject  to  such 
limitations  as  are  imposed  upon  similar  institutions. 

Its  capital  is  now  $800,000.  Its  dividends,  for  many  years,  from  its 
first  establishment,  were  at  the  rate  of  twelve  per  cent,  per  annum. 

No.  4.  The  great  evil  resulting  to  a  community  by  the  substitution  of 
a  paper  circulation  for  a  metallic  currency,  have  been  so  repeatedly  ex- 
perienced in  Massachusetts,  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  recur  to  our  own 
history  to  warn  us  of  the  impending  danger  of  our  own  system.  The 
first  paper  money  that  obtained  a  general  circulation  in  the  colony  of 
Massachusetts  Baj^,  was  what  was  called  "  bills  of  credit." 

Previous  to  the  issues  of  these  bills,  laws  had  been  passed  fixing  cer- 
tain prices  at  which  divers  articles  of  the  production  of  the  country 
should  be  received,  in  payment  of  taxes.  This  established  the  distinc- 
tion between  cash  payments  and  payment  in  articles  of  merchandise. 
This  last  kind  was  called  "  rate  pay  "  or  sometimes  "  pay,"  while  the 
other  was  called  "  money."  The  difference  between  the  two  was  some- 
times as  much  as  fifty  per  cent.  For  example,  a  contract  to  pay  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  in  rate  pay  might  be  fulfilled  by  the  payment 
of  one  hundred  pounds  in  specie.  This  occasioned  great  perplexity,  and 
opened  the  door  for  much  dishonesty.  It  was  a  temporizing  measure  ; 
perhaps  called  for  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  times,  and  sus- 
tained, after  it  had  come  to  do  more  hurt  than  good. 


524  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

111  1G90,  the  government,  having  become  involved  in  pecuniary  diffi- 
culty, in  consequence  of  the  expensive  and  unfortunate  expedition  into 
Canada  of  that  year,  issued  bills  of  various  denominations  from  05.  to  £0 
each,  to  the  amount  of  fifty  thousand  pounds,  to  pay  the  soldiers,  seamen, 
and  others  employed  in  this  service.  The  law  authorizing  this  issue  of 
paper  put  it  upon  the  ground  of  the  anticipation  of  taxes  granted  at  the 
same  time  and  to  the  same  amount,  for  the  redemption  of  these  bills  in 
one  year.  But  this  was  not  sufiicient  to  prevent  their  depreciation  in 
trade.  They  were  at  par  for  the  payment  of  taxes,  but  for  no  other 
purpose  whatever.  Punctuality  was  observed  by  the  government  in  the 
redemption  of  these'  bills  until  1704,  when  the  pressure  of  jDublic  ex- 
penses induced  the  postponement  for  two  years  at  first,  afterwards  for  a 
greater  length  of  time,  and  at  length  for  thirteen  years,  until  the  further 
postponement,  was  at  last  confined  by  royal  instructions  to  the  year  1741. 
The  counterfeiting  of  these  bills  was  at  first  punished  by  fine,  imprison- 
ment, mutilation,  and  other  corporal  inflictions  ;  but  in  1714,  upon  a 
second  conviction  the  punishment  was  death;  and  in  1720,  upon  a  first 
conviction  the  counterfeiter  forfeited  his  life.  These  bills  were  made  a 
tender  in  payment  of  debts,  unless,  by  special  contract,  hard  money  was 
agreed  to  be  paid.  The  efiect  of  this  upon  established  salaries,  and 
other  contracts  made  before  the  issuing  of  this  paper,  or  before  it  had 
depreciated  to  any  considerable  degree,  was  to  produce  the  greatest  in- 
justice. Various  expedients  were  resorted  to,  in  order  that  the  credit  of 
these  bills  might  so  far  be  sustained  as  to  keep  them  in  circulation. 
Bills  of  a  new  tenor  were  issued,  nominally  of  a  greater  relative  value 
than  those  in  circulation,  which  afterwards  were  called  bills  of  the  old 
tenor  ;  but  they  all  slid  down  the  same  lapse  of  depreciation,  as  the 
probability  of  their  redemption  decreased.  The  popularity  of  these 
bills  increased  with  the  mischief  which  they  created,  and  seemed  to 
render  all  remedy  hopeless.  Such  was  the  infatuation  of  the  times, 
instead  of  imposing  taxes,  the  government  issued  paper  money,  to  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  trustees  in  each  town,  to  be  loaned  on  interest 
to  individuals,  and  with  the  profits  to  provide  the  annual  expenses  of 
the  government.  They  emitted  £50,000  at  first,  afterwards  twice  as 
much  more.  Various  banking  projects  were  attempted,  and  among 
others  a  "  land  bank."  The  partners  in  the  land  bank  pushed  their 
operations  to  the  greatest  extent,  until  it  became  necessary  for  the 
mother  country  to  interfere,  when  this  bank  was  dissolved  by  act  of 
parliament.  The  general  court  passed  numerous  laws  to  wind  up  their 
concerns,  and  to  enable  the  holders  of  their  obligations  to  get  their  pay 
out  of  the  real  estate  of  the  partners.  The  government  continued  the 
issue  of  bills  of  credit  from  time  to  time,  until  the  nominal  value  of  the 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  525 

unredeemed  bills  of  credit  in  1748,  was  two  millions  two  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  sterhng.  The  value  of  these  bills  when  issued  was  about 
four  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling,  and  the  provision  made  for  re- 
deeming them  was  somewhat  less  than  two  hundred  and  fourteen  thousand 
230unds  sterling.  The  difference  between  these  two  last  sums  was  gained 
by  the  province,  in  redeeming  them  at  a  lower  rate,  compared  with  specie, 
than  they  were  when  issued. 

The  sum  of  £183,G-19  2s.  7  l-2d.  sterling  was  granted  by  the  parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain,  for  reimbursing  the  expense  of  the  province,  in 
taking  and  securing  the  island  of  Cape  Breton,  whereupon  the  general 
court  passed  a  law  in  1748,  for  the  redemption  of  the  bills  of  credit,  on 
the  31st  of  March,  1750.  Those  bills  called  old  tenor  were  to  be  re- 
deemed at  the  rate  of  one  Spanish  milled  dollar  for  forty-five  shilhngs  of 
the  bills,  and  the  middle  and  new  tenor  at  the  rate  of  the  Spanish  milled 
dollar  for  eleven  shillings  and  threepence  of  the  bills.  The  standard 
value  of  silver  was  fixed  at  six  shillings  and  eightpence  per  ounce,  and 
Spanish  milled  dollars  were  to  pass  at  six  shillings,  when  their  true  value 
was  four  shillings  and  sixpence  sterling,  so  that  the  old  tenor  bills  were 
redeemed  at  one  for  ten,  while  the  difference  between  what  was  called 
laAvful  money  and  old  tenor,  was  as  one  to  seven  and  a  half.  All  per- 
sons were  required  to  conform  their  books  and  accounts  to  this  new 
standard  of  value,  otherwise  they  could  not  be  admitted  in  evidence  in 
any  court  of  justice.  In  addition  to  the  sum  received  from  Great 
Britain,  a  tax  of  seventy-five  thousand  pounds  sterling  was  granted, 
payable  in  new  tenor  bills,  at  four  shilhngs  and  threepence  to  the  dollar. 

The  whole  thing  v/as  happily  executed,  and  a  silver  currency  estab- 
lished in  lieu  of  depreciated  paper,  which  had  been  injuring  the  interest 
and  corrupting  the  morals  of  the  people  for  fifty  or  sixty  years.  The 
difficulty  in  effecting  tliis  important  change  in  the  currency  arose  from 
the  friends  of  the  paper  system  in  the  general  court  and  elsewhere,  who 
found  their  interest  in  the  continuance  of  the  system,  and  also  from  the 
power  of  habit  among  a  people,  who,  by  the  use  of  this  fluctuating 
medium,  for  more  than  half  a  century  had  become  so  reconciled  to  it  as 
to  dread  a  change. 

It  was  owing  to  the  fear  of  some  of  the  members  of  the  general  court 
that  the  bill,  for  calling  in  this  depreciated  and  depreciating  paper 
currency,  which  at  first  was  lost  in  the  house  of  representatives,  finally 
passed.  But  the  people  without  doors  preserved  their  prejudices  in  a 
great  degree,  in  favor  of  the  paper  system.  Even  the  alteration  of  the 
nominal  value  of  the  currency  was  held  up  as  an  object  of  odium ;  and 
when  the  silver  money  arrived  from  England,  it  rather  occasioned  gloom 
than  joy.     The  operation  of  an  act  for  one  of  the  most  important  and 


526  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

righteous  measures  in  society,  was  begun  with  doubts,  murmurings,  and 
even  attempts  at  forcible  resistance,  instead  of  universal  pleasure  and 
applause. 

It  must  have  given  the  highest  satisfaction  to  the  promoters  of  the 
plan,  that  none  of  the  forebodings  of  the  disaffected  were  realized  ;  but 
that  the  most  essential  interests  of  the  country  were  greatly  served,  and 
the  principles  of  commutative  justice  settled  on  a  firm  foundation,  by  the 
introduction  of  a  stable  currency.  It  is  a  memorable  example  of  success, 
in  the  cause  of  probity  and  true  patriotism,  against  the  clamors  of  the 
discontented  pretenders  to  these  virtues,  which  ought  always  to  animate 
honest  men  in  the  pursuit  of  their  objects,  when  struggling  against  the 
bustle  and  intrigues  of  such  mistaken  or  counterfeiting  characters. 
Governor  Shirley  is  entitled  to  the  honor  of  contributing  largely  to  the 
accomplishment  of  this  great  object.  His  firmness  and  perseverance 
were  necessary  to  the  attainment. 

The  depreciation  of  the  province  bills  of  credit  will  appear  by  the  rate 
of  exchange  on  England  at  different  periods.  To  purchase  a  bill  of 
exchange  on  England  for  one  hundred  pounds  sterling,  it  required  in 
bills  of  credit,  in  the  year  1713,  £150;  in  1716,  £175  ;  in  1722,  £270; 
m  1728,  £340  ;  in  1730,  £380  ;  and  in  1748,  £1,000. 

No.  5.  From  the  31st  of  March,  1750,  to  the  22d  of  July,  1775,  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  a  specie  currency.  At 
the  last  date,  the  continental  congress  ordered  two  millions  of  dollars  to 
be  issued  in  bills  of  credit  for  the  defence  of  the  country.  The  same 
expedient  was  resorted  to  by  many  of  the  particular  States,  so  that  the 
country  was  immediately  flooded  with  paper  bills  of  every  denomination, 
and  specie  was  banished  from  circulation.  The  sudden  issue  of  large 
sums,  and  the  financial  distress  of  the  government  of  the  confederation, 
as  well  as  of  the  several  State  governments,  soon  destroyed  the  credit  of 
the  bills,  so  that  they  generally  ceased  to  circulate  after  the  21st  of 
August,  1781.  It  continued  to  be  used  until  its  bulk,  for  the  common 
purposes  of  trade,  became  cumbersome  to  the  person.  A  year  before  it 
ceased  circulating,  it  required  sixty  dollars  to  purchase  a  bushel  of  corn, 
and  fifteen  dollars  to  purchase  a  pound  of  butter,  and  much  larger  sums 
were  afterwards  necessary  to  procure  the  same  articles.  The  necessity 
of  the  case  may  excuse  the  resort  to  such  unequal  and  oppressive  meas- 
ures, to  raise  money  by  the  government.  It  is  now  difficult  to  conceive 
how  the  war  of  the  revolution  could  have  been  carried  on  to  a  successful 
termination,  without  a  resort  to  this  measure,  so  afflictive  in  its  conse- 
quences. After  the  expiration  of  the  first  six  years  of  the  war,  hard 
money  again  appeared,  and  has  continued  to  be  partially  used  up  to  the 
present  time.    The  circulation  of  bank  bills  began  soon  after  the  stopping 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  527 

of  the  bills  of  credit  of  the  revolution,  but  they  very  gradually,  and  at 
first  very  slowly,  usurped  the  place  of  gold  and  silver. 

In  most  of  the  smaller  transactions  of  trade  specie  was  in  use,  until 
about  the  year  1798,  soon  after  which  banks  had  become  so  multiplied, 
that  their  bills  were  in  universal  use. 

These  bills  are  now  issued  by  more  than  four  hundred  corporations 
within  the  United  States,  each  of  which,  as  an  aggregate  body,  is  inter- 
ested to  preserve  and  to  extend  the  circulation  of  their  own  bills.  In 
addition  to  this  interest  of  the  corporations,  each  individual  stockholder 
is  also  interested  to  promote  the  same  object.  The  capital  stock  of  these 
moneyed  institutions  is  estimated  at  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and 
their  circulation  of  paper  at  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  dollars, 
while  the  whole  specie  circulation  of  the  United  States  is  estimated  at 
only  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars.  To  this  extravagance  of  the  paper 
system,  the  attention  of  the  people  will  now  be  directed.  The  victory 
over  the  "mammoth"  bank,  which  wields  her  thirty-five  millions  of 
dollars  in  opposition  and  defiance  of  a  government  elected  by  the  suf- 
frages of  a  free  people,  is  the  presage  of  another  triumph  over  the  undue 
power  and  influence  of  the  moneyed  corporations,  in  restraining  them 
within  those  just  limits  that  will  comport  with  the  general  interests  of 
the  whole  community.  When  the  people  will  it,  silver  and  gold  will  take 
the  place  of  mere  jjromises  to  pay  it  when  called  for,  and  a  paper  circula- 
tion will  obtain  no  further  than  the  convenience  of  trade  in  its  larger 
transactions  may  require. 

No.  6.  The  oldest  bank  in  Massachusetts,  subsequent  to  the  revolu- 
tion, is  the  bank  in  Boston  called  the  "  Massachusetts  Bank."  This  was 
incorporated  in  February,  1784,  and  soon  afterwards  commenced  its 
operations.  Its  original  capital  was  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  upon 
which  it  began  to  operate ;  but  by  its  charter  the  bank  was  allowed  to  hold 
real  estate  not  exceeding  fifty  thousand  pounds,  and  personal  property  not 
exceeding  five  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling.  Soon  after  it  com- 
menced business  its  capital  was  augmented  to  four  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars, and  subsequently  to  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  dollars,  but  it  has 
since  been  reduced  to  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Its  charter  was  un- 
limited in  point  of  time  ;  and  when,  some  years  afterwards,  an  attempt  was 
made  to  establish  another  bank  in  Boston,  this  bank  claimed,  not  only  a 
perpetual  extension,  but  also  the  exclusive  right  of  carrying  on  the  busi- 
ness of  corporate  banking  within  the  Commonwealth.  They  denied  the 
right  of  the  legislature  to  grant,  and  they  strenuously  opposed  the  grant- 
ing of  a  charter,  with  banking  privileges,  to  any  other  body  of  men. 
For  about  eight  years  they  enjoyed  a  complete  monopoly  of  banking, 


528  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

and  the  stockholders,  few  in  number  and  among  the  richest  persons  in 
Boston,  realized  a  profit  of  more  that  twelve  per  cent,  upon  their  stock, 
annually.  But  these  great  profits  could  no  longer  continue  without  com- 
petition, and  in  1792,  notwithstanding  the  high  ground  taken  by  the 
Massachusetts  Bank,  the  general  court  incorporated  the  Union  Bank, 
with  a  capital  of  one  million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  —  one  third 
of  which  the  State  reserved  the  right  of  subscribing  for.  This  bank 
was  subjected  to  various  rules  and  restrictions  incorporated  into  its  char- 
ter, resulting  from  the  experience  of  the  operations  of  the  grant  to  the 
Massachusetts  Bank.  About  the  same  time,  the  legislature,  in  contra- 
vention of  the  exorbitant  claims  of  the  Massachusetts  Bank,  passed  a 
law  regulating  and  defining  the  privileges  and  powers  granted  to  them. 
By  this  additional  act,  they  were  prohibited  from  issuing  any  bill  of  a 
less  denomination  than  five  dollars,  and  the  Union  Bank  was  also  re- 
stricted in  a  like  manner.  By  another  act,  the  Union  Bank  was  author- 
ized to  hold  a  lien  upon  the  stock  of  each  individual  stockholder,  to  the 
extent  of  any  demand  the  bank  might  have  against  such  stockholder, 
thus  giving  them  the  preference  over  other  creditors,  without  a  special 
pledge  or  transfer  of  the  debtor's  stock.  This  bank  had,  likewise,  the 
privilege  of  establishing  offices  of  discount  and  deposit  in  any  of  the 
towns  of  the  Commonwealth ;  a  very  valuable  privilege,  if  the  stock- 
holders had  been  allowed  to  enlarge  their  capital  to  the  extent  of  the 
demand,  but  of  no  value  to  them  with  their  limited  capital,  for  all  of 
which  they  could  find  full  employment  at  their  banking  house  in  Boston. 
Until  some  time  after  this,  private  banking  was  not  prohibited  by  the 
laws  of  Massachusetts;  and  in  1792,  a  number  of  gentlemen  in  Salem 
associated  together,  and  established  a  private  bank,  which  was  called  the 
Essex  Bank,  of  which  William  Gray,  then  the  principal  merchant  in 
the  county  of  Essex,  was  chosen  president.  The  bills  of  this  private 
bank,  with  his  signature,  were  received  with  the  same  confidence,  and  in 
Salem  and  its  vicinity  with  greater  confidence,  by  the  generality  of  the 
people,  than  those  issued  by  any  incorporated  company.  This  bank 
obtained  an  act  of  incorporation  in  June,  1799,  and  was  finally  dissolved, 
with  almost  a  total  loss  to  the  stockholders,  by  the  fraudulent  conduct  of 
two  of  its  officers,  but  without  any  loss  to  the  holders  of  its  bills,  which 
were  paid  in  full  when  presented. 

In  1795,  the  Nantucket  and  the  Newburyport  Banks  were  incorpo- 
rated. In  1800,  the  Gloucester  Bank,  and  soon  afterwards  many  more, 
and  from  that  time  they  have  continued  to  increase  until  their  number 
now  amounts  to  one  hundred  and  three,  with  a  capital  of  $28,236,250, 
and  circulation  of  $7,889,110.     In   1824,  the  capital  of  the  banks  in 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  529 

Massachusetts  was  $11,843,000,  with  a  circulation  of  $3,785,491,  show- 
ing an  increase  of  capital  in  ten  years,  of  138  per  cent,  nearly  ;  an  in- 
crease of  circulation  of  nearly  108  per  cent. 

No.  7.  Within  the  county  of  Essex,  there  are  twenty-two  banks, 
whose  capital  is  $4,250,000,  or  about  one  seventh  part  of  the  banking 
capital  of  the  whole  State. 

Of  these  banks,  eight  are  in  Salem,  with  a  capital  of  $1,850,000 ; 
three  in  Newbury  port,  with  a  capital  of  $800,000  ;  two  in  Lynn  ;  two 
in  Marblehead  ;  two  in  Danvers  ;  one  in  Gloucester ;  one  in  Andover  ; 
one  in  Haverhill ;  one  in  Beverly ;  and  one  in  Ipswich.  Besides  banks, 
there  are  many  other  corporations  within  the  county  of  Essex,  which 
may  be  classed  under  the  general  head  of  moneyed  institutions ;  among 
these  are  eleven  companies  for  carrying  on  the  business  of  marine  and 
lire  insurance,  with  about  $1,500,000,  capital. 

These  companies  are  also  authorized  to  insure  upon  lives  in  certain 
cases.  There  are  also  nine  mutual  fire  insurance  companies,  each  of 
which  have,  or  ought  to  have,  funds  managed  under  the  direction  of  the 
officers  of  the  several  corporations.  There  arc  eight  toll  bridges  within 
the  county. 

The  Newburyport  and  Salem  Turnpikes  may  also  be  considered  as  be- 
longing to  the  county,  although  partly  located  in  two  other  counties. 
The  Essex  Turnpike  is  wholly  within  the  county.  Then  there  are  the 
numerous  manufacturing  corporations  ;  who  not  only  manage  large  sums 
of  money,  but  large  masses  of  human  beings,  whose  physical,  moral,  and 
intellectual  destinies  are  subject  to  the  control  and  direction  of  these 
corporate  bodies,  without  souls  themselves,  but  not  without  monstrous 
influence  over  the  souls  of  others. 

The  whole  valuation  of  the  personal  estate  of  the  county  of  Essex, 
does  not  much  exceed  twelve  millions  of  dollars,  and  between  one  half 
and  two  thirds  of  this  amount  is  wrapped  up  in  private  corporations. 
The  influence  that  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  elections  of  the 
last  year  by  the  United  States  Bank,  should  awaken  a  jealousy  of  a 
slfumbering  people.  Whenever  the  chains  are  riveted  ujjon  us,  it  will 
be  but  a  slight  consolation  to  reflect,  they  are  made  of  gold.  One  of 
our  senators  has  taught  us,  that  property  must  govern.  If  this  be  true, 
and  we  cannot  avoid  it,  let  it  be  in  the  hands,  and  under  the  immediate 
management  of  the  individuals  who  call  it  theirs ;  many  of  these  may 
have  souls  sufficiently  expanded  to  use  their  property  so  as  to  promote 
the  great  end  of  society,  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  In- 
corporated wealth  knows  not  the  restraints  that  sit  upon  the  consciencea 
of  individuals. 

45 


530  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WKITINGS 

If  any  one  is  desirous  of  knowing  more  of  the  abuses  of  power  by 
private  corporations,  than  he  can  learn  from  the  short  history  of  our 
own  country,  let  him  study  the  history  of  the  great  trading  companies  of 
Europe,  and  particularly  those  of  England. 

In  the  year  1837,  when  the  country  was  seeing  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  prediction  made  by  Mr.  Rantoul,  two  years  before, 
that  there  would  be  a  general  suspension  of  specie  payments 
by  the  banks  at  this  time,  and  consequently  great  distress  in 
the  community  from  the  speculating  mania  w4iich  excessive 
issues  of  paper  money  had  created,  he  said,  in  the  Gloucester 
Democrat  of  June  thirteenth  :  — 

The  difficulties  into  which  our  late  banking  system  has  led  us  are 
doubtless  regretted  by  all  good  citizens.  And  no  one  regrets  more  than 
we,  that  party  politics  have  been  allowed  to  mingle  so  largely  in  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  subject.  In  a  common  calamity  like  the  present,  party 
biases  should  have  been  forgotten  and  annulled,  and  every  one  should 
have  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel ;  restored  confidence  first,  and  at  a 
proper  time  thrown  off  the  incubus  upon  honest  industry  and  sound, 
healthy  prosperity,  and  place  our  financial  affairs  on  a  surer  and  firmer 
footing.  But  it  could  not  be  expected  that  the  supporters  of  the  admin- 
istration would  stand  in  silence  and  see  it  falsely  charged  as  the  author 
of  the  trouble.  It  could  not,  for  a  moment,  be  expected  that  they  would 
submit  to  the  degrading  and  contemptuous  epithets  lavished  upon  them 
by  reckless  and  abandoned  men,  without  rebuking  them  with  manly  in- 
dignation, especially  when  the  administration  was  clearly  in  the  right. 
It  is  quite  natural,  we  know,  for  the  party  whose  policy  has  been  to 
multiply  banks,  and  substitute  paper  for  the  better  constitutional  currency, 
to  attempt  to  throw  off  the  responsibility  of  their  imprudent  and  disas- 
trous policy  on  the  administration,  but  a  discriminating  and  enlightened 
public  will  not  fail  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  imposition.  As  to 
ourselves,  we  go  against  a  system,  whether  of  State  or  national  char- 
tered banking,  which  has  been  proved  imA  failed;  we  go  for  any  system, 
come  from  whom  it  may,  or  from  what  quarter  it  may,  which  will  carry 
us  through  the  periodical  revulsions  with  the  least  injury,  —  a  system 
which,  in  prosperity,  will  not  foster  and  engender  speculation  and  over- 
trading ;  but,  when  the  reaction  comes,  will  be  able  to  extend  a  helping 
hand  to  the  public.  Banks  should  he  for  discount  and  deposit  only,  and 
not  for  circulation. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  531 

In  the  Democrat  of  July  llth,  the  same  year,  he  said  :  — 

If  it  is  thought  necessary  to  continue  the  banks,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
shock  of  suddenly  winding  them  up,  they  should  be  continued  subject  to 
the  action  of  the  legislature  hereafter,  and  their  complete  subordination 
to  the  State  should  be  distinctly  expressed  in  their  new  lease  of  existence, 
to  prevent  all  cavil  hereafter. 

The  condition  of  their  renewal  should  be  an  immediate  redemption  of 
their  bills  under  five  dollars,  and  a  speedy  entire  redemption  should  be 
fixed,  and  no  apology  received  for  the  non-fulfilment,  by  any  bank,  of  this 
stipulation. 

After  the  resumption,  a  gradual  suspension  of  the  small  bills  must  be 
commenced,  and  carried  through  with  inflexible  determination.  Small 
bills  and  specie  payments  cannot  long  exist  together.  All  experience 
demonstrates  this  truth.  We  should  begin  with  ones,  twos,  and  threes, 
and  then  we  may  hope  to  see  half  dollars  plenty  again. 

But  it  will  not  do  to  stop  at  fives  ;  if  we  do  we  shall  never  have  a  gold 
currency,  the  currency  of  England  and  of  France,  and  the  soundest 
currency  existing,  possible,  in  the  world.  Fives  will  always  banish  half 
eagles,  tens  will  always  banish  eagles,  from  circulation.  We  must  go 
as  far  as  to  suppress  all  bills  under  twenty  dollars,  or  we  shall  never 
possess  a  permanent  specie  basis  for  circulation.  In  England,  it  is  found 
that  sovereigns  and  pound  notes  cannot  circulate  together ;  there  they 
have  suppressed  notes  under  five  pounds,  and  the  consequence  is,  they 
have  a  currency  one  half  specie,  and  one  half  paper. 

In  France,  they  have  no  bank  notes  under  five  hundred  francs,  conse- 
quently they  have  a  currency  of  nine  tenths  specie,  and  only  one  tenth 
paper,  and  fluctuating  very  slightly,  compared  to  the  tornadoes  in  the 
English,  and  still  more  terribly  in  the  American  money  markets. 

The  suppression  of  bills  under  twenty  dollars  is  indispensable  to  our 
security.  If  sustained  by  the  general  government,  and  by  the  coopera- 
tion of  other  States,  we  might  then  go  as  high  as  fifty,  and  ultimately  to 
a  hundred.  We  should  then  have  a  currency  steady  as  that  of  France, 
instead  of  that  currency  which  Mr.  Webster  once  described  as  represent- 
ing "  nothing  but  broken  promises,  bad  faith,  bankrupt  corporations, 
cheated  creditors,  and  a  ruined  people." 


532  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


SPEECH  AT  SALEM.* 

After  the  resolutions  moved  by  Mr.  Wheatland  had  been  read 
from  the  chair,  Mr.  Rantoul  was  repeatedly  called  for,  from 
different  parts  of  the  meeting.     He  rose  and  said  :  — 

That  it  had  been  suggested  to  liim,  that  it  was  wished  he  should 
address  the  meeting,  and  on  that  suggestion  he  had  intended  to  say  a  few 
words,  —  but  that  he  would  have  preferred  first  to  have  heard  others 
advance  their  views.  Being  called  on,  however,  and  having  no  disposi- 
tion to  conceal  or  keep  back  his  opinions  or  feeling,  he  would  come 
forward,  though  with  some  reluctance,  now.  This  meeting  was  not 
limited  to  the  citizens  of  Salem  merely,  but  was  one  of  the  friends  of  the 
administration,  of  whom  he  was  one.  He  was  born  and  brought  up  in 
this  revenue  district,  —  had  lived  in  Salem,  —  and  stood  here  now  to 
speak  the  sentiments  of  three  fourths  of  the  population  of  a  town  second 
only  to  Salem  in  this  county,  and  having  fifteen  or  sixteen  hundred 
voters.  After  the  subject-matter  of  this  evening's  resolutions  had  been 
the  topic  of  an  animated  discussion  among  the  leading  members  of  both 
parties  in  both  houses  of  congress  for  four  months  past,  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  any  new  light  should  be  shed  upon  it,  or  that  any  novel  or 
peculiar  views  should  be  presented.  Yet,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  I  will  not 
resist  this  flattering  invitation,  but  will  go  on  to  express  my  sentiments 
fairly  and  fully,  on  the  most  momentous  question  that  has  ever  been  pre- 
sented to  the  American  people.  For,  when  the  liberties  of  a  whole  people 
are  in  danger,  —  nay  more,  when  the  purity  and  durability  of  republican 
institutions  are  at  stake,  —  when  the  very  existence  of  all  the  freedom 
that  survives  in  this  much-governed  and  misgoverned  world  depends  on 
the  issue,  I  hold  it  to  be  every  man's  duty  to  make  his  voice  heard,  like 
a  trumpet  note  of  alarm,  wherever  and  whenever  God  shall  give  him 
opportunity  to  excite  one  faint  heart,  or  arouse  one  careless  and  uncon- 
cerned spectator.  And  I  trust  I  may  be  pardoned  when  I  step  forward, 
not  to  court  applause,  but  to  incur  odium,  —  not  to  acquire  favor  or 
popularity,  but  to  insure  hatred  and  opposition,  —  to  advocate  what  I 
believe  to  be  a  just  cause,  against  those  who  tell  us  that  we  are  few  and 
they  are  many,  that  we  are  weak  and  they  are  strong,  —  that  they  are 
intelligent,  respectable,  —  have  all  the  wealth,  and  all  the  talents,  and  all 
the  decency,  and  are  made  out  of  the  porcelain  clay  of  the  earth,  —  and 


*  Delivered  at  an  anti-bank  meeting,  March  31,  1834. 


OF  ROBERT  RJlNTOUL,  JR.  533 

that  we  are  ignorant,  a  rabble,  mechanical,  base,  no  gentlemen,  incapa- 
ble of  governing  ourselves,  but  created  to  be  trampled  on,  —  when  I  step 
forward  not  to  do  the  bidding  of  those  Avho  are  powerful  here,  and  who 
rule  this  town  and  this  Commonwealth,  but  to  beard  the  lion  in  his  den, 
the  old  federal  bank  in  its  stronghold  of  power,  here,  in  the  heart  of  old 
federal  Essex. 

Sir,  what  are  the  charges  brought  against  the  present  democratic 
administration  by  the  stockholders  of  the  United  States  Bank,  and  their 
connections  and  dependents,  or,  to  borrow  a  little  opposition  politeness, 
by  those  who  wear  the  golden  collar  of  Nicholas  Biddle  ? 

They  are,  that  it  has  commenced  an  unjust  warfare  against  an  innocent 
and  unoffending  cor^Doration.  That  to  carry  on  this  warfare  it  has  re- 
sorted to  arbitrary  and  unconstitutional  measures.  That  by  these  meas- 
ures it  has  brought  deep  and  universal  distress  on  the  community,  and 
endangered  a  general  bankruptcy. 

It  is  this  last  charge  that  has  given  weight  and  currency  to  the  for- 
mer. A  national  bank  is  not  such  a  favorite  with  the  nation,  that  they 
would  enlist  in  its  service  against  an  administration  of  their  own  choice, 
neither  could  any  one  be  made  to  believe  that  the  measures  taken  against 
it  are  unconstitutional,  unless  it  can  first  be  shown  that  those  measures  are 
the  cause  of  great  distress  to  the  nation.  It  is  upon  the  extent  and  se- 
verity of  the  pressure,  therefore,  and  its  being  attributed  exclusively  to 
the  action  of  the  government,  that  the  party  whose  great  leader  prayed 
for  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  rather  than  a  democratic  administration, 
must  chiefly  rely.  Let  us  first  examine,  then,  this  charge,  the  forlorn 
hope  of  the  so  often  routed  consolidationists,  and  inquire  what  is  the 
extent  and  what  are  the  causes  of  the  present  distress. 

What  are  we  to  think  when  we  hear  respectable  gentlemen  asserting 
that  the  present  is  a  period  of  unprecedented  distress  ?  Must  we  not 
conclude  that  they  are  beside  themselves  ?  In  the  time  of  the  Ameri- 
•can  revolution,  there  was  distress  in  every  form,  pervading  all  classes, 
real  and  serious  distress,  so  that  nobody  doubted  its  existence.  A  part  of 
it  grew,  too,  as  the  present  troubles  have  partly  grown,  out  of  excessive 
issues  of  paper  money ;  but  setting  aside  the  loss  of  life,  the  pecuniary 
suffering  alone  was  vastly,  incomparably  greater,  if  we  consider  their 
limited  means,  to  those  engaged  in  that  contest,  than  any  distress  felt  at 
the  present  day,  —  yet  our  fathers  endured  it  all  cheerfully,  and  went 
through  it  all  manfully,  because  it  was  the  price  of  their  liberty  and  in- 
dependence ;  and  we,  I  trust,  shall  go  through  this  much  lighter  trial, 
like  children  not  degenerate  of  those  who  defied  British  gold  and  British 
arms,  for  the  same  great  end,  to  secure  our  liberties  from  the  power  of 
gold  in  the  hands  of  a  tremendous  corporation  striving  to  perpetuate  its 

45* 


534  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

monopolj,  and  to  prostrate  whatever  is  capable  of  offering  any  opposi- 
tion to  its  purjioses.  In  later  times  we  have  undergone  an  embargo, 
which  fell  with  a  crushing  weight  upon  our  commerce.  The  blasted  hopes, 
the  broken  hearts,  the  failures,  the  suicides,  the  gloom  and  despondency 
that  settled  upon  New  England,  almost  all  who  hear  me  remember  well. 
That  was  a  period  of  real  distress.  People  were  not  obliged  to  argue  and 
declaim,  and  to  convince  one  another  by  forced  inferences  that  they  were 
distressed.  It  was  not  told  in  every  place,  —  you  are  well  off  here,  —  but  in 
such  a  city  or  such  a  town  there  is  scarcely  a  solvent  house  left.  People 
were  not  obliged  to  invent  tales  of  woe,  such  as  that  many  hundred  laborers 
were  destitute  of  employment,  in  places  wdiere  in  fact  laborers  could  not 
be  found  so  fast  as  they  were  wanted ;  neither  did  prophets  of  evil  cry 
aloud  in  the  streets,  destruction  !  destruction  !  and  then  go  home  to  laugh 
in  their  sleeves  at  their  own  clamor.  Then  the  distress  was  felt  because 
it  was  real,  —  yet,  bad  as  times  were,  that  crisis  was  only  a  pause  in  the 
rapid  march  of  the  country  to  greatness ;  there  is  no  reason,  therefore, 
to  apprehend  that  our  prosperity  is  at  an  end  forever,  because  we  experi- 
ence inconveniences  which,  compared  to  the  calamities  of  those  days,  are 
but  as  dust  in  the  balance. 

After  the  embargo  came  the  war ;  and  who  that  remembers  the  sacri- 
fice of  property  during  the  war,  will  not  pronounce  the  present  to  be  very 
good  times  in  the  comparison.  That  whole  period  was  one  of  trial, — 
from  the  disastrous  commencement  down  to  the  glorious  consummation, 
•in  that  crowning  victory  the  brightest  in  our  annals,  when  he  who  is 
■now  scattering  dismay  among  the  invaders  of  our  rights  turned  back 
the  columns  of  foreign  foes.  The  country  went  through  the  pressure  of 
the  war,  and  came  out  of  it  and  flourished  after  it,  as  it  will  live  through 
the  present  pressure  and  flourish  more  than  ever,  in  a  few  short  months, 
when  it  shall  have  passed  away. 

But  the  three  periods  of  calamity  and  suffering  I  have  mentioned, 
grew,  it  is  true,  out  of  circumstances  in  the  foreign  relations  of  the 
country,  and  were  not  similar  in  their  causes  to  the  present.  They  are 
introduced,  only  with  reference  to  their  extent,  to  show  that  distress, 
compared  with  which  all  that  is  now  felt  is  but  a  trifle  not  worthy  to  be 
mentioned,  has  passed  over  this  country  from  Maine  to  Georgia,  re- 
peatedly, without  sensibly  impairing  our  resources  ;  and  that  since  the 
country  has  recovered  from  such  severe  shocks  so  suddenly  and  so  com- 
pletely that  in  a  few  years  they  seem  to  be  almost  forgotten,  it  is  not  to 
be  apprehended  that  the  difficulty  which  persons  of  indifferent  credit 
And  in  obtaining  loans,  or  that  the  slight  advance  in  price  which  those  of 
good  credit  are  occasionally  obliged  to  pay  for  such  accommodations, 
•furnishes  any  ground  to  fear  that  mutual  confidence  is  about  to  be 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  535 

destroyed,  or  that  commerce  is  about  to  be  annihilated,  much  less  that 
any  other  great  interest  is  in  the  slightest  danger  of  immediate  injury. 

Since  the  war,  what  has  been  our  history  ?  Has  the  uninterrupted 
peace  of  almost  twenty  years  been  a  period  of  uninterrupted  prosperity, 
as  a  stranger  w^ould  suppose  from  the  declamations  of  our  orators? 
Very  far  from  it.  It  is  true  that  since  the  present  administration  came 
into  power,  until  within  a  few  months,  every  branch  of  business  has 
been  successfully  pursued  ;  all  the  foreign  and  all  the  domestic  concerns 
of  the  nation  have  been  conducted  so  as  to  promote  the  general  welfare, 
and  for  the  last  four  years,  no  reasonable  complaint  has  been  heard  from 
any  class-  or  interest.  But  at  no  other  moment  since  the  peace,  under 
no  other  administration,  could  it  be  said  with  truth  that  four  years  had 
passed  without  distress,  great  and  palpable  distress,  much  greater  than 
has  been  felt  since  the  United  States  Bank  began  its  tremendous  system 
of  operations  to  embarrass  and  to  convulse  the  commercial  community. 
In  1817,  the  bank  began  to  issue,  —  in  1818  and  1819,  the  crisis  came 
on.  The  fall  in  prices  was  dreadful,  —  a  long  and  heavy  harvest  of 
failures  followed.  In  the  western  country  the  paper  money  depreciated 
and  finally  became  worthless.  There  was  a  long  catalogue  of  broken 
banks,  and  a  catalogue  without  end  of  broken  merchants.  So  impossible 
was  it  that  debtors  could  discharge  their  honest  debts  that  stop  laws  and 
relief  laws  were  enacted,  —  attempts  were  made  to  render  worthless 
rags  a  legal  tender,  and  the  whole  credit  system  was  converted  into  a 
perfect  chaos.  The  bank  did  not  undertake  to  regulate  the  currency,  as 
we  are  told  it  infallibly  will  in  such  cases,  but  closed  its  western  offices 
and  left  the  currency  to  regulate  itself.  In  1820,  the  manufacturers 
came  before  congress  and  represented  that  inevitable  ruin  would  be 
their  lot  without  an  exception  unless  higher  duties  were  imposed  for 
their  protection.  The  request  was  not  granted,  but  business  of  all  kinds 
recovered  a  little  immediately  upon  the  refusal.  After  an  interval  of 
less  than  three  years,  in  1822,  another  revulsion  took  place.  More  than 
one  hundred  and  sixty  failures  occurred  in  Boston,  in  a  very  short  space 
of  time,  most  of  them  of  houses  supposed  to  be  firm.  Similar  disasters 
happened  in  other  cities,  and  the  distress,  as  every  one  who  hears  me 
knows,  or  if  he  does  not  know,  may  ascertain  by  turning  to  a  file  of 
papers  of  that  date  for  facts  not  for  declamations,  was  beyond  all  com- 
parison greater  than  at  any  time  for  the  last  six  months. 

In  1825,  there  was  a  general  prostration  of  credit  all  over  the  world. 
It  passed  over  England  like  a  tornado,  and  swept  before  it  the  long  and 
established  houses,  the  prudent  and  the  cautious,  as  well  as  rash  specu- 
lators, involving  all  in  a  common  calamity.  In  this  country  its  effects, 
though  not  so  terrible  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  were  suffi- 


536  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

cientlj  appalling  not  to  be  confounded  with  such  a  derangement  of  the 
ordinary  course  of  business  as  we  all  hear  so  much  about  of  late,  while 
so  few  of  us  feel  it. 

In  1828,  a  crisis  came  again,  not  so  severe  as  that  of  1825,  but  bad 
enough  to  serve  for  a  contrast  to  the  present.  In  1828,  the  manufactu- 
rers, as  a  body,  failed.  It  was  much  easier  to  tell  who  had  survived  the 
shock  than  to  enumerate  all  that  had  fallen.  A  tariff  was  passed  to 
save  them,  and  they  failed  the  faster  after  it  was  passed,  besides  the 
commercial  failures  which  followed,  not  of  people  who  had  been  in- 
solvent for  years,  but  of  those  who  a  year  before  were  worth  their  tens 
of  thousands,  not  to  say  their  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars,  and  who 
had  managed  their  business  with  ability  and  prudence.  During  most 
of  the  year  1829,  the  pressure  continued  till  factory  stock  could  hardly 
be  given  away,  and  shares  which  cost  a  thousand  dollars  in  some  cases 
were  sold  for  a  five  dollar  bill,  and  in  others  would  not  bring  that 
price. 

In  every  one  of  these  revulsions  prices  experienced  a  ruinous  decline, 
property  was  sacrificed,  trade  stagnated,  every  class  suffered.  Banks 
failed,  —  borrowers  were  ruined,  because  they  could  no  longer  borrow, 

—  money  letters  were  ruined,  because  those  who  had  borrowed  could 
not  pay,  —  custom  house  bonds  were  forfeited,  —  produce  rotted  upon 
the  producer's  hands,  for  none  could  buy.  How  is  it  now  ?  Prices  of 
our  own  products  have  not  fallen  so  much,  as  money,  from  the  diminished 
amount  in  circulation,  has  risen  in  value.  The  same  is  true  of  labor,  — 
the  same  is  true  of  rents.  Trade  has  gone  on  without  a  single  day's 
suspension.  The  arrivals  for  the  last  three  months  at  Boston  were 
more  numerous  than  for  the  same  time  last  year.  The  custom  house 
bonds  are  all  paid  punctually.  Very  few  banks  have  failed,  and  those 
have  not  made  bad  failures.  Instead  of  every  class  and  every  interest 
suffering,  as  at  every  former  revulsion,  the  agricultural  class,  the  largest 
in  the  country,  has  been  growing  rich,  receiving  nominal  prices  higher 
than  the  average,  and  the  same  amount  of  money  being  worth  more  to 
them  after  they  received  it.  Flour  indeed  has  been  very  low,  —  but  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  has  been  lower  in  the  western  markets  even 
as  lately  as  1830,  and  when  there  was  no  pressure.  The  most  important 
interest  in  the  nation,  that  of  labor,  has  been  as  well  off  as  ever,  in  de- 
mand, at  high  prices.  Money  letters,  instead  of  failing  by  scores,  have 
been  gathering  a  golden  harvest  from  the  demand,  though  money  bor- 
rowers whose  credit  was  based  on  capital,  have  obtained  sufficient  ac- 
commodations at  the  expense  of  a  slight  advance  in  the  rate  of  interest, 

—  one  half  of  the  money  now  on  loan  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
standing  at  or  under  six  per  cent.,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  remain- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  537 

ing  half  not  exceeding  seven  per  cent.  In  the  face  of  these  facts,  and, 
whatever  anonymous  writers  may  say  in  the  newspapers,  where  is  the 
responsible  man  that  dares  to  deny  them  ?  In  the  face  of  these  facts, 
who  shall  tell  me  that  the  present  is  a  period  of  unprecedented  distress, 
—  that  the  country  is  going  through  a  crisis  such  as  it  never  before  ex- 
perienced ?  At  the  very  point  where  the  pressure  was  greatest,  at  a 
time  wdicn  the  pressure  had  nearly  reached  its  greatest  height,  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  in  the  middle  of  January,  $2, GG5, 000  deposits  of 
individuals,  were  lying  idle  in  three  banks  alone  of  that  city,  while  the 
incendiary  papers  of  the  commercial  emporium  were  daily  representing 
to  their  readers  that  money  could  not  be  had  on  any  terms,  and  with  the 
best  security  !  Sir,  I  ask  any  man  who  observes  and  has  a  memory,  I 
do  not  mean  that  very  common  kind  of  memory  which  forgets  whatever 
it  is  not  convenient  to  remember,  the  political  memory,  but  any  man  of 
fair  impartial  memory,  whether  he  does  not  know  from  his  own  recollec- 
tion, that  of  the  five  periods  of  revulsion  since  the  peace,  the  present  is 
by  far  the  least  calamitous.  It  does  not  need  an  argument,  —  every- 
body knows  it.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  man  in  this  hall  who  can 
seriously  say  that  he  doubts  it. 

But  though  no  such  distress  has  existed,  as  the  panic  makers  have 
predicted  and  even  described,  there  has  undoubtedly  been  a  pressure, 
sufficient  to  try  people's  patience  in  the  cities  and  towns,  though  scarcely 
felt  at  all  in  the  country.  There  has  been  a  scarcity  of  money,  incon- 
venient and  in  some  instances  highly  injurious,  though  it  has  caused 
fewer  bankruptcies  of  persons  really  solvent  before  than  any  previous 
crisis  of  the  sort.  Though  the  great  majority  of  the  mercantile  com- 
munity have  been  unharmed,  still  it  is  w^orth  inquiry,  wdiat  have  been 
the  causes  of  the  evil,  in  order  that  w^e  may  know  how  to  avoid  them 
in  future. 

The  first  and  greatest  cause  of  the  pressure  was,  no  doubt,  over- 
trading. There  are  fluctuations  in  the  business  of  every  country,  almost 
as  regular  as  the  tides  of  the  sea.  They  recur  once  in  three  or  four 
years,  and  grow  out  of  the  nature  of  business  and  the  nature  of  man. 
The  pressure  is  the  cause  of  the  prosperity  which  follows  it,  and  that 
prosperity  is  the  cause  of  the  subsequent  pressure,  —  the  one  grows  out 
of  the  other.  While  a  period  of  pressure  lasts,  less  business  is  done 
than  the  average  wants  of  the  community  require.  No  stock  accumu- 
lates in  the  hands  of  merchants,  but  as  consumption  still  goes  on,  the 
stock  they  have  on  hand  is  gradually  worked  off,  till  by  and  by  the  de- 
mand exceeds  the  supply.  After  numerous  failures  have  broken  up  all 
those  whose  business  was  in  an  unsound  state,  and  of  those  engaged  in 
large  transactions,  left  standing  only  such  as  had  solid  capital  to  trade 


538  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

upon,  those  who  survive  the  shock,  of  course,  are  ready  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  favorable  state  of  things  which  follow.  To  supply  the  extra 
demand,  business  must  be  brisk  and  prices  will  rise.  Merchants  will 
launch,  with  ardor,  into  the  reviving  commerce  which  offers  a  field  for 
enterprise,  gradually  enlarging  their  operations  as  their  means  enlarge 
and  their  success  emboldens  them,  venturing  to  the  verge  of  prudence. 
The  numbers  who  rush  into  eager  competition  with  each  other,  overstock 
the  markets ;  the  supply  exceeds  the  demand,  and,  consequently,  priced 
fall,  and  from  the  reaction,  fall  lower  than  there  is  any  real  necessity 
for.  These  alterations  are  natural — always  have  happened,  and  always 
will  happen  —  but  there  is  another  agent  influencing  the  operations  of 
commerce,  stimulating  their  expansion  and  heightening  the  subsequent 
reaction,  and  that  is  paper  money.  When  business  first  becomes  brisk, 
confidence  returns  again,  loans  are  easily  obtained,  and  vast  quantities  of 
paper  being  issued,  the  circulating  medium  is  enlarged  in  quantity,  and 
necessarily  diminished  in  value.  Money  being  of  less  value,  the  nomi- 
nal prices  of  all  other  articles  rise ;  every  holder  of  goods  supposes  he 
is  growing  rich  by  their  increase  of  value  in  his  hands,  and  strains  his 
credit  to  the  utmost  limit  to  take  advantage  of  the  rising  market.  This 
artificial  and  fictitious  creation  of  imaginary  wealth,  merely  by  a  depre- 
ciation of  the  currency,  deceives  many  and  forces  all  into  overtrading; 
but  the  moment  the  demand  for  goods  begins  to  slacken,  the  error  is  dis- 
covered, —  holders  of  goo.ds  hasten  to  get  rid  of  them  before  the  fall  is 
ruinous,  and  in  their  competition  undersell  each  other,  and  run  prices 
down  faster  and  lower  than  they  ought  to  go.  The  reaction  once  begun, 
confidence  ceases,  —  the  banks  contract  their  issues,  —  money  rises  in 
value,  and  of  course  the  nominal  price  of  every  article  falls  proportion- 
ately, from  this  cause  also.  It  is  this  circumstance  that  makes  the  re- 
vulsions in  business,  which,  without  it,  would  be  gradual,  so  sudden  and 
so  terrible.  During  the  general  war  in  Europe,  the  bills  of  the  Bank 
of  England  had  fallen  30  per  cent,  below  gold ;  of  course  all  nominal 
prices  were  30  per  cent,  higher  than  the  real  values.  In  the  crisis 
which  followed  the  peace,  ninety-two  banks  failed,  the  rest  contracted 
their  issues  till  paper  rose  to  a  par  value  with  gold,  and  the  Bank  of 
England  resumed  specie  payment.  After  this  change  every  man's  estate, 
even  if  he  met  no  losses,  was  rated  at  least  30  per  cent,  less  than  before. 
Yet  the  disasters  of  that  gloomy  period  did  not  prevent  another  flood  of 
paper  money,  —  another  rush  into  speculations  of  all  sorts,  till  the  com- 
merce of  the  world  was  more  overdone  than  it  ever  had  been  before, 
and  the  crash  of  1825  ensued,  of  which  this  country  felt  its  share.  In 
1828,  the  manufacturing  of  the  United  States  was  overdone.  The  tariff 
of  that  year  did  not  prevent  the  reaction  from  accomplishing  its  work 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  539 

thoroughly,  —  the  ruin  did  not  stop  till  the  business  was  entirely  pros- 
trated. For  the  last  four  years  the  present  crisis  has  been  coming  on. 
A  healthy  commerce  has  been  expanding  itself  wonderfully.  The  wise 
conduct  of  the  administration  has  contributed  to  make  this  expansion 
safer  than  it  would  otherwise  have  been,  and  to  delay  and  diminish  the 
reaction.  It  has  done  this  by  opening  new  avenues  to  commerce,  by 
giving  it  increased  facilities  and  security,  by  bringing  capital  into  the 
country  in  the  shape  of  indemnity  for  foreign  spoliations.  The  free 
admission  of  goods  which  formerly  paid  high  duties,  has  also  enlarged 
our  trade. 

But  there  has  been  an  unhealthy  growth  from  too  great  a  stimulus ; 
the  excessive  issues  of  bank  paper.  In  the  year  1831,  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  extended  its  loans  more  than  twenty  millions  of  dollars, 
being  an  advance  of  about  50  per  cent,  upon  its  accommodations  in  a 
single  year.     Nor  did  it  stop  there.     It  continued  to  extend  until  May, 

1832,  when  it  reached  its  highest  point,  $70,428,000,  having  increased 
more  than  seven  millions  in  the  first  five  months  of  1832.  This  im- 
mense addition  to  the  circulating  medium,  and  to  the  means  of  trade, 
itself  sufiicient  to  induce  overtrading,  is  not  all  the  effect  the  bank  has 
had  in  stimulating  speculations.  Its  extensions  have  caused  other  banks 
to  extend,  and  all  the  stimulus  that  bank  facilities  could  give  to  business 
seems  to  have  been  administered  all  over  the  country.  No  wonder,  then, 
that  there  should  be  overtrading.  The  wonder  is,  that  it  has  not  pro- 
duced a  still  greater  reaction.  The  fact  that  the  overtrading  has  been 
great,  is  not  an  inference  gathered  from  these  general  reasonings,  but 
appears  upon  the  government  returns.  In  1830,  the  imports  amounted 
to  $70,000,000.     In  1831  and  1832,  they  averaged  $102,000,000.     In 

1833,  they  had  risen  to  the  enormous  sum  of  $109,000,000,  making  an 
excess  of  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  three  years, 
above  what  the  importations  would  have  been  if  they  had  not  exceeded 
the  standard  of  the  year  1830.  With  the  fact  before  us  of  the  regular 
revulsions  in  trade  after  intervals  of  about  three  years  ever  since  the 
peace,  —  with  the  fact  of  the  rapid  increase  of  trade  during  the  last  in- 
terval of  four  years,  he  who  can  believe  that  the  late  revulsion  was 
caused  by  withholding  the  deposits  from  the  mammoth  bank,  would  as 
readily,  and  with  as  much  reason,  suppose  that  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the 
tides  in  the  ocean  was  occasioned  by  his  taking  out  or  putting  in  a 
bucket  of  water. 

Though  the  general  fluctuation,  however,  is  certainly  one  of  the 
causes,  yet  it  is  by  no  means  the  only  cause  of  the  present  pressure. 
In  this  case  other  circumstances  have  concurred  to  aggravate  it.  By 
the  act  of  the    14th   of  July,  1832,   the  duties   on  woollens  were  to 


540  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

be  paid  in  cash,  and  those  on  other  goods,  in  three  and  six  months 
instead  of  the  long  credits,  that,  down  to  that  time,  had  been  allowed. 
In  consequence  of  this  act,  the  duties  falling  due  in  1833,  were 
$28,500,000,  while  those  of  1834,  are  estimated  at  $15,000,000  only, 
making  an  excess  for  1833  of  $13,500,000.  A  large  amount  of  duties 
becoming  due  in  the  great  cities,  in  the  latter  part  of  1833  and  first 
part  of  1834,  (in  New  York,  three  and  a  half  millions  were  paid  in  one 
week,)  w^ould  of  course  create  a  great  demand  for  money  and  increase 
the  scarcity. 

But  a  more  effective  cause  of  the  present  distress  is  to  be  found  in 
the  curtailments  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Having  extended 
to  the  utmost,  till  it  had  brought  vast  numbers  within  its  grasp,  it  then 
suddenly  contracts,  and  calls  for  payment  at  the  moment  when  it  knows 
that  the  call  will  be  most  embarrassing.  From  the  middle  of  August 
last,  the  w^estern  branches  had  orders  to  purchase  no  bills  but  those  hav- 
ing not  more  than  ninety  days  to  run,  and  payable  in  the  Atlantic  cities. 
While  thus  concentrating  upon  the  cities  as  heavy  demands  as  possible, 
it  reduced  its  accommodations  in  those  cities  at  a  rapid  rate.  Its  aggre- 
gate of  debts  due  to  it  in  May,  1832,  was  $70,428,000.  This  it  has 
brought  down  to  about  $54,000,000.  From  August  1st,  to  October 
1st,  their  curtailments  were  $4,166,000,  while  the  public  deposits  in 
their  vaults  increased  $1,582,000,  making  a  diminution  of  the  accom- 
modations of  the  public,  of  almost  six  millions  in  two  months,  and 
before  the  deposits  were  removed.  From  August  1st  to  December 
1st,  the  curtailments  amounted  to  $9,600,000,  while  the  deposits  dur- 
ing the  same  time  were  decreased  only  $2,437,000.  A  curtailment  for 
four  months  at  the  monthly  rate  of  $2,400,000,  about  equal  to  the  dif- 
ference between  the  deposits  on  hand  on  the  1st  of  August,  and  those 
of  the  1st  of  December.  In  Boston,  the  curtailment  amounted,  in  six 
months,  to  $4,200,000,  and  in  January  alone  it  w^as  $700,000.  This  of 
course  forced  the  State  banks,  in  self-defence,  to  curtail  still  more,  w'hen 
they  had  every  disposition  to  enlarge  their  discounts  and  relieve  the 
money  market. 

That  this  curtailment  was  one  great  cause  of  the  pressure,  is  evident 
enough  without  argument ;  but  what  shows  it  in  a  striking  manner  is 
the  relief  felt  in  the  great  cities  immediately  on  the  removal  of  the 
deposits.  The  discounts  by  the  deposite  banks,  though  not  equal  to 
the  immense  curtailments  of  the  United  States  Bank,  were  sufficient 
to  be  of  essential  benefit.  This  was  felt  and  admitted  everywhere, 
by  friends  and  enemies  of  the  removal.  Even  the  Boston  Courier, 
while  condemning  the  measure  in  the  severest  terms,  informed  its  read- 
ers of  the  beneficial  results  that  had  been  realized,  and  innumerable 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  541 

other  testimonies  equally  unexceptionable,  might  be  adduced,  if  it  were 
necessary. 

But  overtrading  at  the  rate  of  thirty-three  millions  a  year,  the  pay- 
ment of  two  years'  duties  in  less  than  one  year  under  Mr.  Clay's  bill,  a 
curtailment  by  the  mammoth  bank,  as  rapid  as  the  fear  of  breaking  its 
customers  and  so  losing  its  loans  would  allow  it  to  be,  a  forced  curtail- 
ment of  equal  extent  by  all  other  banks,  —  all  these  powerful  causes  of 
distress  combined,  and  brought  to  operate  with  their  full  force,  particu- 
larly upon  the  State  and  city  of  New  York,  the  centre  of  the  commer- 
cial operations  of  the  nation,  were  not  enough,  because  the  orators  of 
war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  held  in  their  hands  one  other  scourge  which 
they  could  inflict  upon  a  sufix'ring  people.  That  scourge  was  panic. 
And  if  a  host  of  demons  had  been  let  loose  in  human  shape,  to  work  all 
woe  and  harm  that  the  malice  of  fiends  could  suggest  to  them,  they 
could  not  have  labored  more  indefatigably  in  their  infernal  mission,  than 
have  the  panic-makers  in  the  congress  of  this  republic.  These  men  de- 
voted all  their  vast  talents  to  the  perpetration  of  evil,  and  it  would  be 
doing  them  injustice  not  to  admit  that  in  some  degree  they  succeeded. 
They  would  have  succeeded  to  a  much  greater  degree,  no  doubt,  if  the 
nation  had  not  known  them,  for  some  years  past,  to  be  "prophets  of  woe 
forever  boding  ill;"  and  if  a  great  majority  of  the  people  had  not  reeol-- 
lected  that  ever  since  the  national  republican  party  had  been  organized, 
the  predictions  of  its  leaders  had  generally,  with  the  utmost  regularity,, 
been  falsified  by  the  event.  They  predicted,  in  1828,  that  Mr.  Adams 
would  be  reelected,  consequently  he  was  left  in  a  small  minority, — • 
they  predicted,  in  1832,  that  Clay  would  be  chosen,  and  the  democracy 
triumphed  by  a  more  decided#majority  than  ever,  —  they  predicted  that 
the  president  would  favor  nullification,  and  of  course  he  suppressed  it,  — 
they  predicted  that  he  would  not  dare  to  veto  the  Eank  Bill,  of  course 
he  vetoed  it.  Whenever  their  barometers  foretold  a  storm,  the  political 
atmosphere  always  cleared  up  brighter  than  ever,  —  their  facts  were 
wind,  and  their  speculations  vanity.  When  they  began  to  cry  wolf, 
therefore,  there  were  not  so  many  alarmed  as  would  have  been  if  the 
alarmists  had  never  been  known  to  cry  wolf  before.  When  they  began 
to  cry  loudest,  that  times  would  continue  to  grow  worse,  people  of  good 
memories  naturally  concluded  they  would  soon  grow  better,  —  and  the 
course  affairs  are  now  taking,  seems  to  justify  the  correctness  of  this 
conclusion.  The  panic,  however,  when  first  started,  had  its  effect.  If  a 
man  should  cry  fire,  or  murder,  in  the  streets,  he  might  excite  a  panic, 
but  that  panic  would  have  no  direct  tendency  to  produce  a  fire  or  mur- 
der ;  but  if  a  man  cries  out  that  a  merchant,  or  a  bank,  is  likely  to  fail, 
this  prediction  tends  directly  to  produce  the  catastrophe  foretold.     At 

46 


542  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  very  opening  of  the  present  session  of  congress,  a  fierce  attack  upon 
commercial  credit  and  on  the  confidence  of  the  pubHc  in  their  moneyed 
institutions,  was  begun,  and  has  been  kept  up  without  intermission  for 
almost  four  months.  The  first  speeches  in  congress  increased  the  pres- 
sure very  perceptibly  ;  those  of  Clay  and  McDuffie,  cost  the  nation  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  While  the  leaders,  at  Washington,  sounded  the  trum- 
pet to  cheer  them  on,  organized  bands  of  incendiaries  in  every  part  of 
the  country  carried  on  their  systematic  efforts  to  destroy  that  confidence 
which  is  the  life  of  credit.  They  reported  failures  which  never  hap- 
pened, —  they  exaggerated  all  that  did  happen,  —  they  pretended  to 
doubt  the  credit  of  the  deposit  banks,  —  they  concerted  runs  upon  the 
safety  fund  banks  in  New  York,  —  and  circulated  fabricated  accounts  of 
numerous  failures  of  banks  in  the  South  and  West.  Nor  did  they  con- 
fine themselves  to  the  invention  of  imaginary  distresses,  and  the  exag- 
geration of  what  really  existed.  They  assured  their  dupes  that  all  the 
misery,  horrible  as  it  was  in  their  description,  was  light,  compared  with 
w'hat  was  soon  to  follow.  And  if  the  people  generally  had  not  been  too 
•wise  to  believe  them,  their  predictions  would  all  have  been  realized. 
Their  prophesies  would  have  caused,  for  it  was  their  natural  tendency 
to  cause,  the  whole  aggregate  of  evil  which  they  foretold.  And  what 
sort  of  a  situation  they  would  then  have  brought  the  country  to,  any  one 
may  see  by  reading  their  speeches  ;  wherein  they  portray  and  faithfully 
portray,  the  ruin  they  expect  to  come  on  all,  and  which  must  have 
grown  out  of  such  a  panic  as  such  predictions  would  have  produced, 
if  the  people  had  not  lost  all  confidence  in  the  authors  of  those  pre- 
dictions. 

I  have  shown.  Sir,  that  there  have  been  four  principal  causes  coop- 
erating to  produce  the  pressure  that  has  been  felt  for  the  last  six  or 
seven  months.  Overtrading,  occasioned,  in  a  great  degree,  by  the  ex- 
cessive loans  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  —  the  cash  payments, 
and  the  short  credits  under  Henry  Clay's  Bill,  —  the  rapid  curtailments 
by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  when  the  two  former  causes  had  be- 
gun to  operate  ;  and  immediately  after,  the  panic,  got  up  by  the  friends 
of  the  bank,  and  for  the  special  benefit  of  the  bank.  So  far  as  these 
causes  go,  the  bank,  and  the  bank  party,  are  responsible  to  the  country 
for  all  the  distress,  except  the  slight  reaction  which  would  have  taken 
place,  after  three  or  four  years  of  uninterrupted,  unexampled  prosper- 
ity, even  if  we  had  employed  a  metallic  currency.  But  when  I  examine 
these  causes,  and  consider  their  magnitude,  I  am  astonished  that  the 
distress  has  not  been  greater.  It  becomes  an  interesting  subject  of  in- 
quiry, why  there  has  been  no  more  distress ;  a  question  at  least  as  dif- 
ficult to  answer,  as  why  there  has  been  so  much.     And  in  endeavoring 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  543 

to  discover  a  satisfactory  solution  of  this  question,  I  find  it  to  be  inti- 
mately connected  with  another,  —  what  effect  was  produced  by  the  re- 
moval of  the  deposits  ? 

It  saved  the  nation  from  ruin.  For  if,  in  1822  and  1825,  there  were 
such  harvests  of  failures,  when  the  reaction  had  had  less  than  three 
years  to  gather  force,  —  if,  in  1819,  the  reaction  was  so  tremendous,  that 
it  not  only  broke  the  western  banks,  but  brought  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  to  the  brink  of  bankruptcy,  —  so  near  that  its  president,  Mr. 
Cheeves,  himself  declared  that  "  all  the  resources  of  the  bank  would  not 
have  sustained  it  in  this  course  and  mode  of  business  another  month. 
Such  was  the  prostrate  state  of  the  bank  of  the  nation,  which  had  only 
twenty-seven  months  commenced  business,  with  an  untrammelled  capital 
of  twenty-eight  millions  of  dollars."  If,  in  1828  and  1829,  the  Atlantic 
coasts  were  swept  by  a  revulsion  which  laid  every  thing  prostrate,  when 
the  bank,  in  the  full  possession  of  its  vigor,  exerted  all  its  boasted  power 
to  save,  and  could  give  no  relief,  what  might  not  be  expected  to  happen  in 
1834,  after  a  longer  interval  of  prosperity,  which  would  naturally  pro- 
duce a  greater  reaction,  —  after  a  greater  and  more  sudden  expansion  of 
bank  credits  than  had  ever  before  been  known,  —  and  when  the  present 
author  of  this  expansion,  the  mammoth  bank,  which  had  increased  its 
loans  about  fifty  per  cent,  in  one  year,  was  pressing  all  within  its  grasp, 
and  doing  all  in  its  power  to  crush  the  whole  credit  system  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  whole  mercantile  community  into  utter  ruin  ?  "  To  call  in 
this  loan  at  the  rate  of  eight  millions  a  year,"  said  Mr.  Webster,  in  his 
speech  on  the  veto  in  July,  1832,  "is  an  operation  which,  however  wisely 
conducted,  cannot  but  inflict  a  blow  on  the  community  of  tremendous 
force,  and  frightful  consequences.  The  thing  cannot  be  done  without 
distress,  bankruptcy,  and  ruin  to  many."  The  bank  is  calling  in  its 
loans,  not  at  the  rate  of  eight  millions,  but  at  the  rate  of  about  thirty 
millions  of  dollars  per  annum,  —  not  in  a  period  of  prosperity  like  the 
year  1832,  but  just  on  the  eve  and  during  the  stress  of  a  periodical  re- 
vulsion of  commerce,  —  not  by  an  operation  wisely  conducted,  but  in  a 
manner  calculated  to  create  the  greatest  possible  embarrassment.  Have 
we  not  a  right,  then,  to  expect  that  the  blow  would  be  one  "  of  tremen- 
dous force  and  frightful  consequences  ?  "  In  1830,  Nicholas  Biddle 
testified  before  the  finance  committee  of  the  senate  that  "  there  are  very 
few  banks  which  might  not  have  been  destroyed  by  an  exertion  of  the 
power  of  the  bank."  The  bank  has  set  itself  in  direct  hostility  to  the 
banks  created  by  the  States.  It  has  put  forth  the  most  strenuous  exer- 
tion of  its  power  to  destroy  them.  INIight  we  not  expect,  then,  to  have 
failed  with  very  few  exceptions,  instead  of  standing  almost  without  ex- 
ception ?     With  a  curtailment  tenfold  more  fearful,  when  we  look  at  its 


544  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AI^D  WRITINGS 

amount,  time,  and  manner  together,  than  that  from  which  Mr.  Webster 
predicted  such  frightful  consequences,  with  a  power  which  boasts  that  it 
can  break  all  the  banks  in  the  country,  exerting  itself  to  the  utmost  to 
break  them,  with  the  extra  payments  of  fourteen  millions  under  Clay's 
bill,  and  with  all  the  j)anic  which  all  the  party  which  claims  a  monopoly 
of  talent,  as  well  as  of  all  other  distinctions,  could  create,  even 
when  hesitating  at  no  means  that  could  heighten  alarm,  —  w^itli  these 
<;oncurrent  circumstances  to  increase  the  regular  pressure  which  the 
natural  cause  of  business  must,  at  this  time,  bring  with  it,  was  it 
not  to  be  expected  that  the  present  crisis  should  be  by  far  the  most 
terrible  that  has  ever  afflicted  the  country?  And  why  has  it  not 
been  ? 

No  doubt  the  business  of  the  country  was  in  a  sounder  state  than  it 
had  been  at  any  former  period.  Such  had  been  the  wisdom  with  which 
the  foreign  affairs  of  the  nation,  the  legitimate  sphere  of  the  federal 
government,  had  been  managed,  so  many  benefits  had  been  conferred  on 
commerce,  accustomed  long  to  receive  injuries  rather  than  favors,  that 
the  trade  of  the  last  four  years  had  been  profitable,  and  the  country  was 
better  prepared  to  sustain  a  heavy  shock  than  at  any  previous  period 
since  the  peace.  This  is  the  reason  why  distress  was  so  long  in  coming, 
9,nd  goes  far  towards  accounting  for  its  mitigated  form,  but  it  does  not 
account  for  all.  The  removal  of  the  deposits  saved  the  country  from 
ruin.  I  repeat  it,  —  and  the  declaration  rests  on  facts  within  every 
man's  recollection.  The  discounts  by  the  deposit  banks  afforded  imme- 
diate relief  in  all  the  great  cities  in.  the  first  part  of  October.  The  relief 
was  what  was  essentially  wanted  at  that  time,  and  it  continued,  though 
not  quite  so  complete,  as  for  the  first  week  or  two,  till  the  opening  of 
congress,  and  till  the  professional  panic  makers  had  time  to  make  their 
unprincipled  attacks  on  public  confidence  and  public  credit.  In  such  a 
case  time  is  every  thing.  Every  man  being  anxious  to  discharge  his 
debts,  and  knowing  that  the  pressure  might  soon  return  in  full  force, 
accounts  w^ere  liquidated  to  a  vast  amount,  and  balances  struck  and  settled 
in  great  numbers  in  the  few  weeks  that  intervened.  In  such  times,  a 
few  thousand  dollars  passing  from  hand  to  hand  facilitate  the  settlement 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  in  a  few  days.  In  New  York,  in  Boston,  in 
Baltimore,  in  the  other  cities,  this  breathing  time  allowed  them  to  recover 
a  little,  and  to  make  their  arrangements  to  meet  the  return  of  the  crisis. 
The  bank  had  boasted,  by  its  president,  that  it  could  break  the  State 
banks.  It  would  have  done  this  by  demanding  the  specie  for  its  balances 
against  them,  and  by  refusing  to  receive,  as  it  has  done  in  some  instances, 
the  illegal  drafts  issued  by  its  own  branches.  The  celebrated  transfer 
drafts,  by  which  the  only  literal  removal  of  the  deposits  that  has  taken 


OF  KOBEKT  RANTOUL,  JR.  545 

place  was  effected,  prevented  the  boast  from  being  realized.     These 
drafts  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  certain  deposit  banks,  to  be  used  only 
in  case  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  should  demand  specie  for  balances 
against  them,  or  refuse  to  take  branch  drafts  of  them.     The  occasion  for 
their  use  occurred  in  a  few  instances,  and  the  efficient  remedy  was 
promptly  applied,  by  presenting  these  transfer  drafts,  and  removing  a 
portion  of  the  deposits  from  the  vaults  of  the  branch  committing  the 
aggression,  to  those  of  the  deposit  bank  on  which  the  attack  was  made. 
Of  course  this  species  of  hostility  was  soon  abandoned ;  but  the  attempt 
shows  what  system  would  have  been  adopted  for  the  prostration  of  the 
State  banks,  had  not  the  energy  of  the  treasury  department  repressed  it 
at  the  outset.     Thus  the  accommodations  which  the  change  of  the  place 
of  deposits  enabled  the  banks  receiving  them  to  extend  to  the  merchants 
prevented  individual  failures,  while  the  absolute  removal  of  a  small 
amount  of  the  deposits,  by  the  transfer  drafts,  with  the  more  potent 
apprehension  of  others  that  might  follow,  prevented  the  State  banks 
from  falling  victims  to  the  wrath  of  an  incensed  and  soulless  corporation. 
What  would  have  happened  if  the  deposits  had  not  been  removed  ? 
The   curtailments  of  the  bank  would  have  wrought  out  its  full  effect. 
There  would  have  been  no  pause,  no  stay  in  the  progress  of  the  pressure, 
—  no  change  except  from  bad  to  worse.     It  has  been  contended  that  the 
cash  duties  increase  the  pressure  but  little,  because  the  amount  paid  is 
immediately  loaned  out  again,  and  often  to  the  same  individual  who  pays 
it.     But  had  the  deposits  never  been  withdrawn,  this  would  not  have 
been  so.     Those  sums  would  have  been  abstracted  from  the  use  of  the 
community.     Those  millions  would  have  followed  the  millions  that  have 
gone  before  them,  to  that  bourne  from  which  it  seems  few  travellers 
return,  —  the  vaults  of  the  mammoth  bank,  to  be  locked  in  its  inexorable 
grasp,  instead  of  issuing,   as  they  now  do,  from  the  counters  of  the 
deposit  banks,  to  relieve  embarrassment  and  avert  ruin.     Tn  the  eastern 
fable,  it  was  the  last  ounce  that  broke  the  back  of  the  camel.    Had  credit 
been  doomed  to  bear  the  additional  burdens  from  which  the  removal  of 
the  deposits  relieved  it,  it  might  have  sunk  under  the  intolerable  pres- 
sure.    The  fierce  and  unremitted  assaults  on  credit  and  confidence,  by 
the  incendiary  panic  makers  at  Washington,  their  collar  men  through  the 
country,  and  the  hireling  stipendiaries  of  the  bank,  might  have  prevailed. 
The   concerted  and  simultaneous  attacks  made  from  all  quarters  on  the 
city  and  State  of  New  York,  might  have  effected  a  dismal  success.   And  if 
the  New  York  banks,  whose  failure  seems  to  have  been  contemplated 
with  such  a  fiend-like  exultation,  had  been  crushed,  who  can  say  that  any 
other  banks,  dependent  as  all  are  upon   each  other,  would  have  sur- 
vived ?    Desolation  would  have  spread  over  the  land,  and  human  sagacity 

46* 


546  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

can  liardly  fix  the  limits  which  it  might  not  have  exceeded.  Paralyze 
New  York,  the  centre  of  our  commercial  operations,  —  let  the  heart  of 
our  commercial  system  cease  to  beat,  —  it  can  no  longer  impel  the  vital 
current  through  the  arteries,  and  a  palsy  like  the  stroke  of  death  will 
pass  to  the  furthest  extremities.  If  the  deposits  had  not  been  removed, 
and  if  the  predictions  of  the  coalition  prophets  had  not  been  disbelieved, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  these  consequences  could  have  failed  to  follow. 
The  masterly  measure  of  the  secretary  stopped  for  a  while  the  increase 
of  the  pressure,  till  men  could  prepare  for  it,  and  till  funds,  favored  by 
the  low  rate  of  exchange,  could  flow  into  the  country,  —  and  as  for  the 
prophets,  their  prophetical  character  was  so  well  known  that  very  few 
thought  of  believing  them. 

It  is  said,  however,  for  dates  are  easily  forgotten,  and  party  spirit  will 
make  men  swallow  any  absurdity,  that  it  was  the  removal  of  the  deposits 
which  forced  the  bank  to  curtail,  and  was  the  cause  of  all  the  mischief. 
How  could  the  removal  of  the  deposits  in  October,  force  the  bank  to 
curtail  in  the  August  previous  ? 

The  friends  of  the  bank  pretended  to  believe  that  the  deposits  would 
not  be  withdrawn  down  to  the  very  moment  when  the  order  v^^as  issued. 
Even  Mr.  Duane,  who  was  appointed  on  purpose  to  remove  them,  as- 
serted that  he  did  not  understand  that  that  measure  had  been  decided  on, 
until  he  was  exphcitly  informed  of  the  fact  some  time  after  the  bank 
begun  to  curtail.  It  could  not  be,  then,  that  the  expectation  of  the 
removal  furnished  any  excuse  for  commencing  the  pressure.  Neither  is 
this  excuse  alleged  by  the  bank  ;  they  would  rather  have  us  believe,  that 
the  curtailment  was  the  effect  of  the  natural  course  of  their  business, 
which  in  the  fall  of  the  year  usually  diminishes  the  aggregate  of  their 
loans.  Strange  and  incredible,  it  would  seem,  that,  according  to  their 
own  account  of  the  matter,  the  principal  bank  should  have  issued  orders 
to  the  southern  and  western  branches  to  restrict  their  business  and  cur- 
tail their  discounts,  in  January,  1832,  and  that  notwithstanding  every 
effort  made  at  curtailment  by  those  branches,  on  which  it  was  strenuously 
urged,  the  aggregate  debt  of  the  bank  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi 
should  have  increased  10,340,824  dollars,  from  October,  1831,  to  May, 
1832,  a  period  of  great  prosperity,  and  yet  that  its  debt  should  have 
been  diminished  by  voluntary  payments,  without  any  pressure  on  the 
part  of  the  institution  itself,  more  than  four  millions  in  August  and  Sep- 
tember, 1833,  after  loud  complaints  of  the  scarcity  of  money  had  begun 
to  be  heard.  If  this  be  not  true,  the  bank  begun  to  curtail  without  ex- 
cuse or  pretext ;  but  if  this  be  true,  then  indeed  the  time  chosen  for  the 
removal  was  the  most  fortunate  ;  being  the  precise  moment  when  the 
bank  had  no  occasion  for  the  deposits,  and  could  not  use  them,  though 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  547 

the  institutions  wliicli  received  them  afterwards  not  only  could,  but  did 
use  them  largely,  and  to  the  salvation  of  the  country. 

The  bank  had  curtailed  before  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  $800,000 
more  than  were  removed  to  the  1st  of  January.     They  might,  therefore, 
so  far  as  the  deposits  were  concerned,  have  suspended  their  curtailments 
from  the  1st  of  October  to  the  1st  of  January,  and  still  have  been  in  as 
secure  a  situation  as  they  were  on  the  1st  of  August,  when,  by  their  own 
showing,  they  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  curtail.     But  suppose  they 
had  known  of  the  intended  removal  as  early  as  the  1st  of  August,  would 
such  knowledge  have  obliged  them  to  curtail,  or  would  they  have  done 
so  in  consequence  of  it,  except  for  the  purpose  of  augmenting  the  public 
distress,  and  thereby  forcing  a  recharter  ?     The  conduct  of  the  bank 
itself  has  answered  the  question,  and  demonstrated  that  they  could  not. 
The  bank  did  not  curtail  when  the  three  per  cents,  were  to  be  paid,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  went  on  extending.    On  the  24tli  of  December,  1831, 
the  cashier  of  the  principal  bank  writes,  "^  that  such  appears  to  be  the 
anxiety  of  the  government  for  the  early  extinguishment  of  the  public 
debt,  that  we  are  not  likely  to  have  the  use  of  any  considerable   amount 
of  treasury  balances  during  the  coming  year."     And  in  January  follow- 
ing, "  the  rapid  redemption  of  the  public  debt  will  probably  deprive  the 
Atlantic  offices,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  benefit  of  government  deposits 
during  the  whole  of  the  present  year."     The  bank  then  knew,  in  De- 
cember, 1831,  that  the  public  deposits  were  soon  to  be  removed  from  its 
vaults,  by  the  payment  of  the  three  per  cents.,  almost  double  the  amount 
of  the  deposits  in  August  last.    On  the  24th  of  March,  the  bank  had  notice 
that  it  would  be  called  on  to  pay  one  half  of  this  sum,  six  and  one  half 
millions,  on  the  1st  of  July.     There  was  a  Avithdrawal  of  deposits,  to  be 
made  in  one  day,  about  equal  to  the  whole  withdrawal  which  has  been 
gradually  making  during  the  last  six  months.     And  how  much  did  the 
bank  curtail  in  anticipation  of  the  removal  ?     Neither  in  December  and 
January,  when  it  expected,  nor  yet  in  March,  when  it  received  the  notice 
that  this  immense  payment  was  to  be  made  speedily,  did  it  curtail  one 
dollar  of  its  loans  ?    No  !     Far  from  curtailing,  it  went  on  extending  till 
it  reached  its  highest  point  in  May,  1832.     In  December,  its  aggregate 
debt  was  $63,026,000  ;  in  May,  it  had  risen  to   $70,428,000  ;  so  that 
instead  of  curtailing,  when  it  expected  to  be  deprived  of  the  benefit  of 
the  deposits  during  a  whole  year,  and  by  the  withdrawal  of  six  or  seven 
millions  at  once,  it  extended  its  debt  $7,400,000  !     Shall  it  now  be 
pretended  that  the  gradual  removal  of  a  few  millions  in  six  months, 
(and  they  are  not  entirely  removed,)  has  forced  the  bank  to  curtail  at 
the  rate  of  thirty  millions  a  year  ?     They  must  overestimate  the  cre- 
dulity of  the  American  people,  who  can  put  forward  such  a  monstrous 


548  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

assumption.  The  bank  was  under  much  less  necessity  of  curtailing 
when  the  deposits  were  removed,  than  when  the  payment  of  the  three 
per  cents,  was  to  be  provided  for,  —  for  in  March,  1832,  it  had  only 
six  and  a  half  millions,  instead  of  nearly  twice  that  sum,  —  its  circula- 
tion was  greater  than  in  August  last,  — foreign  exchange  was  less  favor- 
able to  us,  its  available  resources  were  every  way  less,  in  proportion  to 
the  demands  that  might  be  made  upon  it,  than  at  the  latter  period. 

Nicholas  Biddle  swears  that,  in  1825,  he  saved  the  country  from  a 
general  bankruptcy,  merely  by  an  increase  of  the  discounts  of  the  New 
York  branch  to  the  amount  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  one  day.  Why 
has  not  the  bank  in  1834,  with  her  ten  or  eleven  millions  of  specie,  her 
seven  millions  of  private  deposits,  her  two  millions  of  balances  against 
the  State  banks,  and  her  funds  in  Europe,  done  now  what  she  could  do 
with  tenfold  more  safety  than  in  1825  ?  She  could  with  perfect  ease,  at 
any  time  for  the  last  six  months,  have  increased  her  discounts  ten  mil- 
lions, which  would  have  enabled  the  State  banks  to  increase  theirs  twice 
as  much  more  ;  yet  still  she  keeps  up  this  inexorable  pressure,  and 
we  are  told  that  it  is  all  right  and  proper  that  she  should  do  so  ;  it  is 
her  good  will  and  pleasure,  and  her  collar  men  will  kiss  the  rod  that 
smites  them,  and  say  in  humble  resignation,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be 
afflicted. 

Nicholas  Biddle  testifies,  that  when  he  made  his  fifty  thousand  dollar 
discounts,  "  from  this  moment  confidence  revived,  and  the  danger  passed. 
I  then  thought,  and  still  think,  that  this  measure,  the  increase  of  the 
loans  of  the  bank,  in  the  face  of  an  approaching  panic,  could  alone  have 
averted  the  same  consequences,  which,  in  a  few  days  afterwards,  were 
operating  with  such  fatal  effect  upon  England.  I  have  never  doubted 
that  the  delay  of  a  week  would  have  been  of  infinite  injury,  and  that  the 
prompt  interposition  of  the  bank  was  the  occasion  of  protecting  the 
country  from  a  great  calamity."  Though  the  country  was  even  more 
easily  to  be  saved  in  1834  than  in  1825,  yet  the  bank  would  never  have 
made  the  trifling  effort  which,  upon  Mr.  Biddle's  theory,  was  necessary 
to  save  it.  We  owe  it  to  the  "  prompt  interposition  "  of  the  government, 
that  the  deposit  banks  were  enabled  "  to  increase  their  loans  in  the  face 
of  an  approaching  panic  "  some  three  or  four  millions,  without  "  the 
delay  of  the  week  ; "  and  "  I  have  never  doubted  "  that  these  millions 
added  to  the  accommodations  of  the  community  at  the  most  critical  period, 
did  at  least  as  much  service  as  the  celebrated  fifty  thousand  dollars  so 
much  vaunted  of  by  Nicholas  Biddle. 

The  removal  of  the  deposits,  therefore,  having  averted  a  shock  such 
as  has  no  precedent,  and  whose  consequences  would  defy  calculation,  was 
productive  of  unmixed  good,  —  was  it  unconstitutional,  or  arbitrary  ?    If 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  549 

the  Constitution  did  not  warrant  it,  —  no  matter  what  benefits  miglit  be 
expected  from  it,  —  no  matter  how  dangerous  it  might  be  to  dehiy  it, — 
it  were  better  that  commerce  and  credit  should  perish,  than  that  the 
sacred  charter  of  our  liberties  should  be  violated.  If  the  act  cannot  be 
done  constitutionally,  I  for  one,  would  say,  let  it  forever  remain  undone. 
Because,  Sir,  I  belong  to  that  school  of  politicians  who  hold  that  the 
Constitution  is  the  palladium  of  American  liberties,  to  be  guarded  from 
invasion,  jealousy,  and  at  all  hazards.  Our  creed  was  happily  expressed 
by  our  patriotic  president,  when  alluding  to  the  noble  ship  whose  name 
calls  up  so  many  recollections  of  glory  —  old  Ironsides  —  he  pronounced, 
in  his  emphatic  manner,  that,  "  the  Constitution  must  be  preserved." 
Preserved  I  trust  it  will  be;  and,  like  that  cherished  trophy  and 
choicest  monument  of  Yankee  skill  and  valor,  when  again  she  walks  the 
waters  on  her  proud  career,  bearing  on  her  prow,  fit  emblem  of  her  own 
thrilling  history,  the  likeness  of  the  defender  of  his  country,  —  renovated, 
regenerate,  restored  to  its  original  force  and  vigor,  cleansed  from  un- 
warranted assumptions  and  unnatural  constructions,  long  to  flourish  and 
prevail  in  its  youthful  beauty  and  simplicity,  the  peculiar  boast  of  the 
friends  of  freedom,  the  preeminent  terror  of  her  enemies.  Entertaining 
for  the  Constitution  such  reverential  sentiments,  I  would  be  among  the 
last  to  approve  any  measure  not  strictly  in  conformity  with  its  spirit. 
Was  the  removal  of  the  deposits  constitutional  ? 

Under  the  act  of  1789,  establishing  the  treasury  department,  it  was 
the  diity  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  direct  where  the  public 
moneys  in  the  treasury  were  to  be  deposited,  —  he  was  authorized  to 
transfer  them  by  draft  from  one  place  of  deposit  to  another,  and  they 
were  considered  as  being  as  much  in  the  treasury  after  such  a  transac- 
tion as  before ;  the  whole  matter  was  exclusively  in  his  power,  subject 
to  the  supervision  of  the  president.  This  the  most  zealous  friends  of  the 
bank  do  not  deny,  and  thus  far  there  is  no  disagreement  of  opinion.  If 
the  secretary  has  lost  his  power,  it  must  be  by  gome  provision  of  the 
bank  charter,  expressly  taking  it  from  him ;  for  it  is  not  pretended  that 
the  power  has  been  modified  by  any  other  action  of  congress  upon  it, 
unless  it  be  by  the  bank  charter.  Let  us  look  then  at  the  language  of 
the  charter,  and  see  how  that  modifies  the  power. 

The  sixteenth  section  of  the  charter  declares  that  the  deposits  "  shall 
be  made  in  the  said  bank  or  branches  thereof,  unless  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury  shall  at  any  time  otherwise  order  and  direct."  So  far  from 
taking  away  the  power  otherwise  to  order  and  direct,  this  expression 
would  have  given  him  the  power  if  he  had  not  already  possessed  it. 
This  clause  was  no  part  of  the  original  bill,  —  it  was  a  portion  of  an 
amendment  in  the  handwriting  of  an  enemy  of  the  bank,  the  Hon. 


550  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Daniel  "Webster,  —  and  must  have  been  intended  to  secure  to  the  secre- 
tary the  right  of  withdrawing  the  deposits  at  any  time,  and  to  prevent 
the  bank  from  ever  making  the  claim  it  now  makes  of  a  chartered  right 
to  the  custody  of  the  deposits.  The  power  of  directing  where  the  pub- 
lic moneys  should  be  kept,  having  belonged  to,  and  been  exercised  by 
every  secretary  of  the  treasury  since  the  organization  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  his  power  to  order,  at  any  time,  that  they  shall  be  deposited 
otherwise  than  in  the  bank,  being  recognized  by  the  charter  of  the  bank 
in  express  terms,  it  is  impossible  to  comprehend  why  the  secretary  may 
not  do  that  which  was  the  established  usage  of  his  office  before  the  bank 
was  created,  and  which  was  not  only  admitted  to  be  his  right,  but  ex- 
pressly reserved  in  the  fullest  and  most  explicit  provisions  by  the  charter 
of  the  bank.  Neither  have  any  of  the  numerous  arguments  addressed 
to  the  senate,  to  the  house,  and  to  the  people  explained  the  mystery ; 
but  in  defiance  of  the  letter  of  that  act  by  which  the  bank  exists,  they 
assume  that  it  is  unconstitutional  to  do  what  that  act  without  any  limita- 
tion whatever  secures  to  the  secretary  the  power  of  doing.  Upon  such 
an  assumption  much  verbose  and  high-wrought  declamation  has  been  sus- 
tained by  ingenious  men ;  but  until  it  has  some  firmer  basis  to  rest 
upon j  no  matter  how  great  the  talent  enlisted  in  its  defence,  it  does  not 
deserve  an  answer  or  a  notice.  There  are  truths  so  plain  that  argument 
cannot  make  them  plainer ;  and  the  right  of  the  secretary  to  remove  the 
deposits  having  been  reserved  in  the  bank  charter  in  the  clearest  words 
which  Daniel  Webster  could  select  to  express  that  right,  I  am  not  so 
weak  as  to  suppose  that  I  can  make  it  clearer. 

To  deny  this  right  is  a  new  doctrine,  —  a  doctrine  which  Mr.  Webster 
could  not  have  anticipated  in  1816,  when  he  penned  the  sentence  which 
makes  it  untenable  and  too  absurd  to  require  an  answer.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  only  new  doctrine  invented  for  this  occasion ;  and  let  me  ob- 
serve once  for  all,  that  if  there  had  been  any  old,  acknowledged,  consti- 
tutional ground  to  condemn  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  such  lawyers  as 
have  argued  the  case  for  the  bank  in  both  houses  of  congress  could  not 
have  overlooked  it.  We  should  have  had  it  served  up  in  every  form, 
and  with  commentaries  in  every  possible  variety.  Instead  of  old  fami- 
liar principles,  however,  every  doctrine  advanced  by  the  opposition  on 
this  occasion  is  new,  and  not  only  new,  but  strange,  —  not  only  strange, 
but  in  direct  contradiction  to  all  previous  notions  of  the  nature  of  our 
government.  It  is  denied  that  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  is  remova- 
ble by  the  president,  although  in  the  very  act  creating  the  department, 
(2d  April,  1789,)  provision  is  made  for  supplying  his  place  temporarily, 
"  whenever  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  shall  be  removed  from  office 
by  the  president  of  the  United  States."     It  is  denied  that  the  president 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  551 

is  responsible  in  any  way  for  the  acts  of  the  heads  of  the  departments, 
or  that  it  is  any  reason  for  changing  one  of  them  to  insure  a  concert  and 
harmony  of  action  among  the  different  members  of  his  cabinet.  As  if 
the  executive  was  not  single,  a  unit,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  this 
very  concert  of  action.  As  if  an  executive  of  two  consuls,  five  direct- 
ors, or  in  any  other  compound  form  had  not  been  found  productive  of 
great  evils,  and  to  avoid  these  evils  we  have  one  president  instead  of 
two,  three,  or  a  greater  number.  As  if  the  general  supervision  of  all 
the  departments  and  the  taking  care  that  the  laws  and  the  Constitution 
are  faithfully  executed  according  to  his  own  understanding  of  them,  were 
not  the  principal  duty  of  the  president,  without  which  his  office  would 
be  but  a  mere  sinecure. 

These  ingenious  novelties,  however,  have  been  superseded  by  another 
fresher  and  more  startling,  which  is,  that  though  the  president  may  be 
responsible  for  the  acts  of  all  the  other  members  of  his  cabinet,  and  have 
the  power  of  removing  them  when  unwilling  to  be  any  longer  responsi- 
ble for  their  acts,  still  that  he  has  not  that  power  over  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  for  the  treasury  is  not  an  executive  department !  How 
desperate  must  be  that  cause  which  men  of  acknowledged  abilities  can 
find  no  pretence  for  supporting  without  resorting  to  such  egregious  ab- 
surdities. For  the  first  time  for  forty-five  years  it  is  pretended  that  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury  is  an  officer  of  congress.  Does  congress  ap- 
point him  ?  Can  congress  remove  him  ?  If  his  duties  are  not  executive, 
what  are  they,  —  legislative  or  judicial  ?  It  is  idle  to  argue  against 
such  a  theory,  —  never  before  heard  of,  and  now  brought  forward  without 
shadow  or  pretext.  The  president  has  the  same  duty  of  supervision, 
ultimate  responsibility,  and  power  of  appointment  and  removal  with  re- 
gard to  the  head  of  the  treasury  department  as  with  regard  to  the  secre- 
taries of  State,  war,  and  the  navy  ;  nor  would  any  one  have  been  found 
to  doubt  this,  had  there  been  tenable  grounds  for  assailing  the  adminis- 
tration. 

The  last  objection  is,  that  the  deposits  should  not  have  been  removed 
till  congress  met.  And  why  ?  Had  the  measure  been  delayed,  the 
pressure  of  the  mammoth  bank  would  have  been  irresistible  during  the 
two  intervening  months  ;  and  after  the  session  opened,  congress  could  have 
done  nothing  till  the  secretary  had  first  acted  upon  the  subject.  They 
had  no  right  to  meddle  with  it.  The  secretary  must  then  have  ordered 
the  removal,  and  congress  could  not  restore  the  deposits  except  by  pass- 
ing a  law.  The  event  has  shown  they  could  not  pass  such  a  law,  two 
branches  out  of  three  approving  of  the  measure.  Why  then  should  it 
have  been  delayed  ?  The  measure  was  not  only  constitutional,  but  it 
was  not  an  arbitrary  measure.     It  was  a  measure  recommended  by  Jef- 


552  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

ferson,  as  long  ago  as  1803.  In  a  letter  to  Albert  Gallatin,  he  says  of 
the  mammoth  bank,  —  "  This  institution  is  one  of  the  most  deadly  hostil- 
ity existing,  against  the  principles  and  form  of  our  Constitution.  Sup- 
pose a  series  of  untoward  events  should  occur,  —  an  institution  like  this, 
penetrating  By  its  branches  every  part  of  the  Union,  acting  by  command 
and  in  phalanx,  may,  in  a  critical  moment,  upset  the  government.  I 
deem  no  government  safe  which  is  under  the  vassalage  of  any  self-con- 
stituted authorities,  or  any  other  authority  than  that  of  the  nation,  or 
its  regular  functionaries.  What  an  obstruction  could  not  this  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  with  all  its  branch  banks,  be  in  time  of  war !  It 
might  dictate  to  us  the  peace  we  should  accept,  or  withdraw  its  aids. 
Ought  we  then  to  give  further  growth  to  an  institution  so  powerful,  so 
hostile  ?  Now,  while  we  are  strong,  it  is  the  greatest  duty  w^e  owe  to 
the  safety  of  our  Constitution,  to  bring  this  powerful  enemy  to  a  perfect 
subordination  under  its  authorities.  The  first  measure  would  be  to  re- 
duce them  to  an  equal  footing  only  with  other  banks,  as  to  the  favors  of 
the  government." 

This  measure,  recommended  by  Jefferson,  was  practised  by  Crawford, 
in  the  arrangement  with  the  western  banks  in  1819,  and  in  the  assist- 
ance afforded  to  the  Bank  of  Alexandria.  In  neither  case  was  his 
right  to  determine  where  the  deposits  should  be  kept,  disputed  or  doubted 
by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, — neither  was  he  censured  by  con- 
gress for  the  exercise  of  this  unquestioned  right,  when  a  committee  of 
that  body,  of  which  Daniel  Webster  was  a  member,  examined  the 
charges  against  him,  and  exonerated  him  from  all  censure  in  his  manage- 
ment of  the  public  moneys.  At  a  later  period,  Mr.  Ingham  threatened 
to  deprive  them  of  the  custody  of  the  government  deposits,  and  for  the 
same  reasons  which  finally  justified  the  step  ;  the  bank  did  not  then  deny 
his  power  or  right  to  make  good  his  threat.  That  denial  was  an  after- 
thought, and  originated,  since  the  coalition  of  the  nationals  and  nuUifiers, 
with  those  other  heretical  novelties  of  the  nullity  of  the  executive,  of 
the  separate  independence  of  the  heads  of  departments,  of  the  irrespon- 
sibility and  irremovability  of  the  secretaries,  and  that  the  treasury  is 
not  an  executive  department,  but  a  subordinate  branch  of  the  legislature. 
One  hazards  but  little  in  predicting,  that  the  chartered  right  of  the  bank 
to  the  custody  of  the  pubhc  funds,  while  the  charter  itself  provides  that 
the  secretary  of  the  treasury  may  at  any  time  order  them  to  be  deposited 
elsewhere,  will  be,  with  all  these  other  coeval  heresies,  alike  abandoned, 
and  in  a  few  short  months  forgotten.  Four  years  ago,  the  friends  and 
champions  of  the  bank  considered  the  removal  of  the  deposits  a  salu- 
tary corrective.  In  his  report  of  the  13th  of  April,  1830,  Mr.  Mc- 
Duffie  justly  and  wisely  remarks,  that  any  attempt  "to  bring  the  pecu- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  553 

niary  influence  of  the  institution  to  bear  upon  the  politics  of  the  coun- 
try," may  be  punished  *'by  withdrawing  the  government  deposits." 
''  This  power,"  he  adds,  "  is  in  its  nature  a  salutary  corrective,  creating 
no  undue  dependence  on  the  part  of  the  bank."  The  country  still 
holds  the  same  opinion,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  few  who  have 
so  lately  departed  from  this  faith  will,  for  the  most  part,  soon  return  to  it 
again. 

The  measure  was  not  arbitrary,  for  the  bank,  by  its  conduct,  had 
made  it  indispensably  necessary.  From  the  1st  of  August  to  the  1st  of 
October,  a  curtailment  of  more  than  four  millions  of  dollars  in  two 
months  had  gone  on  with  unabated  rapidity,  while  the  public  deposits 
during  the  same  time  had  been  increased  more  than  one  million  and  a 
half  of  dollars.  "Was  it  the  duty  of  the  government  to  stand  by  idle 
and  see  the  nation  ruined,  and  even  to  assist  the  monster  in  sucking  from 
the  body  politic  the  life  blood  of  credit  ?  George  McDuffie  shall  again 
furnish  an  answer,  —  "the  secretary  of  the  treasury  would  have  the 
power  to  prevent  the  bank  from  using  its  power  unjustly  and  op[)ressive- 
ly  by  withdrawing  the  government  deposits."  Mr.  Taney  only  withholds, 
he  does  not  withdraw  what  has  already  been  deposited,  —  he  adopts  an 
expedient,  therefore,  much  less  arbitrary  than  that  which  Mr.  McDuffie 
had  pointed  out  as  the  appropriate  remedy. 

It  was  a  preparatory  step  towards  winding  up  the  concerns  of  the 
bank.  Its  memorial  declared  that  the  question  of  the  recharter  ought 
to  be  decided  before  the  adjournment  of  congress,  in  March,  1832,  be- 
cause it  was  "important  that  the  country  should  begin  early  to  prepare 
for  the  expected  chjmge." 

"  It  cannot  be  doubted  but  the  present  bank  would  conduct  itself  as 
badly  as  the  old  bank  did  if  there  should  be  any  strong  political  excite- 
ment. The  circumstances  of  the  times  may  be  changed;  and  it  may 
be  the  good  pleasure  of  the  bank  to  oppose  the  government  with  an 
ability  to  depress  the  public  credit  and  to  obstruct  the  public  means,  yci 
little  thought  of.  As  the  bank  can  render  money  scarce  when  it  [)Ieases, 
by  checking  its  circulation,  what  may  we  not  apprehend,  if  the  bank 
should  interfere  in  our  elections,  zealously  support  this  man  and  oppose 
that,  and  if  unsuccessful,  throw  its  weight  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
administration  ?  There  is  no  prospect  just  now  of  such  a  political 
excitement  as  has  been  spoken  of;  but  let  it  come  when  it  will,  and 
it  will  one  day  or  another  agitate  us;  the  bank  will  most  assuredly  be 
a  political  machine.  Whether  as  such  it  happens  to  be  on  my  side  or 
against  me,  I  shall  still  hold  the  same  opinion  of  it,  that  it  is  an  uncon- 
stitutional institution." 

47 


554  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

It  is  not  necessary  to  look  to  Hezeklah  Niles  for  authority  to  prove 
the  bank  unconstitutional. 

But  though  a  national  bank  were  as  constitutional  as  Henry  Clay  has 
proved  it  to  be  unconstitutional,  —  though  the  charter  of  the  present  bank 
had  been  as  expedient  as  Daniel  Webster  proved  it  to  be  inexpedient, 
still,  it  has  violated  its  charter  again  and  again,  and  that  fact  alone  is  a 
sufficient  reason  why  its  existence  should  not  be  prolonged.  The  proofs 
are  before  the  public ;  it  is  unnecessary  to  recapitulate  them ;  they  are 
conclusive. 

The  present  administration  may  confidently  claim,  and  will  assuredly 
receive  the  gratitude  of  posterity,  for  the  vigorous  and  successful  effi)rts 
it  has  made  to  restore  the  Constitution  to  its  original  simplicity  and 
purity.  Already  the  system  of  unequal  burdens  on  commerce,  and 
of  oppressing  the  inhabitants  of  the  seaboard,  to  raise  money  to  squan- 
der in  electioneering  schemes  in  the  western  States,  —  the  system 
of  carrying  on  local  improvements,  without  warrant  from  the  Constitu- 
tion, at  the  national  expense ;  and  the  system  of  Mr.  Clay,  in  his  land 
bill,  to  bribe  the  Atlantic  States  to  come  in  to  these  usurpations,  by  re- 
turning them  a  small  share  of  the  plunder  (to  Massachusetts  for  instance, 
one  dollar  out  of  every  five  taken  from  her,  a  process  by  which  the  national 
republicans  expected  the  Commonwealth  to  grow  rich,)  all  these  systems 
have  fallen  under  its  repeated  blows. 

The  engine  which  completed  the  machine  of  corruption,  "  this  engine," 
says  Mr.  Jefferson,  "  was  the  Bank  of  the  United  States."  This,  also, 
is  tottering ;  in  the  words  of  Daniel  Webster,  "  the  bank  has  fallen,  or 
is  to  fall." 

That  vast  fabric  of  consolidation,  made  up  of  so  many  complicated 
abuses,  which  six  years  ago  stood  so  firm  as  to  defy  every  attack,  is  now 
prostrate  and  in  ruins ;  the  l^ank  is  the  only  pillar  that  remains,  shat- 
tered and  soon  to  be  overthrown.  Six  years  ago  it  seemed  to  be  for- 
gotten that  we  had  a  written  Constitution  limiting  the  government ;  it 
was  a  waste  of  words  to  argue  against  constructive  powers.  Now  con- 
structive powers  are,  for  the  most  part,  abandoned ;  the  bank  is  the 
last  of  the  long  list  of  encroachments  on  the  federal  Constitution  ;  let 
this  be  once  suppressed  and  the  government  may  set  out  again  upon 
nearly  the  same  principles  upon  which  it  started  in  1789,  and  from 
which  it  had  been  almost  constantly  departing  down  to  the  4th  of  March, 
1829.  For  this  restoration  or  revolution,  if  people  prefer  to  call  it  so, 
we  may  thank  the  incorruptible  republicanism  and  unconquerable  energy 
of  Andrew  Jackson. 

But  those  who  sec  only  those  objects  which  are  immediately  presented 


OF   EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  555 

to  their  vision,  and  take  no  notice  of  what  may  be  in  the  least  remote 
from  their  narrow  sphere,  overlook  entirely  the  evils  of  nullification, 
which  our  progress  towards  consolidation  had  already  produced,  and  the 
certainty  of  civil  war,  disunion,  anarchy,  and  final  despotism  to  which 
that  progress  must  have  ultimately  brought  us,  and  see  only  the  evils 
of  a  disordered  currency,  magnified  and  multiplied  by  the  distorted 
aspect  which  the  panic  gives  them.  These  short-sighted  and  faint- 
hearted dupes  of  the  panic-mongers  cry  out  that  an  unconstitutional 
bank  is  better  than  the  state  which  must  follow  after  the  monopoly  ex- 
pires, and  that  we  must  have  a  national  bank,  right  or  wrong,  to  regu- 
late the  currency  !  A  national  bank  regulate  the  currency  !  How  has 
the  Bank  of  England  regulated  their  currency  ?  By  stopping  specie 
payments  for  more  than  twenty  years,  —  by  producing  terrible  fluctua- 
tions in  the  value  of  money  and  property,  and  the  most  calamitous  re- 
vulsions in  business  and  credit, — by  causing  the  country  to  be  flooded 
with  counterfeit  notes,  and  making  forgery  so  common,  that  from  two  or 
three  convictions  in  a  year  for  that  crime,  the  number  increased  to  two 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  in  a  year.  And  how  has  our  bank  regulated 
our  currency  ?  Very  much  in  the  same  way,  Sir.  After  having  brought 
on  the  distress  of  the  years  1818,  1819,  and  1820,  it  closed  its  western 
©Alices  from  1819  to  1827,  and  left  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  which 
it  had  drained  of  its  specie,  and  the  local  banks  which  it  had  thrown 
into  inextricable  confusion,  to  recover  from  the  operations  of  the  regu- 
lator, as  they  could.  At  that  time,  according  to  the  confession  of  its 
president,  Mr.  Cheeves,  it  came  very  near  suspending  specie  payments ; 
and  had  it  done  so,  it  would  have  compelled  all  other  banks,  except,  per- 
haps, those  of  New  England,  to  do  the  same.  It  has  done  more  than 
any  single  agent  besides  to  produce  the  present  derangement  of  the  cur- 
rency, and  the  whole  land  is  deluged  with  counterfeit  notes  and  drafts  of 
its  branches,  of  which  counterfeits  about  two  hundred  editions  are  known 
to  have  been  issued.  No,  Sir ;  it  is  the  State  banks  that  are  to  regulate 
the  currency,  as  they  have  regulated  it  hitherto.  Under  the  influence 
of  the  resolution  for  the  better  collection  of  the  revenue  passed  in  April, 
1816,  they  restored  specie  payments,  and  have  continued  them.  Mr. 
Webster,  in  his  speech  in  favor  of  that  resolution,  laid  down  the  true 
doctrine.  "  I  have  expressed  my  belief,"  says  he,  "  on  more  than  one 
occasion,  and  I  repeat  the  opinion,  that  it  was  the  duty  and  in  the  power 
of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  on  the  return  of  peace,  to  have  returned 
to  the  legal  and  proper  mode  of  collecting  the  revenue.  The  paper  of 
the  banks  rose  on  that  occasion  almost  to  an  equality  with  specie  ;  that 
was  the  favorable  moment.     The  banks  in  which  the  public  money  was 


^56  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND   WRITINGS 

<Ieposited  ought  to  have  been  induced  to  lead  the  way,  by  the  sale  of 
their  government  stocks,  and  other  measures  calculated  to  bring  about, 
moderately  and  gradually,  but  regularly  and  certainly,  the  restoration  of 
the  former  and  only  safe  state  of  things.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
the  influence  of  the  treasury  could  have  effected  all  this  !  "  So  it  seems 
the  influence  of  the  deposit  banks  was,  of  itself,  suificient  to  bring  back 
a  sound  currency,  in  181 G,  Daniel  Webster  being  judge,  speaking,  after 
the  present  bank  had  been  chartered,  in  opposition  to  his  own  vote,  and 
in  this  very  speech  reiterating  his  adverse  opinion  of  it.  "  A  bank  of 
thirty-five  millions  has  been  created  for  the  professed  purpose  of  correct- 
ing the  evils  of  our  circulation,  and  facilitating  the  receipts  and  expen- 
•ditures  of  government.  I  am  not  so  sanguine  in  the  hope  of  great  ben- 
efit from  this  measure  as  others  are."  These  opinions  of  that  great  man, 
I  consider  the  more  valuable  from  the  fact  that  they  were  expressed 
long  before  it  was  discovered  that  his  great  inconsistencies  constituted 
the  distinguishing  feature  in  his  great  character,  — before  he  was  known 
as  a  leader  of  the  anti-bank  party  and  of  the  bank  party,  —  opponent 
-and  champion  of  the  same  institution,  —  as  the  leader  of  the  anti-tariff 
and  of  the  ultra-tariff  parties, — opponent  and  champion  of  the  same 
policy,  —  voting  against  a  low  tariff  because  it  was  too  high,  and  object- 
ing against  a  high  tariff  because  it  was  too  low,  —  objecting  against  the 
-game  tariff,  I  mean  that  of  1824,  at  one  time  that  it  went  too  far,  at 
another  time  that  it  did  not  go  far  enough,  —  a  denouncer  of  nullifica- 
ftion,  and  playing  into  the  hands  of  nullifiers,  —  deprecating  the  spirit 
<of  the  proclamation  before  it  issued  —  shouting  hosannas  to  Andrew 
Jackson  as  soon  as  it  is  received,  —  protesting  beforehand  against  the 
employment  of  force,  and  employing  all  his  energies  to  pass  the  enforce- 
ing  bill.  Before  Mr.  Webster  had  assumed  so  many  different  attitudes, 
his  opinions  certainly  carried  more  weight  with  them  than  they  should 
:at  present.  Unless  in  the  prime  of  manhood,  in  the  unbiassed  posses- 
sion and  exercise  of  all  his  powerful  faculties,  Mr.  Webster  was  always 
wrong,  the  present  administration  has  been  right  in  such  of  its  leading 
measures  as  he  has  most  violently  opposed.  Unless  the  corrosion  of  dis- 
appointed ambition  has  cleared  his  vision  and  rectified  his  judgment, — 
imless  the  desperation  of  political  bankruptcy  has  cooled  his  passions 
and  allayed  his  prejudices,  the  approbation  of  Daniel  Webster  eighteen 
years  ago  was  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  it  now  is.  But  whatever 
may  be  thought  of  his  opinions  then  or  now,  it  may  be  set  down  as  a 
historical  fact,  that  his  resolution  for  the  better  collection  of  the  revenue, 
produced  the  effect  for  which  it  was  intended;  and,  by  operating  on  the 
State  banks,  brought  about  an  almost  immediate  restoration  of  specie 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  557 

payments  and  a  sound  currency,  and  demonstrating  thereby  that  a  mam- 
moth corporation,  which  always  acts  as  a  disturber,  cannot  be  necessary 
as  a  regulator. 

To  these  remarks,  Sir,  one  answer  will  be  made.  It  will  be  said  I 
have  spoken  like  a  party  man.  Sir,  I  confess  it.  I  have  spoken  as  a 
member  of  that  party,  blessed  be  God  !  nine  tenths  of  this  nation,  whose 
creed  is  that  the  American  government  was  instituted  for  the  good  of 
the  American  people,  —  not  to  serve  the  purposes  of  a  joint  stock  com- 
pany,—  not  to  pamper  this  man  nor  that  man,  —  but  to  protect  equally 
every  man's  interests.  To  that  party  I  belong.  In  the  name  of  that 
party  I  have  spoken,  —  that  party  who,  rising  in  the  might  of  righteous 
indignation,  are  even  now  about  to  overturn  the  tables  of  the  money- 
changers, and  purge  the  sacred  temple  of  their  liberties  from  the  foul 
contamination  of  unholy  mammon. 


OPtATION   AT  WORCESTER.* 

There  is  no  incident  in  the  history  of  mankind,  except  the  advent  of 
their  Redeemer,  that  can  rival  in  importance  and  interest  that  Avliich  we 
have  met  to  commemorate.  The  capacity  of  the  people  in  any  nation 
to  govern  themselves,  however  excellent  might  be  their  intellectual, 
moral,  and  political  education,  and  under  whatever  favorable  circumstan- 
ces, was  not  merely  called  in  question ;  it  was  almost  universally  denied. 
It  was  only  the  theory  of  a  few  sanguine  speculators  upon  human  per- 
fectibility, thinly  scattered  over  the  world,  until  the  fourth  of  July,, 
seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-six.  Since  that  day  it  has  been  a  fact, 
obvious,  indisputable,  penetrating  everywhere,  dispelling  by  its  radiant 
clearness  that  political  bigotry,  in  which  the  millions  of  our  race  had 
blindly  submitted  to  the  fiat  of  arbitrary  power  as  to  the  irresistible  de- 
cree of  fate.  It  is  the  star  of  hope  and  promise.  Enlightened  by  its 
beams,  the  oppressed  discern  the  weakness  of  the  tyrant.  They  now  no 
longer  must  bow  their  servile  necks  beneath  the  yoke  of  one  of  their  fel- 
lows, neither  stronger  nor  better  than  themselves :  no  longer  must  the 
many  sow,  that  the  few  may  reap  :  no  longer  must  myriads  toil,  and  sin, 
and  suffer,  and  perish,  that  one  glorious  name  may  fill  a  page  in  history : 

*  Dehvcrcd  before  the  citizens  of  the  county  of  AVorcester,  July  4,  1837, 
47* 


558  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

no  longer  shall  the  husbandman  and  the  artisan,  torn  from  their  peace- 
ful labors  to  carry  desolation  and  death  to  the  homes  of  those  who 
have  never  wronged  them,  be  dragged,  brute  victims  to  slaughter, 
at  the  chariot  wheels  of  a  conqueror.  Freedom  guarantees  govern- 
ments in  the  interests  of  those  that  are  governed,  and  intelligence  and 
virtue  are  now  the  only  qualifications  necessary  for  the  enjoyment  of 
freedom. 

Independence  is  proclaimed,  and  with  the  sound  a  nation  starts  into 
being,  not  like  her  elder  sisters,  held  in  thraldom,  but  all  her  limbs  un- 
bound and  free  ;  not  like  them,  slow  of  growth,  and  after  a  tardy  devel- 
opment, attaining  only  to  a  dwarfish  deformity,  but  like  Minerva,  from 
the  head  of  Jove,  at  once  mature  in  wisdom,  courage,  dignity,  and  power, 
knowing  her  rights,  and  fully  armed  to  maintain  them  against  every  ag- 
gressor, asking  nothing  but  what  is  right,  submitting  to  nothing  w^rong, 
—  equally  ready  to  vindicate  her  just  cause,  whether  Britain  provokes 
her  youthful  energies,  or  France  delays  to  do  her  justice,  or  Algiers  or 
Mexico  insults  her  hardy  sons  upon  that  element  wdiich  is  their  home 
and  empire.  Her  sudden  entrance  on  the  theatre  of  action  changed 
•  essentially  the  positions  and  relations  of  all  the  other  nations  of  the 
world.  The  nature  of  this  change,  the  extent  to  which  it  has  already 
reached,  and  must  proceed  hereafter,  the  momentous  consequences  that 
£pring  from  it,  affecting  both  governments  and  subjects,  to  what  peculiar 
dangers  it  exposes  them  and  us,  and  how  we  may  best  secure  and  im- 
prove the  blessings  of  our  most  fortunate  location  and  condition,  are 
.all  fair  topics  of  inquiry  upon  this  hallowed  anniversary.  The  field 
open  for  discussion  is  fertile  and  inexhaustible.  Many  have  entered 
it,  and  some  with  signal  and  lasting  benefit  to  their  countrymen ;  but 
there  is  still  rich  room  for  more.  In  view  of  the  vast  variety  of 
considerations  which  suggest  themselves,  and  recollecting  the  ability 
with  which  this  occasion  has  been  often  illustrated,  one  is  at  a  loss 
to  choose  the  theme  of  a  discourse  addressed  to  an  audience  like  that 
before  me. 

The  great  experiment  of  our  independence  has  been  in  its  general  re- 
sults even  more  successful  than  the  most  sanguine  would  have  dared  to 
hope.  Allowing  for  all  those  deductions  which  truth  and  candor  arid 
justice  to  ourselves  require  to  be  made  in  the  account,  there  still  remains 
a  long  continued  career  of  prosperity,  interrupted,  we  must  confess,  by 
evils  which,  for  the  most  part,  wisdom  might  have  avoided  or  at  least 
mitigated,  yet  far  surpassing  the  best  estate  of  the  most  fortunate  peo- 
ple that  ever  before  appeared  upon  the  face  of  the  globe.  The  popula- 
tion of  this  Union  has  just  reached  its  second  duplication  since   the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  559 

census  of  1790,  being  now  about  nineteen  millions.*  The  popula- 
tion of  our  own  State  is  this  year  double  what  it  was  at  the  date 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  while  about  a  miUion  and  a 
half  of  the  inhabitants  of  other  States  are  either  emigrants,  or  the  chil- 
dren of  those  who  have  emigrated  from  Massachusetts  since  the  open- 
ing of  the  revolution.  Not  the  pressure  of  want  at  home,  but  the  cheap 
abundance  of  a  richer  soil  in  the  West,  tempted  these  multitudes  of  our 
brethren  to  go  out  to  people  the  prairie,  and  subdue  the  wilderness. 
The  wealth  of  Massachusetts  is  probably  ten  times  as  great  as  when  the 
revolution  broke  out ;  some  estimates  would  make  it  thirty  times  as 
great;  but  if  ten  times  only,  it  gives  to  each  family,  upon  an  average  of 
the  whole  Commonwealth,  five  times  the  amount  of  comforts  and  con- 
veniences of  every  kind,  that  they  enjoyed  before  the  revolution.  Those 
who  have  stayed  by  the  old  homestead  have  done  well,  then  ;  if  those  who 
have  gone  and  are  now  going  from  among  us  have  done  better,  we 
desire  to  be  devoutly  thankful  for  the  benignant  smiles  of  a  kind  Provi- 
dence on  our  kindred  and  acquaintance.  God  speed  them  on  their  way, 
and  watch  over  and  bless  them  in  their  selected  abode  ;  and  may  they 
carry  with  them,  preserve,  and  perpetuate  to  the  end  of  time,  through- 
out the  broadest  and  noblest  valley  in  the  world,  the  enterprise,  the  per- 
severance, the  intelligence,  morality,  and  religion,  the  good  old  primitive 
virtues  of  New  England. 

Poverty,  want,  starvation,  disease,  misfortune,  and  crime  are  the 
checks  of  population,  and  the  amazing  rapidity  of  that  progress  whose 
measure  I  have  just  given,  a  progress  whereby  the  inhabitants  of  this 
Union  must  exceed  one  hundred  millions  within  the  lifetime  of  many 
who  now  hear  me,  proves  more  conclusively  than  any  labored  argument, 
how  seldom  and  to  how  small  extent  these  checks  are  prevalent  within 
our  borders.  Oh,  knew  we  but  our  happiness,  of  men  the  happiest  we ! 
Yet  the  happiness  we  enjoy,  vast  in  comparison  with  the  most  numerous 
portions  of  our  race,  approaches  not  by  an  almost  equal  difference  that 
happiness  which  Heaven  has  placed  within  our  reach,  if  wisely  deter- 
mining and  boldly  executing  the  policy  and  the  measures  necessary  to 
develop  in  the  highest  perfection  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber.    Even  what  we  have,  we  hold  by  sufferance,  so  long  as  we  deserve 


*  Population  of  the  United  States,  in  1776,  about  2,600,000.  In  1790,  3,921,328. 
In  1830,12,856,407.  In  1837,  about  15,720,000.  Population  of  Massachusetts,  in 
1776,  348,094.  In  1790,  378,787.  In  1830,  610,014.  In  1837,  about  702,000. 
Property  of  Massachusetts,  in  1776,  estimated  at  eleven  millions  of  dollars,  but  prob- 
ably at  least  thirty  millions  at  the  present  value  of  money.  In  1830,  $208,660,407. 
Real  value,  in  1837,  probably  exceeding  three  hundred  millions,  perhaps  four  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars. 


560  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

it,  duly  prize  it,  and  guard  it  with  that  perpetual  vigilance  wliicli  is  the 
price  that  must  be  paid  for  the  living  spirit  of  our  institutions,  without 
which  their  empty  form  is  worthless. 

Our  ship  of  State  navigates  no  pacific  ocean ;  she  rides  the  stormy 
billows  of  liberty.  Give  her  sea  room  enough,  and  she  rides  secure,  and 
defies  the  fury  of  embattled  winds.  Hidden  perils  only  can  endanger 
her  safety.  Treacherous  insects  have  been  at  work  in  the  unseen 
depths ;  slowly  and  long  have  the  coral  reefs  been  rising ;  if  treason 
takes  the  helm  a  moment,  she  strikes,  and  all  hope  is  lost.  But  the  ever 
watchful  eye  of  our  experienced  pilot,  wise  in  counsel,  resolute  in  action, 
sagacious  amid  difficulties,  and  unshaken  by  the  terrors  of  the  crisis,  has 
already  descried  the  course  through  Vv'hich  her  passage  opens ;  she  leaves 
destruction  behind,  and  goes  bounding  on  her  glorious  way,  a  home  of 
life  and  joy  and  confidence,  freighted  with  the  welfare  of  a  nation,  and 
cheered  by  the  admiration  of  a  world. 

In  the  midst  of  our  heartfelt  rejoicing,  as  not  unaware  of  the  great- 
ness of  our  deliverance,  let  us  look  back  and  survey  the  hazard  past. 
Let  us  survey  it  calmly,  yet  faithfully,  patiently,  and  thoroughly.  Who 
can  tell  how  soon  we  may  find  ourselves  again  in  the  same  jeopardy.  If 
so,  danger  well  known' is  already  half  avoided. 

According  to  American  principles,  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal, 
although,  in  point  of  fact,  a  majority  of  mankind  live  in  slavery.  The 
condition  of  slavery  is  an  abuse.  By  our  Constitution,  perfect  freedom 
is  a  natural,  essential,  and  unalienable  right.  The  body  politic  is  formed 
by  a  voluntary  association  of  individuals,  covenanting  together  for  their 
common  good.  The  just  powers  of  government  are  derived  wholly  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed,  all  power  residing  originally  in  the  people, 
and  all  magistrates  being  merely  their  accountable  agents.  The  end  of 
the  institution,  maintenance,  and  administration  of  government,  is  to 
secure  the  existence  of  the  body  politic,  to  protect  it,  and  to  furnish  the 
individuals  who  compose  it  with  the  power  of  enjoying,  in  safety  and. 
tranquillity,  their  natural  rights  and  the  blessings  of  life.  It  is  not  for  the 
profit,  honor,  or  private  interest  of  any  one  man,  family,  or  class  of  men. 

The  source  of  all  the  legitimate  power  that  a  government  can  possess 
is  the  general  will.  The  only  legitimate  object  of  government  is  the 
general  welfare.  The  only  legitimate  means  it  can  employ  for  this  object 
are  the  preservation  of  social  order,  and  the  protection  of  each  individual 
in  the  enjoyment  of  his  life,  liberty,  and  property,  according  to  standing 
laws  operating  equally  upon  all  the  citizens.  Such  is  the  theory  of  the 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  the  theory  of  a  democratic  govern- 
ment, of  a  sovereign  people  governing  themselves.  Its  source,  the  public- 
will  :  its  aim,  the  public  good :  its  means,  the  public  order.     Such  also. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  561 

thougli  much  more  strictly  limited,  is  tlie  Constitution  of  the  federal 
Union.  But  the  constitution  of  human  nature  is  the  same  under  Ameri- 
can, as  under  European  or  Asiatic  governments. 

In  the  nature  of  mankind  there  exist  the  elemicnts  of  three  different 
parties,  which  under  every  democratic  government  must  be  expected  to 
display  themselves,  in  very  different  aspects,  according  to  circumstances, 
their  real  character  being  often  so  ingeniously  disguised,  at  least  as  to  two 
of  them,  that  without  a  large  share  of  penetration  and  sagacity,  a  disin- 
terested looker-on  would  not  at  first  detect  it.  These  three  parties  con- 
sist respectively  of  those  who  desire  that  the  government  should  tend 
towards  an  aristocracy,  of  tliose  w'ho  desire  that  it  should  continue  to  be 
purely  democratical,  and  of  those  who  desire  that  it  should  tend  towards 
anarchy.  They  may  be  severally  denominated  aristocrats,  democrats, 
anarchists. 

In  eyevy  community  there  will  be  men  of  talents,  wealth,  and  energy, 
who,  when  they  devote  their  whole  povv-ers  to  the  public  good,  will  be 
numbered  among  the  most  excellent  and  esteemed  citizens  ;  and  will 
enjoy,  precisely  in  the  proportion  that  they  deserve  it,  the  confidence  of 
the  people.  But  if  these  men  are  not  under  the  restraint  of  moral  prin- 
ciples, if  they  feel  no  sense  of  public  duty,  but  give  themselves  up  to  the 
impulses  of  selfishness,  being  capable  of  forming  and  pursuing  systematic 
plans  of  personal  aggrandizement,  under  the  guidance  of  their  inordinate 
ambition,  they  will  strive  to  press  into  their  service  all  the  machinery  of 
government,  and  to  make  that  machinery  as  effective  as  possible  for  their 
purposes.  These  men  would  monopolize  power,  and  share  the  benefits  to 
be  reaped  from  the  monopoly,  exclusively  among  their  own  order.  As 
all  governments  anciently  favored  accumulations  both  of  property  and 
power,  they  hold  fast  both  to  ancient  laws  and  usages,  and  fight  manfully 
against  the  equalizing  and  liberalizing  spirit  of  the  age.  They  delight 
to  call  themselves  conservatives,  but  are  in  truth  retrogrades,  for  they 
vainly  attempt  to  carry  back  society  to  maxims  and  a  regime  which  have 
had  their  day,  and  are  gone  forever. 

The  popular  party  includes  both  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  unlearned, 
those  endowed  with  genius,  and  those  unblessed  by  nature  ;  but  its 
greatest  strength  resides  in  what  is  often  called  the  middling  interest, 
and  especially  in  the  substantial  yeomanry  of  the  country,  for  they  have 
seldom  any  interest  adverse  to  the  common  good  of  all.  Democracy  is 
the  party  of  equal  rights,  equal  laws,  equal  privileges,  universal  protec- 
tion. Its  foundation  rests  upon  eternal  principles  of  equity  and  justice. 
Its  creed  is  in  the  ordination  of  Providence,  the  constitution  of  nature, 
and  the  wisdom  of  revelation.    It  has  their  common  sanction,  and,  there- 


562  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

fore,  is  not  troubled  witli  doubts  or  misgivings.  Its  policy  is  honesty, 
and  its  counsellors  are  common  sense  and  an  enlightened  conscience.  It 
has  no  partialities.  It  neither  plunders  the  rich,  nor  oppresses  the  poor. 
It  does  not  reserve  its  smiles  for  the  fortunate,  nor  its  frowns  for  the  un- 
happy ;  nor  does  it  look  with  envy  on  success  or  merit,  or  pass  by  with 
cold  indifference  the  helpless  and  abject ;  but  its  sympathies  are  for  all, 
wide  as  the  world,  and  liberal  as  the  sun.  It  rather  reveres  those  sacred 
axioms  of  immutable  right  which  our  fathers  embodied  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  and  in  the  articles  prefixed  to  our  Constitution, 
and  which  form  the  best  inheritance  they  have  left  us,  than  blindly 
follow  them  in  any  errors  of  their  conduct  wherein  they  forgot  or  vio- 
lated those  axioms.  It  admires  and  participates  largely  in  those  bold 
efforts  for  improvement  which  characterize  our  times,  but  it  is  not  blown 
about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine.  It  neither  worships  a  venerable  abuse 
because  it  is  old,  nor  is  carried  away  with  every  wild  project  of  innova- 
tion because  it  is  new.  But  it  moves  steadily  on  in  its  beneficent  course 
of  prudent,  judicious,  well-considered  reform. 

The  anarchists  among  us  are  so  few  in  number,  that  they  hardly  exist 
as  a  political  party,  yet  that  there  are  individuals  who  hate  the  law  which 
protects  the  honest  man,  a  very  slight  inspection  of  our  jails  and  prisons 
will  suffice  to  convince  us.  There  are  men  of  irregular  and  ungovernable 
passions,  desperate  and  depraved,  who  would  pull  down  all  above  them 
to  their  own  miserable  level;  but  we  look  upon  them  with  wonder,  and 
regard  them  rather  as  monsters  than  as  men.  One  of  the  first  objects 
of  good  government  is  to  control  them ;  of  course  the  more  faithfully  the 
government  performs  this  duty  the  more  violent  will  be  their  animosity 
against  it.  Having  interests  adverse  to  the  common  interests  of  society, 
and  only  hoping  to  rise  upon  the  downfall  of  the  good,  they  are  naturally 
destructives,  —  the  architects  of  ruin. 

In  those  countries  where  ignorance  prevails  among  the  masses,  the 
aristocracy  will  govern,  and  the  many  will  pay  tribute  to  the  few.  Such 
has  been  the  situation  of  almost  the  whole  world,  through  its  whole  his- 
tory, with  one  prominent  exception  in  America,  in  the  last  half  century. 

In  those  countries  where  universal  corruption  and  vice  have  penetrated 
every  class  of  society,  until  the  body  politic  is  fully  rife  for  destruction, 
the  anarchists  may  for  a  moment  seize  upon  the  powers  of  government, 
and  endeavor  to  wield  them  for  their  own  neffirious  purposes.  But  such 
a  condition  is  convulsive  and  unnatural,  and  there  is  no  instance  in  history 
where  it  has  continued  beyond  a  very  short  period. 

In  those  countries  where  the  great  majority  of  the  people  are  en- 
lightened and  virtuous,  inequalities  both  of  property  and  power  will  be 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  563 

comparatively  trifling.  There,  and  there  only,  can  the  experiment  of 
self-government  be  successful,  because  there  the  democratic  party  will 
vastly  outnumber  all  other  parties  put  together. 

The  aristocrats  believe,  that  "  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  found  govern- 
ment on  property,"  for  the  good  of  the  few.  The  democrats  believe,  that 
it  is  both  wise  and  just  to  found  government  on  the  intelligence  and 
virtue  of  the  whole  population,  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber. The  anarchists,  setting  aside  wisdom  and  justice,  would  overturn 
the  foundations  of  government,  to  rid  themselves  of  the  wholesome 
restraints  which  it  imposes  upon  their  dishonest  propensities  and  wicked 
passions. 

The  aristocrats  go  for  their  order :  the  democrats,  for  the  people  :  the 
anarchists,  each  one  for  himself 

The  aristocrats  would  erect  a  fabric  like  a  feudal  castle,  with  a  few 
capacious  and  splendid  apartments,  but  with  no  provision  for  the  comfort 
of  the  family  at  large.  The  democrats  would  repair  and  enlarge  the 
building  so  as  to  accommodate,  in  the  best  possible  manner,  all  the  in- 
mates. The  anarchists  would  tear  down  the  house,  for  the  sake  of  what 
they  might  purloin  while  wandering  amid  the  ruins. 

The  aristocrats,  or  self-styled  conservatives,  are  consolidationists.  The 
democrats,  or  reformers,  are  constitutionalists.  The  anarchists,  or  de- 
structives, are  practical  and  thorough  going  nullifiers. 

Of  these  last  I  am  loth  to  speak.  I  would  not  willingly  believe  tliat 
there  can  be  such  a  party  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  :  but  the  events  of 
the  last  eight  years  show  too  clearly  that  we  have  among  us  determined 
and  inveterate  enemies  of  our  laws,  of  our  Constitution,  and  of  our  glori- 
ous Union.  As  every  man  who  has  an  estate,  or  a  good  character,  or  a 
profitable  employment,  or  a  family,  or  a  friend,  or  a  hope  ever  to  possess 
any  of  these,  or  a  spark  of  true  patriotism,  or  a  sentiment  of  hum.anity,  has 
a  stake,  and  must  feel  an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  our  established 
institutions ;  the  absolute  destructives  must  be  so  few  in  number,  and  so 
weak  in  all  the  elements  of  moral  influence,  that  we  need  not  waste  a 
word  or  a  thought  upon  them,  unless  they  were  adopted  into  the  ranks 
and  employed  under  the  direction  of  those  who  profess  to  be  conserva- 
tives, bold  bad  men,  with  ambition  gnawing  at  the  heart  like  the  worm 
that  never  dies,  and  who  marshal  the  heterogeneous  forces  of  opposition 
with  the  feeling  of  "  the  first  whig,"*  better  to  reign  in  hell,  than  serve 
in  heaven. 

Is  it  conceivable,  said  Fisher  Ames,  that  the  owners  of  the  commercial 


*  Whiggism  is  the  negation  of  all  principle.     The  devil  was  the  first  whig .  — Dr. 
Johnson. 


564  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

and  moneyed  wealth  of  the  nation,  will  plot  a  revolution  that  would  make 
them  beggars,  as  well  as  traitors,  if  it  should  miscarry  ?  In  these  convul- 
sions of  the  State,  property  shifts  hands.  As  well  might  they  suspect 
the  merchants  of  a  plot  to  choke  up  the  entrance  of  our  hai'bors,  by  sink- 
ing hulks,  or  that  the  directors  of  the  several  banks  had  confederated  to 
blow  up  the  money  vaults  with  gunpowder. 

Mr.  Ames  gives  his  friends  more  credit  for  wisdom  than  they  deserve. 
Have  we  not  seen  a  leader  of  our  aristocracy  proclaiming  that  we  were 
in  the  midst  of  a  revolution,  and  another  justifying  the  profanation  of 
the  Sabbath  by  the  doctrine  that  there  are  no  Sabbaths  in  revolutionary 
times  ?  Have  we  not  seen  those  who  owe  their  political  existence  to  the 
Union,  calculating  the  value  of  the  Union  ;  those  who  live  by  credit, 
making  war  on  credit  by  getting  up  a  panic  ;  those  who.-e  commci^ce  our 
navy  protects,  offering  the  grossest  insult  to  our  navy  ;  manufacturers,  who 
believe  that  the  slightest  reduction  of  the  protective  duties  would  be  "  the 
death  warrant  of  the  manufacturing  establishments  of  New  England,"  on 
the  brink  of  treason,  because  the  protective  duties  are  not  reduced,  by 
collecting  them  in  bad  paper  ;  members  of  congress,  who  voted  for  laws 
which  control  the  executive,  threatening  instant  rebellion  if  the  executive 
obeys  those  laws?     There  is  no  infatuation  too  absurd  for  faction. 

Disappointed  aristocrats  have  always  been  the  princi|)al  fomenters  of 
treason.  Lucius  Catiline  was  one  of  the  highest  aristocracy.  He  was 
by  nature  greedy  and  prodigal,  covetous  of  what  belonged  to  others, 
lavish  of  his  own.  Of  course  his  pecuniary  situation  was  desperate. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  national  senate,  and  had  be(jn  defeated  in  his 
intention  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  chief  magistrate,  but  at  the 
time  of  the  conspiracy  he  was  determined  to  be  nominated  again,  though 
he  had  got  into  a  small  minority  in  the  senate.  lie  harangued  his  ac- 
complices, and  "when  he  perceived  all  their  spirits  elevated,  he  pressed 
them  to  take  care  of  his  interest  at  the  next  election."  He  collected 
about  him  eleven  other  senators,  all  the  speculators,  and  those  who  had 
pushed  the  credit  system  too  far,  the  young  men  of  quality,  and  anarchists 
void  of  every  honest  hope.  Crassus,  the  Biddle  of  the  day,  was  believed 
to  be  privy  to  the  design,  because  he  hated  the  old  hero  who  then  de- 
fended the  constitution,  and  besides,  he  hoped  if  the  conspiracy  succeeded, 
with  the  immense  funds  under  his  control  to  govern  the  cons[)irators. 
Catiline  pretended  that  he  had  undertaken  the  cause  of  the  opi)ressed, 
and  his  followers  maintained  that  he  was  a  defender  of  the  constitution. 

The  Catilines  of  all  ages  are  alike.  The  Duke  of  Orleans  employed 
Dan  ton,  just  as  our  aristocrats  would  have  emi)loyed  our  anarchists, 
hoping  to  cheer  them  on  and  call  them  off  as  easily  as  a  hunter  does  his 
hounds. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  565 

A  coalition  of  the  partizans  of  arbitrary  government  and  of  the  enemies 
of  social  order  is  not  unnatural.  Extremes  often  meet,  and  in  the  present 
case,  they  are  drawn  together  by  a  common  interest,  to  aggrandize  and 
enrich  themselves  from  the  plunder  of  the  masses.  This  is  not  only  the 
plan,  but  the  practice,  and  to  a  very  considerable  degree  the  successful 
practice,  of  both  members  of  the  existing  coalition.  Those  who  aim  to 
introduce  a  stfong  government,  desire  to  make  use  of  its  powers,  as  the 
aristocracy  of  all  old  nations  have  done,  to  direct  to  their  own  reservoirs 
those  innumerable,  minute  streams  of  wealth,  which,  under  the  equaliz- 
ing influence  of  freedom,  diffuse  a  general  fertility  over  the  whole  surface 
of  society.  Those  who  would  pull  down  all  established  institutions,  and 
violate  the  right  of  property,  can  be  only  actuated  by  the  hope  of  a2)pro- 
priating  to  themselves  fragments  of  the  wreck  more  valuable  to  them 
than  their  present  interest  in  the  fabric.  Though  these  ulterior  designs 
may  never  be  realized,  and  in  their  full  extent  never  can  be  without  a 
revolution  more  terrible  than  any  yet  recorded  in  history,  still  it  will  be 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  understand  precisely  how  far  the  coalition  have 
advanced  towards  the  end  they  have  in  view.  The  perilous  progress 
towards  consolidation  was  indeed  appalling,  and  the  firmest  friends  of 
their  country  had  begun  to  apprehend  that  it  was  irresistible,  when  it 
encountered  an  obstacle  which  neither  force  nor  craft  could  remove,  nor 
seduction,  intrigue,  or  intimidation  overcome.  The  old  Roman  vigor, 
incorruptible  integrity,  and  austere  probity  of  Andrew  Jackson,  sternly 
rejecting  the  immense  accession  of  executive  influence  and  patronage 
which  an  infatuated  opposition  never  ceased  for  a  moment  to  urge  upon 
him,  turned  back  the  current  of  federal  encroachment,  and  restored,  be- 
fore it  was  too  late,  the  violated  Constitution  to  its  original  purity.  Dur- 
ing his  career  as  chief  magistrate,  the  world  beheld  for  the  first  time  tho 
astonishing  spectacle,  which,  unless  human  nature  be  wholly  regenerated, 
it  will  seldom  witness  again,  of  an  administration,  which  voluntarily,  and 
in  defiance  of  the  bitterest  opposition,  in  defiance  of  reproaches,  threats^ 
and  maledictions,  diminished  its  own  revenue  ;  lightened,  by  refusing  in- 
come offered  and  almost  forced  into  its  hands,  the  burdens  of  the  people ; 
cut  off  and  cast  from  it  the  strongest  means  of  influence  ;  lessened  the 
number  of  its  powers  ;  narrowed  the  limits  of  its  action ;  and  not  only 
restrained  itself  from  curruption  and  abuses,  to  which  its  enemies  invited 
it,  but  removed,  to  the  utmost  of  its  capacity,  the  possibility  of  abuses 
and  corruption  hereafter.  The  overthrow  and  ruin  of  that  administra- 
tion were  confidently  predicted  if  it  should  dare  persist  to  follow  the  self- 
denying  path  of  duty.  Truly  formidable  was  the  combination  of  learning, 
and  talent,  and  wealth,  and  weight  of  authority  enlisted  against  it :  fearful 
was  the  conflict,  and  doubtful  for  awhile  seemed  the  issue.    But  the  hero 

48 


5m  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AKD  WRITINGS 

who  filled  the  post  of  danger  had  adopted  the  maxim  of  Metellus,  whom, 
in  unbending  fortitude  and  unblemished  virtue,  he  most  resembled.  "  If 
it  were  always  safe  to  do  right,  who  would  ever  do  wrong  ?  It  is  the 
part  of  good  men  to  do  that  which  is  right,  even  when  least  for  their 
safety."  He  was  ready,  therefore,  to  take  the  responsibility  of  fulfilling 
the  oath  he  had  sworn,  of  maintaining  the  Constitution  of  his  country, 
and  of  seeing  that  her  laws  should  be  faitlifully  executed.  Andrew  Jack- 
son had  made  an  experiment  some  years  before  at  New  Orleans.  He 
had  tried,  and  knew  the  eiFect  of  a  well  directed  energy  in  scattering  the 
solid  columns  of  British  veterans,  oiFicered  by  choice  scions  of  British 
nobility.  lie  was  not,  therefore,  to  be  driven  from  his  purpose,  by  the 
most  determined  onset  of  whatever  array  of  British  principles,  British 
precedents,  and  British  interests,  the  whole  British  party  in  these  United 
States  could  marshal  against  him.  lie  proceeded  steadily  in  the  work 
of  reform.  God  speed  the  right,  was  the  fervent  prayer  of  every  true- 
hearted  patriot,  every  honest  statesman,  every  wise  philanthropist  in  the 
world.  That  prayer  was  accepted.  The  enemies  of  our  liberty  rushed 
upon  liim  in  mad  fury,  to  hurl  him  from  his  station.  Like  the  unclouded 
summit  of  a  lofty  mountain,  against  whose  base  the  storms  spend  their 
vain  rage,  he  stood  unshaken,  above  the  whirlwind  of  passions  that 
threatened  the  overthrow  of  our  social  institutions.  Where  now^  are  his 
assailants  ?  Shall  I  say,  a  Waterloo  defeat  awaited  them  ?  Our  language 
furnishes  an  expression  somewhat  more  emphatical.  A  New  Orleans 
defeat  annihilated  them.  Nullification  is  nullified.  The  British  bank  is 
bankrupt.  The  British  system  of  restriction  is  abandoned.  Unconstitu- 
tional taxation  is  disavowed.  Massachusetts  cannot  be  assessed  to  tunnel 
the  Alleghanies.  The  traitors  who  deserted  the  cause  of  their  country 
in  the  hour  of  her  peril  have  sunk  into  congenial  oblivion.  The  tenant 
of  the  throne  of  Napoleon  has  redressed  the  wrongs  of  his  predecessor. 
The  last  remnant  of  the  system  of  consolidation  has  disappeared,  and 
neither  from  discontent  and  division  at  home,  nor  through  aggression  from 
abroad,  can  any  opportunity  now  be  anticipated  to  restore  its  hated  sway. 
The  consolidationists  are  completely  consolidated,  "  if  to  crush  be  to  con- 
solidate." The  nullifiers  have  folded  up  that  tattered  banner  which  bore 
for  its  motto  that  "  miserable  interrogatory,  —  What  is  all  this  wortli  ?  " 
and  the  northern  and  the  southern  whigs,  alike  discomfited,  despair  of 
seizing  the  government  and  wielding  it  for  their  own  purposes  ;  or  of 
overthrowing  it,  by  an  organized  rebellion,  to  rule  over  the  ruins. 

But  though  both  members  of  this  unholy  alliance  must  have  surren- 
dered long  ago  their  hopes  of  carrying  their  plans  directly  and  openly 
into  effect,  yet  by  the  control  of  the  moneyed  power  of  the  country 
they  have  reaped  and  are  still  reaping  much  of  the  advantage  they  might 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  567 

have  expected  from  a  victory  over  the  goverDment.  Though  in  a  minor- 
ity, they  were  strong  enough  to  prevent  the  reduction  of  the  revenue 
to  the  wants  of  the  government ;  though  the  reductions  whicli  have  been 
made  with  the  concurrence  of  the  administration,  and  which  it  wished  to 
carry  further,  removed  from  the  shoulders  of  the  people  taxes  to  the 
amount  of  at  least  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  since  the 
year  1830.  The  whigs  contrived  to  prevent  a  sufficient  reduction,  in 
order  to  accumulate  in  the  treasury  enough  of  the  people's  money  to 
constitute  splendid  bribes  to  the  States ;  in  hopes,  by  the  offer  of  so 
much  plunder,  to  purchase  votes  at  the  elections  of  1836.  Having 
brought  about  by  tlieir  manoeuvres  the  deposit  act,  a  measure  of  whicli 
they  boast  as  their  own  work,  they  have  been  sadly  disappointed  in 
pocketing  the  spoils ;  thanks  to  the  democratic  spirit  which  prevails 
among  the  yeomanry  of  the  land,  even  here  in  whig  Massachusetts. 
When  the  farmer  puts  his  "  huge  paw  upon  the  statute  book,"  it  is  to  do 
equal  justice  to  all,  not  to  parcel  out  riches  to  favorites.  But  though 
the  public  treasure  did  not  reach  the  destination  intended  for  it  by  the 
projectors  of  the  distribution,  it  fully  answered  their  expectations  in 
another  point  of  view  :  it  deranged  incurably  the  circulation  and  busi- 
ness of  the  country.  In  August,  1833,  the  public  deposits  in  the  United 
States  Bank  amounted  to  about  seven  millions  and  six  hundred  thousand 
dollars  ;  in  December,  of  the  same  year,  they  were  diminished  to  about 
five  millions  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.*  During  part  of  the  inter- 
mediate time  the  amount  was  increasing  instead  of  diminishing.  What 
was  withheld  was  deposited  in  other  banks,  in  the  same  cities,  where  it 
was  loaned  on  quite  as  liberal  terms,  to  say  the  least.  Yet  every  whig 
statesman  in  the  country  is  pledged  to  the  opinion  that  this  removal  of 
less  than  two  and  a  half  millions,  in  more  than  four  months,  by  an  opera- 
tion carefully  conducted,  from  one  side  of  the  street  to  the  other,  was 
sufficient  to  convulse  the  whole  commerce  of  the  nation,  to  bankrupt  tens 
of  thousands  and  to  overwhelm  in  one  common  ruin  the  industry  and 
enterprise  of  these  United  States.  It  will  be  recollected  that  it  was  in 
August  that  the  great  bank  began  to  contract,  and  in  December  that 
those  terrible  panic  orations  were  fulminated  from  the  capitol,  to  spread 
desolation  through  the  land,  as  if  panic  could  break  down  credit,  and  if 
the  annihilation  of  credit  could  be  as  disastrous  as  they  proclaimed  the 
gentle  touch  it  had  received  had  been  already.  If  those  gentlemen  be- 
lieved their  repeated  declarations,  and  if  they  were  not  idiots,  they  must 

^  Public  moneys  in  the  Bank  of  tlic  United  States  in  the  latter  half  of  the  year 
1833. 

July,    66,511,503.32  Sept.     9,182,173.18  Nov.     8,420,305.09 

Aug.      7,599,931.47  Oct.      9,868,435.58  Dec.     5,102,200.02 


o68  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

liave  intended,  when  they  voted  for  the  distribution  bill,  to  produce 
calamities  tenfold  greater  than  those  they  attributed  to  the  removal  of 
the  deposits.  The  distribution  bill  removed  eighteen  millions  of  dollars 
from  the  United  States  treasury,  in  about  three  months,  —  not  a  half 
million  in  a  month,  and  gradually,  across  the  street,  but  nine  millions  in 
little  more  than  one  month,  and  nine  millions  more  at  once,  on  the  1st 
day  of  April,  much  of  it  to  be  carried  thousands  of  miles  from  the 
poiiTts  at  which  the  necessities  of  business  had  collected  and  required  it. 
Nine  millions  more  have  just  been  called  for  on  the  1st  instant,  and  the 
«ame  sum  is  to  be  again  abstracted  from  the  channels  of  business  on  the 
1st  of  October  next.  If  there  was  a  man  in  congress  who  believed  the 
tithe  of  the  panic  doctrines  promulgated  there  three  years  and  a  half 
ago,  he  must  have  anticipated  with  perfect  certainty  that  this  violent 
operation  would  effect  the  last  great  whig  exploit,  the  suspension  of 
specie  payments.  Those  who  denounced  the  removal  of  the  deposits  as 
fraught  with  ruin,  and  yet  afterwards  advocated  the  policy  of  distribu- 
tion, should  inform  us  whether  they  wish  to  be  regarded  as  hypocritical 
in  their  professions  in  the  first  instance,  or,  in  the  latter  case  dishonest 
in  their  conduct. 

The  suspension  of  specie  payments  having  been  naturally  brought 
about  by  the  paper  money  party,  by  their  unprecedented  over-banking 
and  consequent  speculation,  having  been  precipitated  by  their  favorite 
measure  the  distribution,  having  bsen  recommended  by  them  long  be- 
fore it  happened,  justified  by  them  ever  since,  and  profitable  to  them 
w4iile  it  lasts,  is  the  appropriate  consummation  of  the  whig  policy  upon 
the  subject  of  the  currency.  By  a  currency  of  irredeemable  paper  the 
many  are  made  to  pay  tribute  to  the  few.  The  aristocracy,  who  in  all 
countries  desire  to  enrich  themselves  out  of  the  taxes  of  the  people, 
make  it  an  engine  of  taxation.  Anarchists,  whose  aim  is  plunder, 
through  its  instrumentality  enjoy  a  rich  harvest. 

Our  monopoly,  paper  money,  banking  system,  in  its  best  estate,  when 
free  from  derangement,  and  enjoying  undoubted  credit,  imposes  heavy 
taxes  on  the  people.  The  expenses  of  carrying  on  the  whole  com- 
plicated machinery  fall  ultimately  upon  the  consumer  of  the  goods  which 
are  bought  and  sold  by  the  borrowers  from  the  banks.  As  the  con- 
sumer in  the  country  has  to  pay  interest  on  the  capital  invested  in  these 
goods  for  a  much  longer  time  than  the  consumer  in  the  city,  as  the  poor 
man,  buying  in  smaller  quantities,  pays  a  much  larger  advance  on  the 
first  cost,  and  consequently  on  the  interest  which  makes  a  part  of  the 
cost,  than  the  rich  man  who  buys  in  larger  quantities,  this  tax,  as  well 
as  all  other  taxes  levied  on  consumption,  falls  more  nearly  an  equal  im- 
position of  so  much  a  head  on  the  whole  population,  than  in  any  other 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  5(39 

proportion.  The  rent  of  land  and  buildings,  loss,  and  repairs  upon  them, 
cost  of  bills,  salaries  of  the  various  officers,  presidents,  cashiers,  tellers, 
clerks,  and  messengers,  fees  of  notaries  on  protested  notes,  fees  of  attor- 
neys on  suits  brought,  all  these  are  paid,  with  interest  on  them  all,  by 
the  consumer.  These  charges  in  the  aggregate  must  considerably  ex- 
ceed one  per  cent,  on  the  capital  employed.  The  capital  stock  of  the 
banks  in  Massachusetts  is  about  forty  millions.  For  -the  expenses  of 
these  banks  then,  we  the  people,  pay  of  our  earnings  more  than  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum. 

The  bank  tax  to  the  State  treasury  is  drawn  from  the  same  source, 
and  robs  us  every  year  of  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  more.  I  shall 
be  answered  that  it  defrays  the  expenses  of  the  State  ;  what  then  ?  Is 
it  just  to  defray  those  expenses  by  a  capitation  tax  ?  Ought  they  not  to 
be  borne  in  the  ratio  of  property  ?  But  the  bank  tax,  just  or  unjust, 
even  if  it  cost  the  people  nothing,  has  been  a  curse  to  this  Common- 
w^ealth  rather  than  a  blessing.  It  has  introduced  corruption  into  the 
State  government,  augmenting  its  expenses  more  than  the  whole  amount 
received  from  the  banks.  In  1824,  a  committee  of  both  houses  of  our 
legislature  reported  that  the  expenses  of  the  State  were  enormously 
great,  and  ought  to  be  diminished.  Ever  since  that  time  tliey  have  been 
rapidly  increasing.  In  1825,  they  amounted  to  less  than  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  last  year  they  exceeded  six  hundred  thousand !  This 
w^e  owe  to  the  bank  tax,  and  to  that  tax  v/e  owe  the  present  unparalleled 
extension  of  our  banking  system ;  the  one  per  cent,  to  be  annually  paid 
to  the  State  operating  as  a  bribe  whenever  new  charters  are  asked  for. 

The  bank  receives  interest  not  only  on  its  capital,  but  also  on  that 
portion  of  the  debts  it  owes  which  is  represented  by  its  circulation.  The 
people  are  thus  compelled  to  pay  interest  first  on  what  they  owe  the 
banks,  and  second  on  what  the  banks  owe  them.  For  the  use  of  their 
capital,  it  is  right  that  they  should  receive  a  fair  compensation,  but  the 
power  of  putting  their  own  debts  in  circulation  and  receiving  interest  on 
them  as  long  as  they  remain  unpaid  is  an  exclusive  privilege  of  the 
banks,  and  a  tax  is  thereby  levied  from  the  people.  The  whole  circula- 
tion of  the  banks  by  the  State  returns  last  September  was  about  eleven 
millions.  The  interest  accruing  on  this  on  banking  principles  exceeds 
seven  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

The  monopoly  which  the  banks  enjoy  raises  the  rate  of  interest  to 
those  who  wish  to  effect  loans  without  recourse  to  banks,  and  enables  the 
favorites  of  those  institutions  to  take  advantage  of  the  state  of  the  markets, 
which  others,  not  so  favored,  cannot  do.  This  monopoly  is  undoubtedly 
worth  to  the  bankers  and  their  favorites  much  more  than  double  the  profit 
they  derive  from  their  circulation.     Of  late  years  it  is  the  principal  ob- 

48* 


570  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

ject  in  establishing  new  banks.     It  taxes  the  people  more  than  fourteen 
liundred  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

By  the  eombined  operation  of  the  banking  system  and  the  usury  laws, 
it  has  beeome  very  difficult  for  any  one  not  belonging  to  the  party  of  the 
bankers  to  obtain  money  on  loan  except  through  the  intervention  of 
brokers.  The  profits  paid  to  brokers  for  changing  notes  for  money,  dis- 
count on  uncurrent  notes,  commission  for  negotiating  loans,  and  the 
higher  rate  of  interest  on  money  borrowed  by  them  at  or  below  the  legal 
rate,  and  let  again  for  extra  interest,  all  these  constitute  another  tax 
which  the  banking  system  levies  on  us.  Whoever  considers  for  how 
small  a  part  of  the  money  let  in  this  State  the  actual  owner  receives 
more  than  legal  interest,  while  two  and  even  three  per  cent,  a  month 
have  been  paid  on  large  sums  for  a  great  part  of  last  year,  will  not  be 
disposed  to  doubt,  especially  if  he  recollects  that  the  revulsion  in  the 
money  market  returns  regularly  every  three  or  four  years,  that  this  tax 
far  exceeds  three  times  the  profit  of  the  circulation.  It  is,  therefore, 
more  than  two  millions  and  one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

Bills  lost  or  accidentally  destroyed  are  also  a  tax  on  the  public. 
When  a  government  calls  in  the  metallic  currency  to  be  recoined  and  re- 
issued, the  depreciation  by  friction  and  clipping  is  a  loss  to  the  govern- 
ment. But  when  a  bank  calls  in  its  notes,  the  v/hole  amount  of  bills 
lost,  or  destroyed  by  wear  and  tear,  or  accident,  is  so  much  clear  gain  to 
the  bank ;  and  not  only  so,  but  on  double  the  amount  of  every  bill  lost 
the  bank  receives  compound  interest  from  the  day  of  its  loss  down  to 
the  close  of  its  own  existence.  Thus  for  all  its  bills  lost  in  the  year 
1817,  the  United  States  Bank  has  received  eight  times  their  value. 
How  much  the  banks  abstract  from  the  public  in  this  way  cannot  be 
known  until  the  expiration  of  their  charters.  The  sum  is  no  doubt 
large  ;  but  in  the  absence  of  fixed  data,  I  will  make  no  attempt  to 
estimate  it. 

So  also  counterfeit  notes  are  a  tax  on  the  people,  though  not  to  the 
profit  of  the  banks,  yet  a  part  of  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  the  bank- 
ing system,  a  loss  falling  almost  exclusively  on  persons  of  small  property. 
They  are  not  as  a  class  so  good  judges  of  bills,  and  counterfeiting  is 
mostly  confined  to  small  bills.  There  are  about  two  hundred  known 
editions  of  counterfeit  bills  of  the  United  States  Bank,  and  about  nine 
hundred  editions  of  those  of  the  local  banks.  How  many  of  each  edi- 
tion ever  passed  into  circulation  we  have  no  means  of  determining,  but 
evidently  many  millions  of  dollars  of  it  have  been  manufactured,  and 
the  loss  which  falls  on  honest  and  unsuspecting  poverty  must  be  con^id- 
■erable.     It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  estimate  it. 

The  loss  by  the  failures  of  banks,  which  always  have,  and  always 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  571 

will  occasionally  happen,  is  also  a  tax  on  the  community.  By  Mr.  Gal- 
latin's tables  330  banks  were  in  operation  in  1830,  and  1G5  had  failed 
before  that  date  !  We  boast  of  the  superior  prudence  with  which  our 
banks  are  managed,  and  of  the  safeguards  which  the  laws  have  established 
for  the  protection  of  the  public.  The  greater  security  of  our  New  England 
banking  system  seems  to  be  as  well  settled  as  that  there  are  fewer  steam- 
boats blown  up  on  Long  Island  Sound  than  on  the  Mississippi  River.  Yet 
the  failure  of  the  Farmer's  Exchange,  Berkshire,  Coos,  Hillsborough, 
Kecne,  Ilallowell  and  Augusta,  Wiscasset,  Castine,  Belchertown,  Sutton, 
JSTahant,  and  Chelsea  banks,  all  in  New  England,  and  not  to  mention  more, 
are  quite  enough  to  demonstrate  that  such  catastrophes  are  by  no  means 
impossible.  It  would  be  difhcult  to  estimate  the  total  loss  they  have 
occasioned. 

These  are  the  burdens  of  legitimate  paper  money  banking,  insepara- 
ble from  the  system  ;  and  before  proceeding  to  enumerate  the  evils  of 
over-banking,  let  us  add  up  these  items  which  no  one  can  deny  must 
always  exist  v/herever  banks,  having  the  exclusive  power  to  issue  paper 
money,  are  to  be  found.  Let  us  look  at  the  aggregate  cost  of  these  in- 
stitutions, and  judge  whether  they  are  worth  it  in  any  good  we  receive 
from  them.  The  account,  so  far,  is  stated  thus :  expense  tax,  four  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  ;  State  tax,  four  hundred  thousand  ;  circulation 
tax,  seven  hundred  thousand ;  monopoly  tax,  one  million  and  four  hun- 
dred thousand  ;  brokerage  tax,  tvro  millions  and  one  hundred  thousand ; 
in  all,  five  millions  of  dollars,  —  besides  lost  bills,  forged  bills,  and  bank 
failures,  not  estimated,  for  which  a  round  sum  might  be  justly  added. 

These  fve  millions  of  dollars  are  mostly  the  product  of  liard  labor, 
and  by  the  legerdemain  of  paper  money  they  are  transferred  to  tlie 
pockets  of  the  note  makers.  Thus  a  tax  is  levied  on  the  inhabitants  of 
this  Commonwealth  of  about  seven  dollars  a  head,  or  from  thirty-five  to 
forty  dolhirs  for  each  family.  What  feudal  nobility  ever  gathered  a 
larger  tribute  from  its  vassals  ? 

There  are  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  ablebodied  men  in  this 
State,  the  average  wages  of  whose  labor  cannot  exceed  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  a  year.  That  rate  would  give  a  total  of  forty-five  mil- 
lions ;  so  that  the  manufacturers  of  paper  money  and  their  associates 
convert  to  their  own  use  one  ninth  part  of  the  wages  of  labor.  This 
they  do  without  rendering  any  equivalent,  for  this  whole  tax  is  exclusive 
of  a  fiiir  interest  on  the  actual  capital  loaned. 

A  large  majority  of  those  who  earn  the  wages  of  labor  are  unable  to 
add  to  them  the  wages  of  skill,  and  very  few  receive  the  still  higher 
wages  of  machinery,  yet  all  bear  the  burden  alike.  Though  persever- 
ing industry  and  rigid  economy  will  enable  a  man  living  solely  by  the 


572  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

labor  of  Lis  hands  to  accumulate  something,  even  under  such  disadvan- 
tages, yet  slow  and  hard  must  be  the  process,  and  it  is  evident  that 
many  can  never  extricate  themselves  from  a  hopeless  poverty  who 
might  rise,  were  this  weight  removed  ;  and  that  many  who  now  attain 
a  competence  only  when  old  age  is  unfitting  them  to  enjoy  it,  might 
have  found  themselves  in  easy  circumstances  of  pecuniary  indepen- 
dence, in  early  manhood,  if  the  paper  money  tax  had  not  borne  them 
down. 

We  are  yet  upon  the  threshold  of  our  investigation.  We  have  ex- 
amined the  effects  of  our  system  of  banking  in  its  ordinary  and  natural 
operation  merely.  We  have  not  yet  touched  upon  the  effects  of  over- 
banking.  We  have,  it  is  true,  seen  enough  to  give  us  some  faint  con- 
ception of  the  injury  a  j^^iper  currency  inflicts  on  the  community,  but  its 
most  odious  and  alarming  characteristics  remain  to  be  exposed.  We 
will  develop  to  the  view  its  calamities,  its  convulsions,  its  agrarianisra, 
its  paralyzing,  desolating,  withering  influence.  Before  we  have  con- 
cluded our  inquiries  we  shall  be  satisfied  that  there  is  no  other  evil  in 
the  land,  except  intemperance,  that  can  be  compared  for  magnitude  with 
paper  money  ;  there  is  no  other  cause  so  fruitful  of  misery,  pauperism, 
and  crime. 

The  first  effect  of  over-banking  is  wild  speculations,  the  weight  of 
which  falls  as  a  tax  on  the  consumers  of  all  foreign  and  domestic  pro- 
ducts. Banks,  by  issuing  paper,  cheapen  the  currency,  and  of  course 
raise  prices ;  rising  prices  tempt  more  purchasers  into  the  market,  and 
the  competition  of  purchasers  runs  up  the  prices  still  higher.  The  banks 
furnish  funds  to  the  speculators,  and  enable  them  to  hold  on  their  pur- 
chases, in  order  to  profit  by  the  rise.  The  enhanced  prices  take  so 
much  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  consumer,  for  which  he  receives  no 
equivalent. 

In  1 830,  the  bank  capital  of  the  United  States  was  one  hundred  and  forty- 
five  millions  of  dollars  ;  in  183G,  it  had  risen  to  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  millions  ;  it  is  now  probably  about  trehle  its  amount  seven  years 
ago.  The  paper  circulation  in  1830  was  sixty-one  milhons  ;  in  183G,  it 
was  one  hundred  and  forty  millions  ;  the  highest  point  it  reached  was 
probably  about  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  millions.  In  1830,  the  loans 
and  discounts  of  the  banks  amounted  to  about  two  hundred  millions  ;  in 
1836,  they  ^\Q,vQfour  hundred  and  Jlfty-seven  millions  ;  they  have  since 
exceeded  Jive  hundred  and  ninety  millions.  The  bank  capital,  circula- 
tion, and  discounts,  having  more  than  doubled,  and  indeed  nearly  trebled, 
in  less  than  seven  years'  time,  the  immense  and  unparalleled  speculations 
we  have  witnessed,  have  been  the  necessary  result.  Sales  of  public 
lands  rose  from  less  than  two  and  a  half  millions  in  1830,  to  more  than 


OF  ROBEET  EANTOUL,  JR.  573 

twenty-four  millions  in  ]836.  Lands  in  Maine  were  purchased  in  vast 
quantities  at  ten  times  their  former  prices.  House  lots  enough  were 
laid  out  to  accommodate  two  or  three  times  the  present  population  of 
the  nation.  The  land  immediately  about  New  York  and  within  ten 
miles  of  that  city,  which  in  1830  was  valued  at  ten  millions  of  dollars, 
changed  hands  at  prices  which  would  have  made  the  whole  amount  to 
over  one  hundred  millions.  Our  imports  increased  from  seventy  mil- 
lions in  1830,  to  one  hundred  and  ninety  millions  in  183G.  Prices  of 
all  articles  of  consumption  rose,  some  forty,  some  sixty,  and  many  a 
hundred  per  cent.  But  the  wages  of  labor,  fixed  salaries,  and  compen- 
sation for  services  of  all  kinds  are  the  last  to  rise,  and  the  first  to  fall, 
in  a  general  change  of  prices,  nor  do  they  fluctuate  half  so  much  as  ar- 
ticles of  merchandise.  Laboring  men,  therefore,  suffer  most  by  the  rise 
of  prices  which  speculation  occasions.  Those  who  live  on  fixed  salaries, 
or  receive  fixed  fees,  or  enjoy  the  fixed  income  or  interest  of  funds  in- 
vested, suffer  next,  in  the  enormous  tax  levied  by  speculators. 

The  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  laborers  in  the  State  might  earn,  in 
the  best  of  times,  and  if  they  were  all  temperate  and  industrious,  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year  upon  an  average.  Of  this  they  would 
find  it  necessary  to  expend,  including  the  taxes  of  legitimate  paper 
money  banking,  already  estimated,  two  hundred  dollars,  laying  up  fifty 
at  the  end  of  the  year,  for  sickness  or  old  age,  or  future  comfort.  In 
the  aggregate  then,  labor  earns  forty-five  millions,  spends  thirty-six  mil- 
lions, and  lays  up  at  the  end  of  the  year  a  reserved  sum  of  nine  millions. 
In  a  year  of  speculation  like  the  last,  even  if  labor  had  risen  to  three 
hundred  dollars  a  year,  which  it  has  not,  taking  the  whole  mass  together, 
and  if  the  rise  in  consumable  products  had  been  only  fifty  per  cent.,  and 
it  has  been  more,  the  laborer  might  earn  his  three  hundred  dollars ;  but 
in  order  to  live  as  well  as  in  ordinary  times  he  must  also  expend  three 
hundred  dollars,  so  tliat  at  the  end  of  the  year  he  has  nothing  left.  The 
wages  of  tlie  }  ear  will  be  fifty -four  milHons  of  dollars,  and  its  expenditure 
fifty-four  millions  ;  accumulation,  nothing  ;  while  without  the  ])lighting  in- 
fluence of  speculation,  labor  should  have  saved  nine  millions.  The 
losses  of  those  who  live  upon  an  income  not  capable  of  sudden  expan- 
sion, such  as  clergymen,  widows  and  orphans,  and  old  men  retired  from 
business,  agents  and  employees  of  every  sort,  are  at  least  two  thirds  as 
much  more,  or  six  millions.  Those  workmen  who  earn  the  additional 
wages  of  their  skill,  or  of  some  cheap  machinery  which  they  employ, 
generally  invest  their  earnings  either  in  articles  of  immediate  consump- 
tion, or  in  tools,  stock  in  trade,  land,  buildings,  and  repairs  upon  them, 
and  furniture.  On  all  these,  their  loss  by  the  artificial  prices  cannot  be 
less  than  three  millions  of  dollars.     The  total  of  these  three  sums  is 


574  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

eighteen  millions  ;  and  as  under  our  banking  system  we  may  expect  to 
suffer  under  speculation  prices  at  least  one  year  out  of  three,  one  third 
part  of  that  sum  will  be  the  annual  amount  of  the  speculation  tax,  or 
six  million  dollars. 

But  all  this  is  independent  of  the  fortunes  lost  by  those  engaged  in 
trade  and  commerce,  and  the  sacrifice  submitted  to  by  one  of  the  par- 
ties to  every  contract,  by  the  fluctuations  in  the  money  market,  which 
follow  each  other  at  intervals  of  about  three  years,  rising  and  falling 
with  as  much  regularity  as  the  billows  of  th6  ocean,  and  having  always 
a  smaller  series  of  intermediate  waves  between  the  billows.  These 
fluctuations  are  the  natural  result  of  the  banking  system,  and  will  always 
grow  out  of  it.  When  confidence  begins  to  return  after  one  of  our  ter- 
rible convulsions,  prices,  from  the  mere  fact  that  they  had  fallen  too 
low,  begin  to  rise.  This  gives  business  an  impulse,  and  disposes  dealers 
to  borrow  money  and  make  purchases.  There  is  a  competition  between 
those  who  wish  to  supply  themselves,  as  they  are  all  anxious  to  lay  in 
their  stock  of  goods  before  there  is  any  essential  advance.  The  banks 
are  willing  to  loan  freely  for  this  purpose,  because  purchases  at  the  low 
prices  being  perfectly  safe,  they  are  secure  of  repayment.  Each  bank 
can  enlarge  its  discounts  and  loans,  because,  as  all  the  other  banks  are 
doing  the  same,  its  bills  are  not  forced  home  upon  it  for  redemption. 
The  more  money  is  issued,  the  more  purchases  are  made  ;  and  prices 
rise  both  from  depreciation  of  the  currency,  and  from  the  briskness  of 
the  demand.  The  faster  prices  rise,  the  more  pressing  will  be  the  ap- 
plications to  the  banks  for  loans  ;  and  the  banks,  as  their  first  object  is 
to  make  large  dividends,  will  grant  these  applications  as  long  as  confi- 
dence continues.  New  banks  are  created  ;  old  banks  push  to  the  verge 
of  prudence.  More  goods  are  imported,  more  goods  are  manufactured, 
production  of  every  kind  is  over  stimulated. 

There  must,  however,  be  a  pause  in  this  progress.  Either  from  the 
depreciation  of  the  currency,  specie  becomes  of  less  value  here  than 
abroad,  and  is  therefore  exported ;  or  the  market  is  so  glutted  with  pro- 
ducts, that  buyers  are  indifferent  about  taking  them  oiF  the  hands  of 
holders,  in  which  case  a  competition  arises  among  the  sellers  which  runs 
down  prices  ;  or  a  suspicion  springs  up  in  the  minds  of  capitalists,  or  of 
the  bankers  themselves,  and  finally  of  the  whole  community,  that  prices 
artificially  high  are  unsafe,  and  must  fall.  From  whatever  cause  it  hap- 
pens, when  once  confidence  is  shaken,  the  banks,  willing  or  unwilling, 
must  contract.  They  find  themselves  in  a  precarious  situation,  and  to 
fortify  themselves,  they  call  in  their  paper,  and  diminish  their  dis- 
counts. Contraction  once  begun,  must  go  on,  by  a  necessity  as  irresis- 
tible as  the  decree  of  fate,  for  every  bank  sends  home  the  paper  of  every 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  575 

otlier  bank.  By  the  contraction,  money  is  restored  to  its  true  value, 
prices  are  reduced  again,  and  the  improvident,  surprised  with  large 
stocks  on  hand,  are  ruined. 

It  is  in  the  power  of  a  combination  of  banks,  or  of  one  mammoth 
bank,  to  increase  these  periodical  fluctuations,  or  to  create  lesser  inter- 
mediate vibrations,  for  their  own  advantage,  at  pleasure.  In  June,  1819, 
a  leading  press,  Niles's  Register,  complained,  and  justly  too,  that  "We 
have  nov/  indubitable  evidence  tliat  twenty-five  men  at  Philadelphia  can 
make  money  plenty  at  their  own  will  and  discretion  —  an  immense  com- 
mand over  the  nation,  by  fixing  the  value  of  every  acre  of  land,  and  of 
any  other  species  of  property,  from  the  lowest  point  of  Florida,  to  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods."  It  might  with  more  truth  have  been  alleged  four 
years  ago  that  one  man  in  Philadelphia  possessed  this  power,  and  the 
nation  felt  soon  afterwards  that  he  did  not  scruple  to  use  it. 

A  bank  with  a  capital  of  thirty-five  millions  can  make  its  managers 
and  their  favorites  rich,  at  a  single  operation,  by  making  money  alter- 
nately plenty  and  scarce.  Having  first  secured  large  loans  to  its  fiivor- 
ites  as  a  permanent  accommodation  for  twelve  months  or  more,  they 
then  contract  their  discounts  suddenly.  This  compels  all  the  lesser  banks 
to  curtail  their  accommodations  and  collect  their  debts  rapidly.  In 
three  or  four  months  time  thus  sinks  prices  a  fourth  or  even  a 
third.  Then  the  managers  invest  their  funds  to  the  best  advantage, 
and  the  arrangements  being  completed,  the  bank  floods  the  country 
with  its  notes  again,  and  the  lesser  banks,  freed  from  the  pressure  of  bal- 
ances against  them,  follow  its  example ;  and  money  instantly  abounds 
and  property  assumes  higher  values  than  before  its  fall.  The  specula- 
tors sell  at  the  highest  point,  the  bank  itself  furnishing  the  purchasers 
with  funds  if  necessary.  When  the  golden  harvest  is  fully  reaped,  they 
may  make  money  scarce  again,  and  prepare  for  another. 

In  describing  this  process,  Mr.  Niles,  in  1819,  used  this  strong  lan- 
guage :  "  At  the  end  of  the  year,  the  managers  in  the  scheme  realize 
from  fifty  to  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  each,  which  they  may  be  said 
as  completely  to  rob  the  people  of,  as  if,  with  pistol  in  hand,  they  took 
the  money  from  travellers  on  the  highway.  Indeed,  the  last  should  be 
considered  the  most  honorable."  These  expressions  are  not  too  severe  ; 
they  were  wrung  from  sober  men  at  that  time,  by  the  torture  which  the 
United  States  Bank  inflicted,  when  it  first  regulated  the  currency,  much 
as  one  might  regulate  the  packing  of  gunpowder,  by  clapping  a  coal  of 
fire  into  a  cask  of  that  article.  The  bank  no  sooner  touched  the  cur- 
rency than  a  universal  explosion  ensued,  scattering  the  broken  frag- 
ments of  credit  over  the  South  and  West,  and  covering  the  land  with 
the  wreck  of  blasted  hopes,  enterprise  arrested,  commerce  stagnant,  in- 


576  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

dustry  prostrate,  mutual  confidence  annilillated,  and  the  whole  business 
intercourse  of  society  thrown  into  a  chaos  of  irremediable  confusion. 
Mr.  Niles's  phrase  was,  "  the  bank  was  saved,  but  the  country  w^as  ruin- 
ed." Their  agony  under  the  screws  of  the  great  engine,  may  excuse 
the  sufferers  under  the  first  regulation  for  the  intemperate  warmth  of 
such  remarks.  The  victim  broken  on  the  wheel  is  not  expected  to  groan 
with  grace  and  decorum.  It  is  fashionable,  now-a-days,  to  speak  more 
tenderly  and  respectfully  of  this  mode  of  conveying  one  man's  property 
into  another  man's  pocket,  and  no  one  I  think  would  venture  to  compare 
it  with  highway  robbery. 

It  is  neither  to  be  asserted  nor  intimated,  because  it  cannot  be  proved, 
that  the  directors  of  banks,  often  with  a  deliberate  design,  create  a  pressure 
in  order  to  take  advantage  of  it,  as  just  now  described  ;  but  the  effect  on 
the  community,  of  the  fluctuations  produced  by  banks,  is  of  the  same 
nature,  even  in  the  absence,  which  we  believe  is  generally  the  case,  of 
any  injurious  intention  on  the  part  of  the  managers  of  those  institutions. 
In  times  of  scarcity,  the  directors  and  their  friends  are  naturally  accom- 
modated before  strangers.  Those  who  stand  at  the  source  of  the  stream 
drink  first.  With  scarce  money,  they  buy  at  low  prices.  When  prices 
are  rising  and  money  easy,  then  it  is  that  the  banks  discount  freely,  because 
they  then  can  do  it,  not  being  pressed  or  run  upon.  Then  it  is  that  the 
knowing  ones  sell,  because  then  they  can  sell  highest,  and  pay  their 
debts  to  the  banks,  because  just  then  a  loan  is  no  favor.  A  large  bal- 
ance of  profit  remains  in  their  hands,  and  as  •  soon  as  a  falling  market 
and  contracted  issues  have  brought  about  the  proper  moment  to  enter  on 
a  new  speculation,  they  are  ready  to  borrow  and  buy  again. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  favored  borrowers  from  banks  who  tax  the  peo- 
ple through  these  fluctuations,  if  it  were,  that  tax  has  been  reckoned 
already  in  speaking  of  the  advantage  they  gain  from  their  monopoly. 
But  the  whole  amount  of  property  transferred  by  the  fluctuation,  vast 
as  it  is,  is  a  tax  on  the  losers,  which  the  banking  system  has  enabled 
the  gainers  to  levy  on  them.  We  have  not  the  means  of  determining 
definitely  the  amount  under  this  head,  though  we  have  facts  which  will 
assist  in  forming  an  idea  of  its  magnitude. 

In  eighteen  months  previous  to  June  of  last  year  the  discounts  of  the 
banks  had  increased  one  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  dollars.  Of 
course  this  additional  sum  was  invested  in  various  ways  at  the  high 
prices  of  that  period,  and  the  sellers  at  those  prices  pocketed  the  whole 
advance.  Suppose  the  sums  of  which  this  aggregate  is  composed  to  be 
expended  in  transactions  averaging  six  months  from  their  inception  to 
their  completion,  each  sum  would  then  make  two  purchases  in  a  year, 
and  the  additional  discounts  would  represent  purchases  in  one  year  to 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  577 

the  amount  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  millions  more  than  the  legitimate 
business  of  the  country  at  average  prices.  Of  this  whole  sum,  about 
one  third  part  is  not  yet  paid  off,  constituting  the  extra  debts  of  the  people 
beyond  their  immediate  means  of  payment,  and  composed  of  about  fifty 
millions  foreign  debt,  and  seventy  millions  domestic  debt,  besides  all  or- 
dinary indebtedness  in  the  common  course  of  business.  That  these  esti- 
mates are  not  extravagant  might  be  shown  in  many  ways.  In  January, 
1835,  the  bank  note  circulation  was  one  hundred  and  three  millions : 
January,  1836,  it  was  one  hundred  and  forty  millions:  increase  during 
the  year,  to  be  paid  in  extra  prices,  thirty-seven  millions :  increase  dur- 
ing the  next  year,  rather  more.  Now  allowing  every  dollar  to  make 
ten  payments  in  a  year,  which  is  Mr.  Gallatin's  estimate,  but  which 
is  much  too  low,  the  whole  amount  of  extra  prices  paid  in  the  year 
above  the  standard  of  the  circulation  of  the  first  of  January,  would 
be  three  hundred  and  seventy  millions,  about  the  same  sum  as  before. 

Look  at  some  of  the  items.  Cotton,  which  averaged  about  ten  cents 
a  pound  for  eight  years  before  1833,  last  year  averaged  sixteen  or 
seventeen  cents.  Every  cent  advance  on  the  pound  is  a  rise  of  near 
five  millions  of  dollars  on  the  crop.  Cotton  having  risen  at  this  enor- 
mous rate,  speculations  in  cotton  lands  and  in  negroes  were  proportion- 
ally extensive.  The  purchase  of  public  lands,  referred  to  already,  is 
nothing  compared  to  these.  The  negroes  imported  into  Alabama  last 
year,  cost  more  than  ten  millions  of  dollars.  Those  carried  into  the 
Southern  cotton  country  together,  cost  at  least  forty  or  fifty  millions. 
The  growth  of  the  State  of  Mississippi  will  illustrate  this  fact.  In 
1830,  it  had  136,000  inhabitants;  in  1837,  by  the  census  just  taken,  it 
had  302,000,  an  increase  of  121  per  cent,  in  seven  years.  In  the  same 
time  the  slaves  in  that  State  have  increased  from  65,000  to  162,000,  an 
increase  of  146  per  cent,  in  seven  years,  or  25  per  cent,  a  year. 
Cotton  lands  have  been  bought  *as  high  as  forty  dollars  an  acre, 
and  slaves  at  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and  fortunate  will  it  be  for 
creditors  if  the  next  two  crops  prove  sufficient  to  pay  olF  the  balance  of 
debt  remaining. 

If  the  whole  capital  employed  in  the  growth  of  cotton  is  to  be  reckoned 
at  eight  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  at  prices  two  years  ago,  a  rise  of 
25  per  cent,  only  during  the  last  year,  would  amount  to  an  artificial  ad- 
vance of  two  hundred  millions. 

In  New  York  the  sales  of  lands  at  auctions  in  the  city,  during  the  la&t 
two  years,  exceeded  thirty-eight  millions.  The  fall  on  the  price  of  stocks 
mostly  owned  in  that  city,  this  spring,  was  estimated  at  twenty  millions, 
by  the  committee  of  merchants  sent  on  to  Washington,  who  also  esti- 

49 


578  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

mated  that  mercliandise  of  all  sorts  had  fallen  in  that  city  at  least  30 
per  cent.  The  price  of  pork,  tioiir,  bread  stuffs,  had  been  double  what 
it  was  six  years  before. 

From  these  facts  it  is  evident  that  the  losses  by  fluctuation  far  —  very 
far,  exceed  the  sum  that  has  been  named.  Of  this  sum  of  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty  millions,  one  eighteenth  part  at  least,  falls  on  Massachu- 
setts, making  her  share  tAventy  millions.  As  the  fluctuation  is  contin- 
ually going  on,  the  loss  is  annual. 

On  account  of  these  fluctuations,  no  contract  involving  the  payment  of 
money  can  be  equitably  performed.  One  party  or  the  other  is  defraud- 
ed by  the  alteration  in  the  standard  of  value.  Either  the  debt  is  paid 
in  a  cheaper  medium  whereby  the  creditor  is  deprived  of  his  due,  or  in  a 
medium  of  enhanced  value,  to  the  injury  of  the  debtor,  and  often  to  his 
total  ruin. 

But  in  taking  into  account  the  losses  which  grow  out  of  these  revul- 
sions, we  must  not  stop  at  the  mere  rise  and  fall  of  prices.  The  bank- 
ruptcies at  every  revulsion  tax  the  community  heavily ;  the  banks  are 
generally  secured  on  account  of  the  indorsers,  for  if  these  institutions 
bore  their  share  of  the  losses  in  proportion  with  other  creditors,  the  busi- 
ness must  have  been  abandoned  long  ago.  It  is  impossible  to  measure 
this  tax.  In  New  York,  where  overtrading  has  been  pushed  to  a  great 
excess,  the  imports  last  year  amounted  to  $118,885,194,  the  failures 
have  been  more  numerous  than  ever  before  known.  Two  hundred  and 
fifty  large  houses  failed  in  two  months.  In  New  Orleans,  w^iere  the 
banking  mania  had  gone  to  the  wildest  extremity,  the  capital  of  the 
banks  in  that  city  being  $54,554,000,  of  which  the  sum  of  $36,769,455 
is  paid  up,  the  failures  were  for  the  most  tremendous  amounts  ;  such  as 
were  never  before  heard  of  in  the  United  States.  The  New  Orleans 
True  American  of  the  13th  of  April,  says,  '.'  On  Wednesday  the  largest 
cotton  house  in  the  southern  country  Avent  by  the  board  for  fifteen  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  *  *  *  *  Xhe  other  houses  that  have  suspended  are 
estimated  at  about  twelve  millions."  These  houses  had  all  large  assets ; 
yet  the  cotton  monopoly  fostered  by  the  immense  banking  capital  of  the 
city,  was  not  only  injurious  to  the  public  at  large,  and  to  all  smaller  cot- 
ton traders,  but  having  inflicted  severe  losses  on  their  creditors,  it  ended 
in  the  ruin  of  the  monopolists  themselves.  They  fell  blasted  before  it, 
like  the  magician  before  the  demon  he  has  conjured  up.  In  Boston, 
before  the  stoppage  of  specie  payments,  out  of  thirteen  hundred  and 
seven  wholesale  and  retail  establishments,  there  had  been  one  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  failures ;  but  the  citizens  of  this  State  have  suffered  by 
failures  in  other  States  as  well  as  their  own,  to  an  enormous  extent. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  579 

The  losses  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  from  bankruptcies  grow- 
ing out  of  our  paper  money  system  cannot  be  less  than  six  millions 
a  year. 

In  addition  to  all  the  losses  by  the  fluctuations  of  our  mixed  currency, 
there  is  now  to  be  reckoned  an  actual  depreciation  of  the  best  bank 
paper  below  the  specie  standard.  On  the  10th  of  May  last,  the  banks 
in  New  York  stopped  specie  payment ;  those  of  Philadelphia  and  Bal- 
timore stopped  the  next  day,  those  of  Boston  on  the  12th,  and  those  of 
New  Orleans  on  the  13th.  The  country  banks  were  of  course  compel- 
led to  stop,  however  much  they  might  regret  the  necessity.  On  the  lltli 
of  May,  one  hundred  dollars  in  specie  were  worth,  in  New  York  city, 
bills  of  the  nominal  value  of  one  hundred  and  six  dollars.  On  the  1st 
of  June,  bills  of  one  hundred  and  nine  dollars,  and  on  the  24th  of  June, 
one  hundred  and  twelve  dollars,  were  required  to  purchase  one  hundred 
dollars  in  hard  money,  —  a  depreciation  more  rapid  than  that  of  conti- 
nental paper  during  the  first  year  it  was  issued.  On  the  3d  of  July, 
bills  were  one  hundred  and  twelve  for  one  hundred. 

By  the  last  bank  returns  of  this  State,  their  circulation  and  deposits 
together  exceeded  twenty-six  millions.  By  a  depreciation  of  12  per 
cent.,  bill  holders  and  depositors  would  lose  three  millions  on  that  sum. 
Those  who  pay  their  debts  in  bad  paper  gain  the  amount  of  the  depre- 
ciation, and  by  paying  off  creditors  at  ninety  cents  or  less  on  a  dollar, 
may  be  preserved  from  bankruptcy :  but  those  who  receive  the 
paper  for  debts,  or  are  obliged  to  make  purchases  with  it,  lose  to 
the  same  amount.  This  is  already  allowed  for  in  speaking  of  the  losses 
by  the  fluctuation  of  the  currency,  except  the  loss  in  the  hands  of  holders 
while  it  falls. 

These,  then,  are  the  pecuniary  results  of  a  paper  money  monopoly 
system,  not  that  we  have  made  exact  estimates,  but  the  sums  assumed 
are  below  the  reality,  and  yet  quite  large  enough  to  illustrate  the  sub- 
ject fully.     Let  us  look  at  their  aggregate  amount. 

Legitimate  banking  taxes,  as  before,  five  million  dollars ;  speculation 
tax,  six  million  ;  fluctuation  tax,  twenty  million ;  bankruptcy  tax,  six 
million ;  depreciation  tax,  three  million ;  aggregate  burden  of  the 
present  paper  system,  forty  million :  a  sum  equal  to  the  actual  capital 
employed. 

That  this  sura  is  below  the  actual  annual  amount  of  the  losses  sus- 
tained by  the  operation  of  the  paper  system,  no  one  can  doubt  who  will 
take  pains  to  examine  the  subject.  It  is  indeed  very  far  from  the  fact 
that  this  whole  sum  of  money  is  taken  from  one  set  of  individuals  exclu- 
sively, and  bestowed  altogether  upon  another  set.     If  it  were  so,  we 


580  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

should  have  been  divided  into  lords  and  paupers,  long  ago.  Most  of 
■those  who  generally  gain  by  the  system,  occasionally  lose  by  it ;  and 
many  of  those  who  lose  in  the  long  run,  occasionally  come  in  for  a  share 
of  the  profits.  If  these  losses  and  gains  of  each  individual  would  in  a 
long  series  of  years  balance  each  other,  even  then  the  injustice  would 
be  gross  and  the  effect  highly  demoralizing.  If  every  man  were  com- 
pelled every  week  to  put  all  his  surplus  earnings  into  a  State  lottery, 
"would  he  be  reconciled  to  this  arrangement,  because,  in  the  course  of  his 
life,  he  might  reasonably  expect  to  draw  a  prize  or  two,  equal  to  all  he 
had  paid  for  ?  In  the  currency  lottery,  the  prizes  are  by  no  means 
equally  distributed :  those  who  pay  for  most  of  the  blanks,  find  their 
turn  seldom  comes  for  a  prize,  and  when  at  last  it  does  come,  their  prizes 
are  very  small. 

That  the  man  who  loses  by  the  banking  system  in  various  ways,  one 
hundred  dollars,  gains  also  by  it  in  various  other  ways  sixty  or  eighty 
dollars,  does  not  lessen  the  injustice  of  any  separate  loss,  still  less  does 
it  do  away  the  injustice  of  that  final  balance  of  loss  of  twenty  or  forty 
■dollars,  to  which  he  must  after  all  submit.  The  use  of  banks  is  a  game 
partly  of  chance  and  partly  of  skill ;  the  best  players  lose  sometimes, 
and  the  worst  players  do  not  always  lose ;  yet  in  a  long  game  the  best 
players  always  go  off  with  the  largest  winnings.  It  may  be  that  ninety 
out  of  a  hundred  lose  more  than  they  gain ;  nine  more  gain  enpugh  to 
overbalance  their  losses  ;  one  out  of  a  hundred  gains  decidedly  ;  one  out 
of  a  thousand  makes  himself  rich,  and  one  out  of  ten  thousand  builds 
up  a  princely  fortune. 

This  general  effect  of  paper  money  banking,  in  the  excess  to  which  it 
naturally  tends,  was  admirably  depicted  by  the  late  President  of  the 
United  States  in  his  message  at  the  commencement  of  the  second  session 
of  the  twenty-fourth  congress.  His  views  are  thus  expressed,  in  his 
usual  plain  and  decided  manner  :  — 

"  Variableness  must  ever  be  the  characteristic  of  a  currency,  of  which 
the  precious  metals  are  not  the  chief  ingredient,  or  which  can  be  ex- 
pended or  contracted  without  regard  to  the  principles  that  regulate  the 
value  of  those  metals  as  a  standard  in  the  general  trade  of  the  world. 
"With  us,  bank  issues  constitute  such  a  currency,  and  must  ever  do  so 
until  they  are  made  dependent  on  those  just  proportions  of  gold  and 
silver,  as  a  circulating  medium,  which  experience  has  proved  to  be 
necessary  not  only  in  this,  but  in  all  other  commercial  countries.  Where 
those  proportions  are  not  infused  into  the  circulation,  and  do  not  control 
it,  it  is  manifest  that  prices  must  vary  according  to  the  tide  of  bank 
issues,  and  the  value  and  stability  of  property  must  stand  exposed  to  all 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  581 

the  uncertainty  which  attends  the  administration  of  institutions  that  are 
constantly  liable  to  the  temptation  of  an  interest  distinct  from  that  of  the 
community  in  which  they  are  established. 

"  The  progress  of  an  expansion,  or  rather  a  depreciation  of  the  cur- 
rency, by  excessive  bank  issues,  is  always  attended  by  a  loss  to  the 
laboring  classes.  This  portion  of  the  community  have  neither  time  nor 
opportunity  to  watch  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  the  money  market.  Engaged 
from  day  to  day  in  their  useful  toils,  they  do  not  perceive  that  although 
their  wages  are  nominally  the  same  or  even  somewhat  higher,  they  are 
greatly  reduced  in  fact  by  the  rapid  increase  of  a  spurious  currency,  which, 
as  it  appears  to  make  money  abound,  they  are  at  first  inclined  to  con- 
sider a  blessing.  It  is  not  so  with  the  speculator,  by  whom  this  opera- 
tion is  better  understood,  and  is  made  to  contribute  to  his  advantage.  It 
is  not  until  the  prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life  become  so  dear  that  the 
laboring  classes  cannot  supply  their  wants  out  of  their  wages,  that  the 
wages  rise,  and  gradually  reach  a  justly  proportioned  rate  to  that  of  the 
products  of  their  labor. 

"When  thus  by  the  depreciation  in  consequence  of  the  quantity  of  paper 
in  circulation,  wages  as  well  as  prices  become  exorbitant,  it  is  soon  found 
that  the  whole  effect  of  the  adulteration  is  a  tariff  on  our  home  industry 
for  the  benefit  of  the  countries  where  gold  and  silver  circulate,  and  main- 
tain uniformitj^  and  moderation  in  prices.  It  is  then  perceived,  that  the 
enhancement  of  the  price  of  land  and  labor  produces  a  corresponding  in- 
crease in  the  price  of  products,  until  these  products  do  not  sustain  a  competi- 
tion with  similar  ones  in  other  countries  ;  and  thus  both  manufactured  and 
agricultural  productions  cease  to  bear  exportation  from  the  country  of 
the  spurious  currency,  because  they  cannot  be  sold  for  cost.  This  is  the 
process  by  which  specie  is  banished  by  the  paper  of  the  banks.  Their 
vaults  are  soon  exhausted  to  pay  for  foreign  commodities ;  the  next  step 
is  a  stoppage  of  specie  payment ;  a  total  degradation  of  paper  as  a  cur- 
rency ;  unusual  depression  of  prices ;  a  ruin  of  debtors,  and  the  accumu- 
lation of  property  in  the  hands  of  creditors  and  cautious  capitalists." 

The  theory  thus  laid  down  by  the  president  has  been  followed  out  in 
its  operation,  by  showing  the  modes  in  which  this  accumulation  in  the 
hands  of  capitalists  and  creditors,  and  this  loss  to  the  laboring  classes 
and  ruin  of  debtors  takes  place.  The  summary  is  so  frightful  as  to  fully 
justify  the  strong  language  used  by  Daniel  Webster  five  years  since. 

"  Of  all  the  contrivances  for  cheating  the  laboring  classes  of  mankind, 
none  have  been  more  effectual  than  that  which  deludes  them  with  paper 
money.  This  is  the  most  effectual  of  inventions  to  fertilize  the  rich 
man's  fields  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  brow.  Ordinary  tyranny, 
oppression,  excessive  taxation,  these  bear  lightly  on  the  happiness  of  the 

49* 


582 

mass  of  the  community  compared  with  fraudulent  currencies,  and  the 
robberies  committed  by  a  depreciated  paper.  Our  own  history  has  re- 
corded for  our  instruction  enough  and  more  than  enough  of  the  demoral- 
izing tendency,  the  injustice,  and  the  intolerable  oppression,  on  the 
virtuous  and  well  disposed,  of  a  degraded  paper  currency,  authorized  by 
law,  or  in  any  way  countenanced  by  government." 

That  an  aristocracy  having  in  its  hands  such  sources  of  revenue,  and 
able  to  wring  from  the  peoj)le  so  large  a  portion  of  their  honest  earnings, 
would  push  its  advantages  to  the  utmost,  is  to  be  expected ;  indeed,  it  is 
inevitable.  Never  did  they  relinquish  their  hold  upon  the  spoils  volun- 
tarily. The  power  to  do  wrong  becomes  a  vested  right  in  the  view  of 
him  who  has  long  possessed  it.  Those  who  understand  perfectly  well 
the  nature  of  "the  robberies  committed  by  a  depreciated  paper,"  will 
be  loudest  in  their  indignation  at  any  attempt  to  resist  or  put  an  end  to 
those  robberies. 

A  great  crime,  a  national  crime,  has  been  committed,  and  is  still  per- 
sisted in,  —  the  crime  of  cheating  the  laboring  classes  by  the  delusion  of 
paper  money,  —  fertilizing  the  rich  man's  field  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor 
oian's  brow.  Who,  then,  are  guilty  of  this  heinous  crime  ;  for  the  inno- 
cent must  not  share  the  shame  ;  who  are  the  guilty  ? 

Not  every  stockholder  of  a  bank,  not  every  officer  of  a  bank,  not  every 
borrower  from  a  bank,  not  every  trader  or  capitalist,  who  has  profited 
by  the  fluctuations  caused  by  a  paper  currency.  Oh,  no !  We  should  do 
them  great  injustice  if  we  set  down  all  these  as  our  enemies,  when  among 
them  are  many  of  our  best  friends,  —  friends  who  are  ready  to  witness 
their  sincerity  by  cheerfully  submitting  to  great  sacrifices  to  restore  a 
wholesome  currency.  The  system  is  riveted  upon  us.  It  has  insinuated 
itself  into  all  business  intercouse,  so  that  no  business  man  can  keep  clear 
of  it,  any  more  than  he  could  keep  clear  of  cold,  if  he  had  been  born  in  the 
frigid  zone,  or  of  heat  on  the  sands  of  the  great  desert,  for  paper  money 
is  all-pervading  as  the  atmosphere.  We  might  as  well  proscribe  every 
man  who  takes  a  bank  bill  as  every  man  who  owns  a  bank  share,  or 
assists  in  managing  a  bank,  for  it  is  the  bill  holders,  ultimately,  who 
produce  the  fluctuations :  if  they  refused  to  receive  paper  it  could  not 
•be  issued.  There  are  thousands,  tens  of  thousands  who  abhor  irredeem- 
able paper,  and  will  go  as  far  as  any  man  to  suppress  the  mischief,  but 
who  cannot,  so  long  as  bad  legislation  forces  it  upon  them,  disentangle 
themselves  from  the  system,  without  neglecting  duties  they  are  bound  to 
discharge,  and  abandoning  the  station  in  which  Providence  has  placed 
them.  A  sober  man  may  disapprove  of  war,  and  of  all  preparation  for  war, 
yet  if  the  government  has  established  a  powder  magazine  in  the  heart  of 
his  village,  it  is  better  that  he  should  keep  it  than  a  drunkard  or  a  lunatic. 


583 

In  the  debate  on  the  charter  of  the  United  States  Bank,  John  Eandolph 
said,  that  he  owned  no  stock  whatever  except  live  stock,  and  had  deter- 
mined never  to  own  any :  but  if  this  bill  passed,  he  would  not  only  be  a 
stockholder  to  the  utmost  of  his  power,  but  would  advise  every  man, 
over  whom  he  had  any  influence,  to  do  the  same,  because  it  was  the 
creation  of  a  great  privileged  order  of  the  most  hateful  kind  to  his  feel- 
ings, and  because  he  would  rather  be  the  master  than  the  slave.  With- 
out going  quite  this  length  wdth  Mr.  Randolph,  many  feel  justified  in 
defending  themselves  with  the  same  -^veapons  with  wdiich  they  are  at- 
tacked, though  anxious  to  prohibit  the  use  of  those  w^eapons  to  all.  These 
are  on  our  side,  and  we  must  not  make  war  upon  them,  for  without  their 
assistance  we  shall  never  be  able  to  reduce  the  trade  in  money  to  an 
equal  footing  with  all  other  trades.  To  whom,  then,  does  the  guilt  be- 
long, for  it  must  fall  somewhere  ? 

To  those  wdio  fastened  the  system  on  us,  who  uphold  and  defend  it, 
who  oppose  all  efforts  to  abolish  it  or  mitigate  its  evils,  who  are  deter- 
mined to  perpetuate  it,  with  all  its  most  grievous  abuses.  To  all  who 
sustain  it  by  their  votes  in  the  national  or  State  legislatures.  To  all  who 
vote  for  the  bank  candidate  for  president  of  the  United  States  ;  the  bank 
candidates  for  congress  ;  the  bank  candidate  for  governor  of  the  Com- 
monwealth ;  paper  money  partisans  for  State  senators  and  representa- 
tives. Among  these  are  thousands  who  own  no  bank  stock,  and  who 
groan  under  the  curses  they  invite.  If  they  kneel  for  the  rider  to  mount, 
who  can  pity  them  when  they  feel  the  spurs  ? 

Who  have  fastened  the  system  upon  us  ?  Clearly  those  who  profit  by 
it,  the  aristocratic,  or  whig  party,  so  called  because  they  somewhat  re- 
semble the  party  in  Great  Britain,  thus  described  in  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view, "  the  strength  of  the  ichigs  lay  in  the  great  aristocracy,  in  the  cor- 
porations, and  in  the  trading  or  moneyed  interests.''  Look  at  their  course 
in  Massachusetts.  In  the  spring  session  of  1835,  there  were  many  peti- 
tions for  new  banks.  Some  few  whig  presidents  and  directors  of  banks 
opposed  petitions  asking  for  a  share  in  their  monopoly ;  but  the  majority 
of  the  whig  party  voted  to  grant  them.  The  whole  democratic  party 
opposed  them,  as  did  many  nominal  whigs,  with  democratic  consciences, 
from  among  the  yeomanry,  and  they  were  defeated.  All  the  support 
they  received  came  from  whigs  ;  the  most  ardent  opposition  they  encoun- 
tered was  from  democrats.  If  one  fourth  part  of  the  democrats  in  the 
legislature  had  supported  them,  they  would  all  have  passed,  and  a 
numerous  litter  of  banks  would  that  year  have  cursed  the  State. 

In  the  fall  season  of  the  same  year,  an  order  discharging  the  commit- 
tee on  banks,  and  most  other  committees,  and  confining  the  action  of  the 
house  to  the  Revised  Statutes,  was  reported  by  a  democrat,  jaost  violently 


584  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  repeatedly  assailed  by  prominent  whigs,  sustained  by  tlie  reporter, 
and  the  whole  democratic  party,  in  five  distinct  and  most  animated  de- 
bates, and  with  the  aid  of  votes  from  the  semi-whig  farmers,  carried  and 
adhered  to.  Had  that  order  been  rescinded,  the  door  would  have  been 
opened  for  all  the  bank  petitions  of  the  former  session. 

In  1836,  petitions  came  in  asking,  in  the  aggregate,  for  an  increase  of 
the  bank  capital  of  the  State  from  thirty  millions  to  fifty-six  millions, 
and  the  bank  capital  of  Boston  and  its  immediate  vicinity,  from  eighteen 
millions  to  double  that  amount.  The  whig  leaders,  the  Suffolk  delega- 
tion, and  a  large  majority  of  the  whig  members,  went  for  the  petitions. 
The  democrats  went  in  mass  against  them.  The  semi-whig  farmers 
discriminated  and  passed  bills  for  about  ten  millions,  rejecting  the  peti- 
tions for  the  other  sixteen  millions. 

Of  all  the  rejected  petitions  the  most  formidable  was  that  for  the  ten 
million  bank.  The  whole  aristocracy  of  the  city  and  country  enlisted 
to  carry  it  through.  They  commanded  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  rep- 
resentatives from  Suffolk  county,  and  all  the  thorough-going  whig  parti- 
sans. The  language  of  Mr.  Burke,  with  very  little  alteration,  describes 
the  contest  and  result.*  The  debate  lasted  in  the  house,  with  intervals, 
for  weeks.  It  opened  the  eyes  of  several  to  the  true  state  of  affairs ;  it 
enlarged  their  ideas  ;  it  removed  prejudices ;  it  harmonized  opinions. 
At  its  conclusion,  the  house,  by  an  independent,  noble,  spirited,  and  un- 
expected majority,  in  the  teeth  of  all  the  old  mercenary  Swiss  of  State, 
in  despite  of  all  the  speculators  and  augurs  of  political  events,  in  defiance 
of  the  whole  embattled  legion  of  party  hacks  and  willing  instruments 
rejected  the  bill.  That  majority  was  not  afraid  to  look  steadily  in  the 
face  that  glaring  and  dazzling  influence  at  which  the  eyes  of  eagles  have 
blenched.  They  looked  in  the  face  one  of  the  ablest,  and  not  the  most 
scrupulous  combinations  ever  formed  in  this  State,  and  which  embodied 
the  whole  power  of  wealth.  Every  sort  of  intrigue,  artifice,  and  nego- 
tiation was  carrying  on.  Persuasion  and  argument,  conviviality  and  in- 
timidation were  exhausted.  Every  thing  on  every  side  was  full  of  traps 
and  mines.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos  of  plots  and  counterplots ; 
it  was  in  the  midst  of  this  complicated  warfare  against  public  opposition 
and  private  treachery,  that  the  firmness  of  the  democratic  party 
was  put  to  the  proof.  They  never  stirred  from  their  ground ;  no,  not 
an  ineh.  They  remained  fixed  and  determined  in  principle,  in  measure, 
and  in  conduct.  They  practised  no  managements.  They  secured  no 
retreat. 

If  one  of  our  majority  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy  we  should  have 

f  Speech  on  American  Taxation,  19th  of  April,  1774. 


OF  ROBEET  RANTOUL,  JR.  585 

been  defeated,  yet  the  weakest  in  our  phalanx  withstood  the  onset  with 
alacrity  and  confidence.  Every  one  of  them  might  have  said  truly  in 
Mr.  Burke's  words,  "I  declare  for  one,  I  knew  well  enough  (it  could 
not  be  concealed  from  anybody)  the  true  state  of  things ;  but,  in  my 
life,  I  never  came  with  so  much  spirits  into  the  house.  It  was  a  time 
for  a  man  to  act  in.  We  had  powerful  enemies ;  but  we  had  faithful 
and  determined  friends,  and  a  glorious  cause.  We  had  a  great  battle  to 
fight ;  but  we  had  the  means  of  fighting ;  our  arms  were  not  tied  behind 
us.     We  did  fight  that  day  and  conquer." 

From  that  victory  the  democracy  of  Massachusetts  received  new  life 
and  vigor.  We  came  into  the  legislature  of  the  present  year  recruited 
in  numbers,  and  with  renovated  strength.  Again  bank  petitions  swarm- 
ed as  before.  Again  the  whole  weight  of  whig  influence  was  thrown 
into  their  scale.  Again  a  large  majority  of  whigs  went  for  the  peti- 
tions, but  a  few  nominal  whigs  had  the  independence  to  vote  with  the 
democratic  party,  and  again  the  petitions  were  rejected. 

We  shall  go  into  the  next  legislature  stronger  than  ever.  We  shall 
charter  no  more  banks ;  but  we  shall  ascertain  how  many  members  of 
that  body  will  agree  with  John  Quincy  Adams,  that  "  the  violation  of 
moral  principle,  committed  by  a  bank  in  suspending  specie  payment,  is 
not  inferior  to  that  of  fraudulent  bankruptcy  in  an  individual.  The 
right  of  any  legislature  to  authorize  such  a  suspension  is  questionable, 
and  the  repeal  of  laws  expressly  enacted  to  enforce  the  fulfilment  of 
contracts,  at  the  very  moment  when  they  have  been  broken,  is  mockery 
of  all  moral  principle,  and  a  scandal  to  human  legislation." 

The  aristocracy  has  lately  come  before  the  country  more  distinctly 
than  ever,  as  the  bank  party.  The  coalition  evidently  interid  to  fight 
over  again  the  battle  for  a  national  bank  in  which  they  were  defeated  in 
1832.  They  cannot  at  this  moment  agree  upon  the  precise  plan  of  the 
institution  they  would  establish,  and  the  difficulty  of  determining  the 
details  may  cause  some  delay  in  bringing  forward  their  project ;  but  the 
hope  of  a  national  bank  is  their  only  bond  of  union.  The  whigs  profess 
that  the  revolution  of  1688,  from  which  they  derive  their  name,  "  was  a 
revolution  in  favor  of  property."  They  believe  that  "it  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  found  government  on  property."  They  "  avow  their  belief 
that  in  a  great  majority  of  cases,  the  possession  of  property  is  the  proof 
of  merit."  They  hope  to  become  much  more  meritorious,  if  the  gov- 
ernment can  be  founded  on  their  property,  by  creating  a  national  bank, 
and  investing  it  with  controlhng  power :  for  this  result  they  would  effect 
a  revolution. 

The  merchants  doing  a  moderate  business  would  be  crushed  and 
ground  into  the  dust  beneath  the  wheels  of  this  ponderous  engine,  as  so 


586  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

many  thousands  of  their  predecessors  have  been,  yet  many  of  them  are 
still  ready  to  cast  themselves  before  the  car  of  Juggernaut,  at  the  bid- 
ding of  their  political  priesthood,  and  perish  for  the  glory  of  the  money 
king.  They  are  as  much  incensed  against  the  government  which  has 
delivered  them  from  their  oppressor,  as  the  Hindoos  are  with  the  gov- 
ernment of  India  for  its  efforts  to  suppress  the  Thugs. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  conceal  from  ourselves  that  we  are  at  this  moment 
on  the  brink  of  a  dreadful  precipice  ;  the  question  is  whether  we  shall 
submit  to  be  guided  by  the  hand  which  hath  driven  us  to  it,  or  whether 
we  shall  follow  the  patriot  voice  which  has  not  ceased  to  warn  us  of  our 
dangers,  and  which  would  still  declare  the  way  to  safety  and  to  honor."* 
Did  the  administration  advise  the  rechartering  of  the  United  States 
Bank  by  Pennsylvania  ?  Did  the  administration  advise  that  the  num- 
ber of  banks,  the  amount  of  bank  capital,  of  loans,  and  of  paper  circu- 
lation should  be  more  than  doubled,  nay,  almost  trebled,  within  six 
years  ?  Did  the  administration  urge  the  banks  to  issue  more  notes  than 
they  could  redeem ;  the  merchants  to  import  more  than  they  could  pay 
for  ;  and  to  supply  the  retailers  with  more  goods  than  they  could  dispose 
of?  Did  it  instigate  thousands  of  young  men  to  abandon  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil,  and  throng  to  the  great  cities  to  embark  in  the  lottery  of 
trade  ?  Did  it  run  up  the  prices  of  articles  of  commerce  ?  Did  it  en- 
courage speculators  to  invest  immense  amounts  in  fancy  stocks,  in  pro- 
ducts, house  lots,  and  public  lands?  Did  it  recommend  the  distribution 
bill,  to  withdraw,  in  four  payments,  near  forty  millions  from  the  chan- 
nels of  commerce  ?  These  are  the  causes  of  our  distress,  and  against 
these  it  has  never  failed  to  remonstrate  ;  it  has  not  ceased  to  warn  us  of 
our  dangers.  The  bank  party  have  driven  us  towards  the  precipice, 
over  which  they  would  now  compel  us  to  plunge.  The  administration 
has  labored  faithfully  to  avert  impending  evils.  The  bank  veto  was 
intended  to  put  an  end  to  that  great  disturbing  power  over  the  cur- 
rency, which  has  made  its  successive  expansions  and  contractions  so 
sudden  and  terrible.  The  removal  of  the  deposits  paralyzed  the  de- 
structive energy  with  which  the  bank  was  then  waging  war  on  credit 
and  industry,  and  prepared  the  community  for  the  redemption  of  its 
notes  and  the  collection  of  its  debts  by  that  institution,  if  it  had  been 
disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision  of  the  nation.  The  specie  circular 
checked  the  frauds,  speculations,  and  monopolies  in  the  public  lands; 
checked  the  excessive  bank  credits  in  the  West ;  checked  also,  the  over- 
banking  and  overtrading  of  the  Atlantic  cities  from  which  it  retained 
specie ;  secured  the  safety  of  the  treasury  receipts  ;  strengthened  the 

*  Junius. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  587 

western  banks,  and  thereby  lessened  the  losses  of  the  merchants  on  the 
seaboard  by  their  inland  debtors ;  and  by  retarding  the  exportation  of 
gold  and  silver  to  England,  made  the  resumption  of  specie  payments 
possible,  whenever  the  hopest  indignation  of  the  people  shall  compel  the 
banks  to  the  performance  of  their  promises.  The  suppression  of  small 
bills,  so  repeatedly  and  urgently  recommended  by  the  administration, 
and  adopted  in  several  of  the  democratic  States,  strongly  tends  to  dis- 
courage the  ruinous  extension  of  bank  issues  and  bank  credits.  Mr. 
Huskisson,  in  his  speech  of  February  10th,  1826,  said,  that  "  it  was  his 
opinion,  an  opinion  not  hastily  formed,  but  the  result  of  long  and 
anxious  observation,  that  a  permanent  state  of  cash  payments,  and  a 
circulation  of  one  and  two  pound  notes,  could  not  coexist."  Our  late 
experience  has  abundantly  confirmed  Mr.  Huskisson's  opinion.  If  we 
had  no  bank  notes  under  fifty  dollars,  the  late  stoppage  of  specie  pay- 
ments would  never  have  taken  place.  The  collection  of  the  govern- 
ment dues  in  specie  is  not  only  necessary  to  enable  the  government  to 
go  on,  but  is  the  only  course  which  could  prevent  the  sudden  withdrawal 
of  protection  from  our  manufactures,  to  an  amount  greater  than  that 
which  the  whigs  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature  resolved  would  be  "  the 
death  ivarrant  of  the  manufacturing  establishments  of  New  England^ 
It  is  the  only  course  which  could  prevent  great  inequality  in  the  duties 
levied  at  different  ports,  and  the  consequent  transfer  of  business  to  those 
points  where  the  currency  had  depreciated  most,  to  the  ruin  of  our  own 
merchants.  It  is  the  only  course  which  could  keep  specie  in  the  coun- 
try, so  as  to  give  us  a  chance  of  the  return  of  a  sound  currency  without 
running  through  the  miseries  of  assignats  and  continental  paper.  As 
the  wisdom  of  whiggery  lately  threatened  insurrection  because  the  gov- 
ernment would  not  usurp  the  arbitrary  power  to  dispense  with  the  laws 
and  violate  the  Constitution,  for  the  sake  of  thus  ruining  our  merchants, 
signing  the  death  warrant  of  our  manufacturing  establishments,  and 
fastening  upon  us  the  curse  of  irredeemable  paper,  it  may  be  well  to  re- 
member the  sentiments  of  the  whig  oracle  upon  the  same  question  years 
ago.  In  1816,  Mr.  Webster  spoke  wisely  thus  :  "There  is  no  nation 
which  had  guarded  its  currency  with  greater  care ;  for  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution,  and  those  who  enacted  the  early  statutes,  were  hard 
money  men.  They  had  felt,  and  therefore  duly  appreciated  the  evils  of 
a  paper  medium.  They  therefore  sedulously  guarded  the  currency  of 
the  United  States  from  debasement.  The  legal  currency  of  the  United 
States  was  gold  and  silver  coin." 

"  This  government  has  a  right,  in  all  cases,  to  protect  its  own  revenues, 
and  to  guard  them  against  defalcation  by  bad  or  depreciated  paper." 

"  The  only  power  which  the  general  government  possesses  of  restrain- 


588  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

ing  the  issues  of  the  State  banks,  is  to  refuse  their  notes  in  the  receipts 
of  the  treasury." 

"With  a  perfectly  sound  legal  currency, the  national  revenues  are  not 
collected  in  this  currency,  but  in  paper  of  various  sorts,  and  various 
degrees  of  value.  *  *  *  Not  being,  howev,er,  a  part  of  the  legal 
money  of  the  country,  it  could  not,  by  law,  be  received  in  the  payment 
of  duties,  taxes,  or  other  debts  to  the  government."  But  being  payable, 
and  paid,  on  demand,  it  had  been  received,  etc. 

During  the  war,  the  banks  issued  immense  quantities  of  paper.  "  The 
consequence  immediately  followed,  which  it  would  be  imputing  a  great 
degree  of  blindness  both  to  the  government  and  to  the  banks  to  suggest 
that  they  had  not  foreseen.  The  excess  of  paper  which  was  found  every- 
where created  alarm.  Demands  began  to  be  made  on  the  banks,  and 
they  all  stopped  payment.  No  contrivance  to  get  money  without  incon- 
venience to  the  people,  ever  had  a  shorter  course  of  experiment,  or  a 
more  unequivocal  termination.  The  depreciation  of  bank  notes  was  the 
necessary  consequence  of  a  neglect  or  refusal  on  the  part  of  those  who 
issued  to  pay  them." 

"  The  depreciation  has  not  been  and  is  not  now  uniform  throughout 
the  United  States.  Taxes  and  duties  collected  in  Massachusetts  are  one 
quarter  higher  than  the  taxes  and  duties  collected  by  the  same  laws  in 
the  District  of  Columbia." 

"  Can  a  greater  injustice  than  this  be  conceived?  Can  constitutional 
provisions  be  disregarded  in  a  more  essential  point?  Commercial  pre- 
ferences also  are  given,  which,  if  they  could  be  continued,  would  be  suffi- 
cient to  annihilate  the  commerce  of  some  cities  and  some  States,  while 
they  would  extremely  promote  that  of  others.  *  *  *  Surely  this  is  not 
to  be  endured.  Such  monstrous  inequality  and  injustice  are  not  to  be 
tolerated.  Since  the  commencement  of  this  course  of  things,  it  can  be 
shown,  that  the  people  of  the  northern  States  have  paid  a  million  of 
dollars  more  than  their  just  proportion  of  the  public  burdens." 

Because  the  executive  refused  to  be  guilty  of  this  "  monstrous  in- 
equality and  injustice,"  "  sufficient  to  annihilate  the  commerce  of  some 
cities,  (Boston,)  and  some  States,"  (Massachusetts,)  the  late  representa- 
tive from  Boston  declared  in  a  meeting  of  those  dependent  on  the  com- 
merce of  Massachusetts,  that  no  people  under  heaven  were  ever  before 
so  trampled  upon  by  their  government.  Let  us  see  how  Mr.  Webster 
regarded  this  trampling. 

"  If  congress  were  to  pass  forty  statutes  on  the  subject,"  said  the 
oracle,  in  181 G,  "  they  could  not  make  the  law  more  imperative  than  it 
now  is,  that  nothing  should  be  received  in  payment  of  duties  to  the  gov- 
ernment but  specie.     The  whole  strength  of  the  government,  I  am  of 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  589 

opinion,  should  be  put  forth  to  compel  the  payment  of  the  duties  and 
taxes  to  the  government  in  the  legal  currency  of  the  country." 

The  "  Expounder  of  the  Constitution,"  called  the  receipt  of  the  bills 
of  non  specie  paying  banks,  "  a  state  of  things  which  everybody  knows 
to  exist  in  plain  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  in  oj)en  defiance  of 
the  written  letter  of  the  law." 

"  It  is  quite  clear,  that  by  the  statute  all  duties  and  taxes  are  required 
to  be  paid  in  the  legal  money  of  the  United  States,  or  in  treasury  notes." 

"  Wars  and  invasions  are  not  always  the  most  certain  destroyers  of 
national  prosperity.  They  announce  their  own  approach,  and  the  gen- 
eral security  is  preserved  by  the  general  alarm.  Not  so  with  the  evils 
of  a  debased  coin,  a  depreciated  paper  currency,  or  a  depressed  and 
falling  public  credit.  Not  so  with  the  plausible  and  insidious  mischiefs  of 
a  pape^  money  system.  They  insinuate  themselves  in  the  shape  of  fticil- 
ities,  accommodation,  and  relief.  They  hold  out  the  most  fallacious  hope 
of  an  easy  payment  of  debts,  and  a  lighter  burden  of  taxation.  On  these 
subjects  it  is  that  government  ought  to  exercise  its  own  peculiar  wisdom 
and  caution.  It  is  bound  to  foresee  the  evil  before  every  man  feels  it, 
and  to  take  all  necessary  measures  to  guard  against  it,  although  they 
may  be  measures  attended  with  some  difhculty,  and  not  without  tem- 
porary inconvenience." 

"  I  repeat  the  opinion,  that  it  was  the  duty  and  in  the  power  of  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  on  the  return  of  peace,  to  have  returned  to  the 
legal  and  proper  mode  of  collecting  the  revenue.  *  *  *  It  can  hardly 
be  doubted,  that  the  influence  of  the  treasury  could  have  effected  all 
this." 

"  As  to  the  opinion  advanced  by  some,  that  the  revenues  cannot  be 
collected  otherwise  than  as  they  are  now,  in  the  paper  of  any  and  every 
banking  association  which  chooses  to  issue  paper,  it  cannot  for  a  moment 
be  admitted.  This  would  be  at  once  giving  up  the  government ;  for 
what  is  government  without  revenue,  and  what  is  a  revenue  that  is 
gathered  together  in  the  varying,  fluctuating,  discredited,  depreciated,, 
and  still  falling  promissory  notes  of  two  or  three  hundred  distinct,  and, 
as  to  this  government,  irresponsible  banking  companies  ?  If  it  cannot 
collect  its  revenues  in  a  better  manner  than  this,  it  must  cease  to  he  a 
government.''^ 

"  If  taxes  be  not  necessary,  they  should  not  be  laid.  If  laid,  they  ought 
to  be  collected  without  preference  or  partiality." 

Mr.  Webster  continued  to  a  very  late  date  to  express  similar  opinions,, 
though  his  conduct,  in  the  view  of  many,  forms  a  singular  contrast  to 
them.  At  New  York,  on  the  15th  of  March  last,  he  said:  "I  abhor 
paper  ;  that  is  to  say,  irredeemable  paper,  paper  that  may  not  be  con- 

50 


590  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

verted  into  gold  or  silver  at  the  will  of  the  holder."  And  again  :  "  I  hold 
this  disturbance  of  the  measure  of  value,  and  the  means  of  payment  and 
exchange,  this  derangement,  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  this  violation  of  the 
currency  to  be  one  of  the  most  unpardonable  of  political  faults.  He  who 
tampers  with  the  currency  robs  labor  of  its  bread.  He  panders,  indeed, 
to  greedy  capital,  which  is  keen-sighted,  and  may  shift  for  itself;  but  he 
beggars  labor,  which  is  honest,  unsuspecting,  and  too  busy  with  the  pres- 
ent to  calculate  on  the  future.  The  prosperity  of  the  w^orking  class  lives, 
moves,  and  has  its  being  in  established  credit,  and  a  steady  medium  of 
payment.  All  sudden  changes  destroy  it.  Honest  industry  never  comes 
in  for  any  part  of  the  spoils  in  that  scramble  which  takes  place  when  the 
currency  of  a  country  is  disordered.  Did  wild  schemes  and  projects  ever 
benefit  the  industrious  ?  Did  irredeemable  bank  paper  ever  enrich  the 
laborious  ?  Did  violent  fluctuations  ever  do  good  to  him,  who  depends 
on  his  daily  labor  for  his  daily  bread  ?  Certainly  never.  All  these 
things  may  gratify  greediness  for  sudden  gain,  or  the  rashness  of  daring 
speculation  ;  but  they  can  bring  nothing  but  injury  and  distress  to  the 
homes  of  patient  industry  and  honest  labor.  Who  are  they  that  profit  by 
the  present  state  of  things  ?  They  are  not  the  many,  but  the  few.  They 
are  speculators,  brokers,  dealers  in  money,  and  lenders  of  money  at  ex- 
orbitant interest.  Small  capitalists  are  crushed,  they  have  no  longer 
either  money  or  credit.  And  all  classes  of  labor  partake,  and  must  par- 
take in  the  same  calamity." 

On  another  occasion  he  described  that  "  miserable,  abominable,  and 
fraudulent  policy,  which  attempts  to  give  value  to  any  paper  of  any  bank 
one  single  moment  longer  than  such  paper  is  redeemable,  on  demand,  in 
gold  and  silver."  He  asserted  that  such  paper  "  represents  nothing 
but  broken  promises,  bad  faith,  bankrupt  corporations,  cheated  creditors, 
and  a  ruined  people." 

While  such  professions  w^ere  yet  ringing  in  the  ears  of  the  American 
people,  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  expounder  would  second 
the  insurrectionary  movements  of  his  friends  in  Boston,  New  York,  and 
other  cities.  Indeed,  to  do  him  justice,  he  has  too  much  sagacity  to 
suppose  that  the  yeomanry  of  the  country  would  commit  treason  for  the 
privilege  of  being  cheated  with  paper  money.  Accordingly,  in  his  late 
speech  at  Cincinnati,  he  stated  explicitly  that  the  administration,  under 
existing  circumstances,  could  take  no  other  course  than  to  exact  specie. 
The  city  rebels,  therefore,  disavowed  by  their  leader,  and  having  had 
time  to  meditate  on  the  course  and  fate  of  Shay's  rebellion,  have  thrown 
down  their  weapons  and  disbanded.  They  no  longer  talk  of  forcible  re- 
sistance, but  they  still  rail  at  the  bank  veto,  the  removal  of  the  deposits, 
and  the  specie  circular,  and  oppose  the  suppression  of  small  bills  ;  while 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  591 

they  justify  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  by  the  banks,  and  advocate 
a  national  bank.  The  remark  of  Fisher  Ames  in  1787  is  not  out  of  date 
at  the  present  time  :  — 

"  In  spite  of  national  beggary,  paper  money  has  still  its  advocates, 
and  probably  of  late  its  martyrs.  In  spite  of  national  dishonor,  the  con- 
tinental impost  is  still  opposed  with  success.  Never  did  experience  more 
completely  demonstrate  the  iniquity  of  the  one,  and  the  necessity  of  the 
other.  But  in  defiance  of  demonstration,  knaves  Vv^ill  continue  to  prose- 
lyte fools,  and  to  keep  a  paper  money  friction  alive.  The  fear  of  their 
success  has  annihilated  credit,  as  their  actual  success  would  annihilate 
property." 

A  national  bank  cures  none  of  the  evils  of  paper  money  banking,  but 
enhances  them  all.  It  increases  all  the  expenses  of  the  system,  lor  the 
great  bank,  being  on  a  more  magnificent  scale  than  any  other,  sets  an 
example  of  extravagance  to  all  the  rest,  which  by  degrees  they  follow. 
It  vastly  increases  the  ftuctiiations  of  the  currency,  for  the  smaller  insti- 
tutions bank  upon  its  paper,  as  they  otherwise  would  upon  specie  ;  and 
as  this  paper  is  much  more  easily  obtained  than  specie,  while  the  bank 
is  expanding,  it  makes  the  general  expansion  more  rapid ;  and  as  it  is 
more  suddenly  withdrawn  than  specie,  when  the  great  bank  contracts, 
it  makes  the  general  contraction  more  sudden.  If  the  State  banks  issued 
paper  on  a  specie  basis,  the  fluctuations  of  the  paper  currency  would 
still  be  a  great  evil,  but  how  much  greater  must  be  the  fluctuation, 
when  the  basis  itself  is  an  elastic  medium,  which  expands  when  it  ought 
to  contract,  and  contracts  v.dien  it  ought  to  expand.  It  of  course  in- 
creases the  depreciation,  which  must  be  greater  in  proportion  as  the 
whole  amount  of  paper  out  exceeds  the  specie. 

That  such  an  institution  fosters  more  than  any  other  the  spirit  of 
speculation,  is  too  evident  to  need  proof.  The  larger  the  bank,  the 
more  enormous  will  be  the  speculations  it  occasions  ;  and  these  enormous 
speculations,  deranging  prices,  will  engender  innumerable  smaller  opera- 
tions of  a  similar  character.  April  9, 1832,  the  loans  of  the  mother  bank, 
at  Philadelphia,  made  that  day,  were  :  — 


In  one  loan  over 

$400,000 

4  loans  not  less  than 

200,000 

3       u             u       u          u 

100,000 

19     "         "     "       " 

50,000 

72     "          "     "       " 

20,000 

$417, 

,706 

995, 

,456 

34i; 

,729 

1,274,882 

2,404, 

278 

$5,434,111 

leaving  less  than  a  tenth  part  this  amount,  $529,974  only,  to  be  divided 
in  sums  less  than  twenty  thousand  dollars,  among  all  the  rest  of  the 
community.  The  speculations  into  which  men  launch  with  such  facilities, 
terminate  in  hankriiptcies  of  a  proportionate  magnitude. 


592  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

A  national  bank  is  tlie  great  parent  of  forgery.  Small  banks  having 
a  local  circulation,  their  bills  are  less  extensively  counterfeited  be- 
cause the  chance  of  detection  is  greater,  the  fraud  sooner  becomes  im- 
possible, the  field  to  ojierate  in  is  not  so  wide.  From  1797  to  1819,  the 
prosecutions  for  counterfeit  notes  of  the  Bank  of  England  were  998  ; 
the  convictions  were  843,  of  which  313  were  capital.  The  counterfeit 
notes  detected  at  the  bank  alone,  during  six  years  and  three  months  of 
that  time,  were  107,238  one  pound  notes  ;  17,787,  two ;  5,826,  five  ;  419, 
ten  ;  54,  twenty  ;  35  above  twenty  pounds.  If  more  than  twenty  thou- 
sand a  year  are  detected  at  the  bank,  how  shall  we  estimate  the  numbers 
detected  elsewhere  ? 

The  verdict  of  history  is  decisive  against  national  banks.  The  Royal 
Bank  of  France  was  one  of  the  most  flattering  and  fatal  delusions. 
ISTever  was  a  financier  more  popular  than  John  Law,  its  founder.  Never 
was  a  country  more  prosperous  than  France  seemed  before  that  bubble 
burst.  An  eminent  French  writer  of  that  time  called  the  projector,  "  a 
minister  far  above  all  that  the  past  age  has  known,  that  the  present  can 
conceive,  or  tliat  the  future  will  believe."  All  France  was  seized  with 
a  rage  for  speculation.  "  All  the  world,"  says  Postlethwaite,  "  ran  to 
Paris."  There  were  half  a  million  of  new  comers  in  the  city.  Twelve 
hundred  new  coaches  were  set  up.  As  fast  as  new  blocks  and  streets 
could  be  built  up,  lodgings  could  not  be  had.  The  reaction  shook  the 
social  fabric  to  its  base.  Gloom  and  despair  were  inmates  with  every 
household.  Four  hundred  thousand  fortunes  had  been  sacrificed,  and 
the  State  loaded  itself  with  a  specie  debt  of  sixteen  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  millions  of  livres.  The  amount  of  its  paper  in  circulation  at  the 
time  of  the  crash  was  four  hundred  and  nineteen  millions  of  dollars,  not 
so  much  beyond  our  own  paper  circulation,  in  proportion  to  the  popula- 
tion, as  the  terms  in  wdiich  this  bank  is  usually  described  would  natural- 
ly imply,  wdiile  the  specie  thrown  into  the  bank  in  March  and  April 
1720,  exceeded  fifty-six  millions  of  dollars,  an  accession  of  hard  money 
such  as  our  banks  never  received,  in  so  short  a  time.  John  Law  died 
at  Venice,  in  1729,  never  relinquishing  for  a  moment  the  firmest  convic- 
tion of  the  solidity  of  his  system,  the  disastrous  failure  of  which  he  at- 
tributed entirely  to  the  malice  of  .his  enemies  ;  and  thousands  of  his 
disciples  entertained  the  same  belief  for  many  years. 

The  present  bank  of  France  was  established  in  1803;  and  though, 
issuing  no  small  notes,  its  circulation  is  comparatively  steady,  yet  it  has 
twice  produced  considerable  distress  ;  in  180G,  when  it  occasioned  nu- 
merous failures,  and  again  in  1814,  when  it  became  so  embarrassed  that 
the  government  were  obliged  to  limit  its  specie  payments. 

But  the  Bank  of  En2;land  is  the  model  of  American  bankers.     Its 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  593 

history  is  full  of  instruction  and  warning.  In  1693,  in  the  midst  of  na- 
tional disasters  both  the  people  and  the  ministry  were  weary  of  the  war, 
which  produced  nothing  but  disgrace,  but  which  William  was  obstinately 
bent  upon  continuing.  He,  therefore,  brought  in  a  whig  ministry,  whom 
he  expected  to  find  tractable,  partly  from  the  ambition  of  being  courted 
by  the  crown,  and  partly  from  the  prospect  of  gain  from  advancing 
money  to  the  government.  The  most  scandalous  practices  in  the  mys- 
tery of  corruption  were  at  that  time  exercised  in  grants,  places,  pensions, 
and  salaries  to  members,  whereby  the  liouse  of  Commons  was  so  man- 
aged that  the  king  could  quash  all  grievances,  stifle  the  examination  of 
accounts,  and  defeat  any  bill.  "When  these  practices  were  exposed,  mere 
shame  forced  through  both  houses  a  bill  for  free  and  impartial  proceed- 
ings in  parliament,  to  which  bill,  the  king,  with  the  concurrence  of  his 
whig  ministry,  to  whose  existence  corruption  was  essential,  applied  his 
veto.  Corruption  being  thus  perpetuated,  a  majority  was  secured  in 
both  houses,  and  the  scheme  of  the  bank  brought  forward,  and  the  charter 
granted  in  1G94.  Its  whole  capital  was  a  loan  to  the  government;  its 
immediate  object  was  to  assist  the  government  in  carrying  on  an  unpo- 
pular war.  Its  ultimate  effects  were  distinctly  foretold  by  the  opposi- 
tion, but  the  pov/er  of  corruption  prevailed. 

In  about  one  year  from  the  date  of  the  charter,  the  usual  effects  of 
paper  money  had  begun  to  be  seriously  felt.  "  The  nation  was  alarmed 
by  the  circulation  of  fictitious  wealth,  instead  of  gold  and  silver." 
Money  sunk,  till  a  guinea  passed  for  thirty  shillings,  and  this  pubhc  dis- 
grace lowered  the  credit  of  the  government.  In  169G,  such  was  the 
languishing  state  of  the  bank,  then  two  years  old,  that  the  government, 
instead  of  being  supported  by  it,  was  compelled  to  support  it.  Its  notes 
were  twenty  per  cent,  below  par ;  and  to  rescue  it  from  impending 
bankruptcy,  new  subscriptions  were  ordered,  payable  four  fifths  in  gov- 
ernment tallies,  and  the  taxes  were  mortgaged  for  the  redemption  of  the 
tallies.  The  charter  was  prolonged,  and  a  monopoly  vested  in  it ;  the 
government  became  responsible  for  the  redemption  of  its  bills  ;  it  was 
totally  exempted  from  taxation,  and  several  other  valuable  privileges 
conferred  upon  it.  Thus  v;as  it  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  destruction ; 
but  instead  of  sustaining  the  government,  it  had  very  nearly  over- 
whelmed the  government  in  its  own  ruin.  To  support  the  credit  of  the 
government  through  these  difficulties  the  taxes  were  raised  immensely 
beyond  all  former  precedent,  the  land  tax  being  twenty  per  cent,  on  the 
rental.  These  enormous  taxes  proving  insufficient,  provision  was  made 
for  raising  about  seven  millions  of  dollars  by  a  lottery,  and  for  an  addi- 
tional issue  of  exchequer  bills.  Smollett,  a  tory  historian,  thus  com- 
ments on  the  bank,  the  lottery,  and  the  paper  money.     "  One  cannot, 

50* 


594  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

without  astonishment,  reflect  upon  the  prodigious  efforts  that  were  made 
upon  this  occasion,  or  consider  without  indignation  the  enormous  fortunes 
that  were  raised  up  by  usurers  and  extortioners,  from  the  distresses  of 
their  country.  The  experiment  of  mortgaging  funds  succeeded  so  well 
that  later  ministers  have  proceeded  in  the  same  system,  imposing  burden 
upon  burden,  as  if  they  thought  the  sinews  of  the  nation  could  never  be 
overstrained."  Hallam,  the  ablest  of  whig  historians,  and  the  friend 
and  apologist  of  the  bank,  thus  confirms  the  account  of  the  prevailing 
distress  of  that  time.  "  Fresh  schemes  of  finance  were  devised,  and  on 
the  whole,  patiently  borne  by  a  jaded  people.  The  Bank  of  England 
rose  under  the  auspices  of  the  whig  party,  and  materially  relieved  the 
immediate  exigencies  of  the  government,  while  it  palliated  the  general 
distress,  by  discounting  bills  and  lending  money  at  an  easier  rate  of  in- 
terest. Yet  its  notes  were  depreciated  twenty  per  cent,  in  exchange  for 
silver ;  and  exchequer  tallies  at  least  twice  as  much,  till  they  were 
funded  at  an  interest  of  eight  per  cent.  But  these  resources  generally 
falling  very  short  of  calculation,  and  being  anticipated  at  such  an  exor- 
bitant discount,  a  constantly  increasing  deficiency  arose  ;  and  public 
credit  sunk  so  low,  that  about  the  year  1G9G,  it  was  hardly  possible  to 
pay  the  fleet  and  army,  from  month  to  month,  and  a  total  bankruptcy 
seemed  near  at  hand.  Certainly  the  vessel  of  our  Commonwealth  has 
never  been  so  close  to  shipwreck  as  in  this  period ;  we  have  seen  the 
storm  raging  in  still  greater  terror  round  our  heads,  but  with  far  stouter 
planks  and  tougher  cables  to  confront  and  ride  through  it."  In  a  note 
he  adds,  that  the  peace  of  Ryswick  was  absolutely  necessary,  "because 
public  credit  in  England  was  almost  annihilated,  and  it  was  hardly  possi- 
ble to  pay  the  army.  The  extreme  distress  for  money  is  forcibly  dis- 
played in  some  of  the  king's  letters  to  Lord  Shrewsbury.  These  were 
in  1G9G,  the  very  nadir  of  English  prosperity."  In  one  of  those  letters, 
July  20th,  1G9G,  the  king  says,  "at  present,  I  see  no  resource  which 
can  prevent  the  army  from  mutiny  or  total  desertion."  Since  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Shrewsbury  letters  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the 
inglorious  peace  of  Ryswick  was  precipitated  by  the  derangement  of  the 
•currency. 

Like  causes  produce  like  effects.  In  1819,  our  Bank  of  the  United 
States  had  been  two  years  in  operation,  and  it  had  brought  us  to  the 
nadir,  the  lowest  point  of  depression,  of  our  prosperity.  It  came  even 
■nearer  to  bankruptcy  than  the  Bank  of  England.  The  treasury  depart- 
ment had  to  prop  it  up,  and  it  mortgaged  the  government  funds  in  its 
hands.  The  new  bank  has  had  less  than  two  years'  enjoyment  of  its 
new  charter,  "  safer,  stronger,  and  more  prosperous  than  it  ever  ivas," 
•said  Mr.  Biddle,  yet  it  has  brought  us  down  to  the  nadir,  or  very,  near 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  595 

it,  again  ;  and  not  having  the  treasury  to  lean  upon  for  support,  except 
as  to  the  seven  or  eight  millions  of  dollars  it  withholds,  it  has  now  com- 
mitted bankruptcy. 

As  the  troubles  of  the  year  1G96  have  been  in  part  attributed  to  the 
change  of  the  metallic  currency,  by  calling  in  all  clipped  and  worn 
money,  and  substituting  coin  of  full  value,  it  may  be  interesting  to  know 
how  prices  were  affected  by  the  Bank  of  England  in  longer  periods  of 
its  existence,  for  which  no  temporary  cause  can  be  applied.  To  ascer- 
tain this,  we  take  the  article  of  wheat,  both  because  the  prices  are  well 
known,  and  because  the  cheapness  of  bread  is  more  essential  to  the 
comfort  and  to  the  subsistence  of  the  people,  than  that  of  any  other 
article. 

It  appears  that  for  seven  years  before  1693,  the  price  of  wheat  at 
Oxford  averaged  twenty-eight  shillings  eleven  pence,  while  for  the  next 
seven  years  it  averaged  fifty-two  shillings  and  four  pence,  an  advance  of 
eighty-one  per  cent.  If  the  alteration  of  the  metallic  currency  had  pro- 
duced any  effect,  substituting  coin  of  full  weight  for  the  clipped,  the 
price  of  wheat  would  have  fallen,  instead  of  rising.  Nor  was  this  a 
war  price,  for  in  1697  came  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  and  the  price  was 
much  higher  for  that  and  the  next  two  years  of  peace,  than  for  the  three 
previous  years  of  war.  The  issues  of  bank  notes  raised  the  price; 
but  after  the  currency  had  adjusted  itself  to  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try by  the  paper  driving  out  an  equal  quantity  of  coin,  prices  fell  again, 
and  continued  for  about  sixty  years  to  average  a  little  more  than  thirty 
shillings  a  quarter ;  but  vv'hen  smaller  notes  were  issued,  they  rose 
again. 

In  the  great  expansion  of  bank  issues  which  followed  the  suspension 
of  specie  payments,  the  price  rose  in  proportion  as  the  notes  increased. 
For  ten  years  before  1796,  the  average  price  of  wheat  at  Oxford  was 
fifty-one  shillings,  four  and  a  half  pence.  The  run  upon  the  bank  took 
place  in  1797,  and  that  year  and  the  next  the  price  was  falling.  But 
for  the  next  ten  years  after  1798,  it  averaged'  eighty-two  shillings  and 
five  pence  ;  and  in  the  next  ten  years,  from  1809  to  1818,  it  averaged 
one  hundred  and  seven  shillings  and  seven  pence,  being  considerably 
more  than  double  the  average  before  specie  payments  v.'cre  suspended, 
and  indeed  an  advance  of  more  than  109  per  cent. 

In  the  year  1817,  when  the  circulation  of  the  Bank  of  England  was 
at  the  highest  point,  being  thirty  millions  of  pounds  sterling,  instead  of 
eleven  millions  as  it  had  been  before  the  suspension  of  specie  payments, 
the  average  price  of  wheat  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  shillings, 
or  more  than  four  times  what  it  was  before  the  bank  commenced  its 
operations. 


596  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

From  the  year  1797  to  1817,  the  metallic  currency  of  the  world  had 
slightly  diminished,  while  the  business  to  be  transacted  had  greatly  in- 
creased ;  prices  ought,  therefore,  to  have  fallen,  instead  of  risen.  Im- 
provements in  agriculture  had  more  than  kept  pace  with  the  increase  of 
population ;  for  this  reason  also  the  prices  of  wheat  should  have  fallen. 
"War  no  doubt  raises  the  price,  but  the  war  was  raging  in  1794  and 
1795,  when  the  price  was  under  fifty  shillings ;  and  the  country  was  at 
peace  in  1817,  when  the  price  was  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  shillings. 
Corn  laws  go  but  little  way  to  account  for  the  fluctuations  ;  they  must  be 
mainly  owing  to  bank  paper. 

Compare  the  circulation  of  the  bank,  and  the  price  of  wheat  for  a 
few  years,  and  see  whether  you  can  doubt  that  they  are  cause  and  effect. 
The  circulation  of  bank  notes  in 


1787 

was 

£8,G88,570  wheat 

was  49s. 

9cZ. 

1790 

a 

10,217,360   " 

"   57 

10 

1795 

u 

13,539,160   " 

"   77 

5 

1805 

a 

18,397,880  *  " 

"  106 

— 

1810 

i( 

21,000,000   " 

"  116 

2 

1817 

u 

30,099,908   " 

"  124 

— 

After  Parliament  had  determined  in  1819  that  the  bank  should  re- 
sume specie  payment,  it  began  to  diminish  its  circulation,  which  was 
brought  down  to  £18,000,000,  a  less  sum,  in  proportion  to  the  business 
done,  than  the  circulation  of  1795.  Accordingly  wheat  fell,  and  for  ten 
years  after  1819  it  averaged  seventy  shillings.  As  thirty  millions  are 
to  eighteen  millions,  so  are  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  shillings  to 
seventy-four  shillings  ;  so  that  wheat  fell  more  than  bank  notes  di- 
minished, the  increased  business  to  be  done  giving  a  higher  value  to 
money. 

"  The  average  money  price  of  corn  regulates  more  or  less  that  of  all 
other  commodities,"  says  Adam  Smith  ;  we  may  judge,  then,  what  uni- 
versal distress  this  bank  produced  by  raising  prices.  We  are  not  left  to 
conjecture  the  effects,  they  are  matter  of  record.  The  years  1812  and 
1817  are  the  two  years  in  which  wheat  reached  the  highest  price  it  had 
borne  for  nearly  six  centuries,  since  the  great  famine  of  the  year  1270. 
These  were  two  years  when  the  taxes  were  comparatively  light,  particu- 
larly 1817.  In  1815,  for  instance,  the  taxes  were  £79,948,670,  while 
in  1812,  they  were  £70,435,679,  and  in  1817,  they  were  only  £55,836,257. 
The  distress  which  existed  then  was  produced  by  the  high  price  of 
wheat,  in  spite  of  lighter  taxation.  Yet  Mr.  Iluskisson  singled  out 
these  two  years,  as  those  in  which  the  pressure  was  most  severe.  These 
were  his  words  :  "  If  distress  bordering  upon  famine,  if  misery  bursting 
forth  in  insurrection,  and  all  the  other  symptoms  of  wretchedness,  dis- 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  597 

content,  and  difficultj,  are  to  be  taken  as  symptoms  of  pressure  upon  the 
people;  then  I  should  say,  that  1812  and  1817  were  two  years,  of  wdiicli 
no  good  man  can  ever  wish  to  w^itness  the  like  again."  * 

Thus  has  this  institution  taken  the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  the 
poor,  literally  and  flitally.  In  Barton's  poor  law^  tables  the  connection 
is  shown  between  the  high  price  of  wheat  and  the  increase  of  mortality. 
In  seven  manufacturing  districts  in  England,  when  wheat  w^as  II85.  3d., 
there  were  55,9  G5  deaths  in  a  year:  three  years  later,  wdien  wheat  had 
falfen  to  (JOs.  Id.,  there  were  but  44,794  deaths  in  the  same  districts. 
An  extensive  comparison  betw^een  prices  and  mortality  demonstrates  the 
fact,  that  nothing  tends  more  to  prolong  the  average  duration  of  life 
than  tlie  cheapness  of  good,  wholesome  bread.  Indeed,  proof  of  this 
truth  is  before  us  all,  in  the  extraordinary  longevity  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  agricultural  villages  of  New  England. 

Sin  and  death  are  nearly  related.  What  has  been  the  effect  of  the 
Bank  of  England  on  crime?  The.  year  1817  was  that  in  which  the 
amount  of  bank  notes  was  greatest,  and  that  year  is  as  distinguished  in 
the  annals  of  the  criminal  law  as  in  the  history  of  the  bank.  In  the 
year  1817,  the  number  of  criminal  prosecutions  suddenly  rose  from 
about  8,000  to  14,000  ;  the  number  of  persons  condemned  to  death, 
from  890  to  1,302  ;  of  persons  transported  to  New  Holland,  from  1,054 
to  1,734.  "Want  of  employment,  poverty,  and  hunger,  all  springing 
from  high  prices  and  the  deranged  currency,  caused  these  additional 
crimes.  In  June,  1823,  after  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  Sir 
Robert  Peel  made  the  follow^ing  statements  to  parliament.  In  1817, 
seven  out  of  nine  of  the  manufacturing  class  w^ere  unemployed;  in  1823, 
none.  In  Sheffield,  the  poor  rates  in  1820  w^ere  £3G,000  ;  in  1823, 
only  £13,000.  In  1817,  there  were  1,000  houses  empty;  in  1823,  none. 
In  Birmingham,  in  1817,  of  84,000  inhabitants,  27,500  received  aid 
from  the  poor  fund  ;  a  third  part  of  the  workmen  had  no  occupation ; 
the  remainder  were  only  half  employed  ;  the  poor  rates  amounted  to 
about  £00,000.  In  1823,  all  the  workmen  w^ere  employed;  the  poor 
rates  amounted  to  only  £20,000.  The  weekly  pay  of  weavers,  which  in 
1817  had  sunk  to  three  shillings  and  three  pence,  now  rose  to  ten,  and 
sometimes  to  sixteen  shillings.  The  exports  had  increased,  and  disturb- 
ances ceased. 

TJie  mode  in  which  paper  money  fluctuation,  such  as  the  Bank  of 
England  begets,  grinds  the  independent  poor  into  pauperism,  has  been 
fully  explained  already.  British  pauperism  is  the  offspring  of  the  bank. 
There  were  not  tw^o  hundred  thousand  paupers  in  England  and  Wales, 


*  Speech  on  Mr.  Western's  motion,  June  11,  1822. 


598  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

■when  the  bank  began  to  grind:  in  1810,  there  were  twelve  hundred 
thousand,  and  the  bank  ground  harder  after  that.  The  poor  rates  were 
but  small  in  the  time  of  King  William ;  but  in  1827  they  were  about 
thirty-eight  millions  of  dollars. 

The  madman  who  scatters  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death,  and  says,  am 
I  not  in  sport,  is  innocent  and  lovely  compared  with  the  monster  that 
inflicts  these  miseries  on  the  British  people.  It  sucks  the  blood  from 
their  veins,  the  marrow  from  their  bones :  it  makes  them  bond  slaves, 
and  mocks  at  their  unpaid  toil,  till  exhausted  nature  sinks  into  an  early 
grave.  It  is  such  an  incarnation  of  active,  all  pervading,  unremitted 
cruelty,  that  our  mushroom  whig  nobility  worship ;  that  they  desire 
to  see  enthroned  over  us ;  and  upon  whose  altar  they  are  ready 
to  sacrifice  the  properties,  morals,  lives,  and  liberties  of  American 
citizens. 

The  Bank  of  England  has  generally  had  no  actual  capital,  no,  not  a 
farthing,  for  the  purpose  of  trade.  Its  loans  and  advances  to  the  govern- 
ment have,  during  almost  the  whole  of  its  existence,  exceeded  its  whole 
capital ;  so  that  it  wrings  from  the  people,  by  the  machinery  of  paper 
money,  the  whole  of  that  immense  wealth  on  which  its  stockholders  fat- 
ten ;  and  through  which  it  has  sometimes  been,  to  use  the  expression  of 
one  of  its  friends,  "  strong  enough  to  take  the  government  on  its 
shoulders."  In  such  precarious  strength  there  is  inherent  weakness ; 
and  the  bank  is  more  likely,  ultimately,  to  bury  the  government  in  its 
ruins,  as  it  threatened  to  do  in  1696,  and  again  in  1797.  With  the  bank 
begun  the  funding  system  :  hand  in  hand  with  the  bank,  dependent  on  it, 
and  growing  out  of  it,  the  funding  system  has  advanced.  Like  the 
Siamese  twins,  they  have  one  common  breath  of  life ;  separate  them, 
and  they  perish.  "  The  practice  of  funding,"  says  Adam  Smith,  "  has 
gradually  enfeebled  every  State  which  has  adopted  it."  lie  instances 
the  Italian  Republics,  Genoa,  Venice,  Spain,  France,  and  the  United 
Provinces,  and  adds :  "  Is  it  likely  that  in  Great  Britain  alone,  a  prac- 
tice, which  has  brought  either  weakness  or  desolation  into  every  other 
country,  should  prove  altogether  innocent?"  Since  Smith  wrote  this 
(in  1776),  that  explosion  has  taken  place  in  France,  which  made  all  na- 
tions quake  with  fear,  —  an  explosion  which  would  never  have  happened, 
but  for  the  practice  of  funding:  the  British  debt  is  quadrupled:  is 
the  practice  of  funding  less  likely  now  to  bring  desolation  upon  Great 
Britain  ? 

The  United  States  had  one  fair  experiment  of  paper  money  at  the 
outset  of  their  national  existence.  An  eye  witness,  Mr.  Pelatiah  Web- 
ster, speaks  thus,  first  of  its  supposed  advantages,  and  afterwards  of  its 
real  evils.     "  Though  men  of  all  descriptions  stood  trembling  before  this 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  599 

monster  of  force,  without  daring  to  lift  a  band  against  it,  during  all  tliis 
period  (from  1776  to  1781),  yet  its  unrestrained  energy  always  proved 
ineffectual  to  its  purposes,  but  in  every  case  increased  tbe  evils  it  was 
designed  to  remedy,  and  destroyed  tbe  benefits  it  was  intended  to  pro- 
mote :  at  best  its  utmost  effect  was  like  that  of  water  sprinkled  on  a 
blacksmith's  forge,  which  indeed  deadens  the  flame  for  a  moment,  but 
never  fails  to  increase  the  heat  and  flame  of  the  internal  fire.  Many 
thousand  families  of  full  and  easy  fortune  were  ruined  by  these  fatal 
measures,  and  lie  in  ruins  to  this  day,  without  the  least  benefit  to  the 
country,  or  to  the  great  and  noble  cause  in  which  we  were  then  engaged." 
He  enumerates  the  sufferings  incident  to  the  war,  the  exorbitant  price  of 
foreign  goods,  the  extreme  scarcity  of  many  necessary  articles,  such  as 
salt,  the  total  cessation  of  many  trades  for  want  of  materials,  the  seiz- 
ure of  goods,  waggons,  stock,  grain,  cattle,  timber,  and  every  thing  else 
which  was  wanted  for  the  public  service,  the  captures,  ravages,  and 
depredations,  the  burnings  and  plunders  of  the  enemy,  which  were  very 
terrible  and  expensive.  "They  had  possession,  first  or  last,  in  the  course 
of  the  war,  of  eleven  of  the  capitals  of  the  thirteen  States,  pervaded 
the  country  in  every  part,  and  left  dreadful  tracks  of  their  marches  be- 
hind :  burning  in  cool  blood  a  great  number,  not  only  of  houses,  barns, 
mills,  etc.,  but  also  of  most  capital  towns  and  villages."  Yet  all  these 
evils  he  testifies  were  less  than  those  of  continental  money.  "  We  have 
suffered  more  from  this  cause,"  he  says,  "  than  from  every  other  cause 
of  calamity :  it  has  killed  more  men,  pervaded  and  corrupted  the 
choicest  interests  of  our  country  more,  and  done  more  injustice  tlian 
even  the  arms  and  artifices  of  our  enemies."  "  While  we  rejoice  in  the 
riches  and  strength  of  our  country,  we  have  reason  to  lament  with  tears 
of  the  deepest  regret,  the  most  pernicious  shifts  of  property  which  the 
irregularities  of  our  finances  introduced,  and  the  many  thousands  of  for- 
tunes which  were  ruined  by  it;  the  generous,  patriotic  spirits  suffered 
the  injury ;  the  idle  and  avaricious  derived  the  benefit  from  the  confu- 
sion." This  was  written  at  the  very  period  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
continental  currency  system,  while  the  people  were  yet  smarting  under 
its  torments,  the  remembrance  of  which  had  so  much  power  over  the 
fathers  of  our  Constitution,  that  they  deliberately  and  sternly  refused  to 
incorporate  in  that  instrument,  any  license  to  the  federal  government  to 
create  any  corporation,  lest  under  such  a  license  they  migJd  charter  a  na- 
tional hank. 

It  is  natural  to  imagine  that  government  paper  which  depreciates  sud- 
denly, and  then  becomes  worthless,  is  an  evil  much  more  terrible  than  a 
national  bank  with  its  ever  fluctuating  currency.  Not  so.  A  sword  cut, 
or  a  gun  shot  wound,  however  appalling,  yet  if  it  heals  or  kills,  is  less 


600  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

to  be  dreaded  than  to  be  stretched  daily  on  the  rack  for  years,  to  perish 
in  the  torture  at  last.  Law's  bank  and  Mississippi  scheme,  the  South 
Sea  bubble,  assignats,  and  continental  money,  marked  their  course  with 
wide  destruction,  but  they  had  their  end.  The  victims  who  survived, 
recovered,  others  filled  the  places  of  the  fallen,  and  a  new  career  of 
prosperity  commenced ;  but  when  will  England  shake  off  the  incubus  of 
her  national  bank?  A  paper  money  explosion,  even  like  the  most 
awful  on  record,  is  far  less  to  be  deprecated  than  the  perpetual  wrong, 
injury,  and  tyranny  of  a  perj)etually  fluctuating  paper  currency;  even 
as  the  fire  that  sweeps  the  prairie,  but  leaves  the  soil  rich  for  a  fresh 
vegetation,  is  less  fatal  than  the  eternal  curse  of  Jjarrenness  on  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah. 

Nothing  can  prevent  a  mixed  currency,  partly  of  paper,  from  becom- 
ing superabundant,  and  consequently  depreciating.  Nothing  can  pre- 
vent such  a  mixed  currency  from  fluctuating,  and  the  larger  the  propor- 
tion of  paper,  the  greater  will  be  the  fluctuations. 

A  national  bank,  or  any  other  banks,  issuing  small  bills  unrestrictedly, 
must  sooner  or  later  stop  specie  payment:  its  paper  then  becomes  irre- 
deemable paper,  which  even  the  whig  oracle  abhors.  This  result  is  not 
accidental,  it  is  certain  and  necessary :  it  is  the  inherent  vice  of  the  sys- 
tem. During  the  last  forty  years,  the  Bank  of  England  has  refused 
payment  in  specie  twenty-six  years,  and  the  banks  of  the  United  States 
generally  have  violated  their  obligations  twice.  The  first  suspension 
was  brought  to  an  end  by  totally  breaking  up  a  large  proportion  of 
those  institutions.  IIow  the  present  bankruptcy  will  terminate,  we  do 
not  know. 

I  say  nothing  of  the  government  banks  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
such  as  the  banks  of  Petersburg!!,  Copenhagen,  Vienna,  etc.,  because  the 
friends  of  a  national  bank  among  us  have  nothing  to  say  for  these.  They 
admit  them  all  to  be  miserable  failures.  Their  only  favorite  model  is 
the  Bank  of  England,  which  has  issued  irredeemable  paper  about  half 
of  the  time  since  the  United  States  had  a  banking  system.  "  A  bank 
not  to  pay  specie,"  said  Mr.  Calhoun  in  1816,  "  would  be  an  instrument 
of  deception  ;  it  would  have  no  character  or  feature  of  a  bank.  He 
should  regard  it  with  disgust  and  abhorrence."  Such  a  bank  is  the  great 
bank  in  Pennsylvania,  and  such  are  the  lesser  banks.  Small  bills  and 
specie  payments,  for  any  length  of  years,  are  incompatible.  Let  banks 
issuing  small  bills  set  out  with  what  professions  they  may,  to  this  com- 
plexion they  must  come  at  last :  sooner  or  later,  they  will  be  banks  not 
to  pay  specie. 

No  art,  wisdom,  or  power  of  man  can  prevent  irredeemable  paper  from 
depreciation.     The  promise  of  gold,  however  slightly  doubtful,  is  worth 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  601 

less  than  gold  itself;  but  nothing  can  make  a  promise  known  to  be  false, 
equal  to  a  promise  believed  to  be  true.  The  severest  penal  laws  could 
not  prevent  guineas  from  selling  at  twenty-eight,  and  even  thirty  shillings, 
in  bank  notes,  while  the  Bank  of  England  violated  its  promises.  Con- 
gress passed  an  act  of  outlawry,  (January  11, 1776,)  and  other  threaten- 
ing declarations,  against  those  who  refused  continental  bills  at  par  :  this 
did  not  keep  them  at  par.  Danton  and  Robespierre  undertook  to  sus- 
tain the  value  of  the  assignats,  the  revolutionary  money  of  France. 
First,  they  decreed  a  long  imprisonment  to  those  who  should  take,  pass, 
or  offer  assignats  below  their  nominal  value  ;  then  they  fixed  a  price  on 
all  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  punished  with  death  those  who,  having 
such  articles  for  sale,  refused  to  sell  them  at  the  legal  price  in  assignats  : 
but  the  terrors  of  the  dungeon  and  the  guillotine  proved  insufficient, 
though  unsparingly  employed,  to  give  value  to  a  w^orthless  paper.  The 
fear  of  death,  then,  cannot  check  the  depreciation  of  irredeemable  paper. 
If  we  sum  up  in  one  grand  total  all  the  woe  to  which  paper  money 
banking,  and  the  over-extended  system  of  credit  growing  out  of  it,  have 
given  birtli,  w^e  shall  pronounce  it  to  be  the  most  tremendous  of  the 
plagues  which  the  Almighty  in  his  w^rath  has  suffered  to  afflict  degen- 
erate men.  Neither  war,  nor  pestilence,  nor  famine,  ever,  for  so  long  a 
time,  spread  desolation  over  so  large  a  portion  of  the  earth.  What  now 
paralyzes  the  energies  of  Great  Britain  ?  Her  national  debt,  which 
originated  with  the  bank,  grew^  with  its  growth  and  strengthened  with  its 
strength,  is  a  part  of  the  same  system,  and  without  its  aid  could  never 
have  swelled  to  the  collossal  dimensions  in  which  it  overshadov/s  the 
empire.  When  the  bank  commenced,  the  debt  was  about  five  millions 
of  dollars.  The  object  of  the  creation  of  the  bank  was  to  increase  the 
debt,  which  it  manages  for  the  government,  and  which  is  now  about  four 
thousand  millions  of  dollars ;  the  sinew^s  of  the  poor,  from  generation  to 
generation,  being  mortgaged  to  pay  the  interest.  The  burdens  and  taxes, 
which  I  enumerated  in  speaking  of  the  banks  of  Massachusetts,  are  but 
a  drop  from  that  fountain  of  bitterness,  the  preposterous  extension  of  a 
fictitious  credit,  wdiich  has  deluged  the  world  ^vith  miseries.  View  the 
bank  and  the  funding  system  together,  in  their  combined  operation,  and 
see  what  the  abuse  of  credit,  through  fictitious  paper,  has  done  for  man- 
kind. What  enabled  Great  Britain  to  carry  on  wars  ruinous  to  her  own 
interests,  destructive  of  her  own  liberties,  and  fatal  to  the  welfare  of  the 
human  race,  for  one  half  the  period  from  the-accession  of  King  William, 
to  the  downfall  of  Napoleon?  Paper  credit;  whereby  the  ministry  of 
the  day  could  not  only  exhaust  the  resources  of  the  nation,  but  beggar 
posterity,  building  up  that  national  debt  which  is  the  most  stupendous 
phenomenon  of  modern  times ;  perhaps,  in  the  world's  whole  history. 

51 


602  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Not  Kapoleon  in  his  march  on  Moscoay,  with  that  carnival  of  horrors,  the 
retreat,  gave  so  many  corpses  to  the  wolves  and  vultures,  as  paper  credit. 
Neither  Alaric,  nor  Atilhi,  nor  any  other  scourge  of  God,  ever  struck 
down  so  many  heads,  or  glutted  his  revenge  with  so  vast  a  havoc,  or  left 
behind  him  such  wide  spread  devastation. 

If  France,  in  1789,  had  had  no  debt,  France  might  have  been  free 
and  happy,  without  a  bloody  revolution,  and  the  long  years  of  succeeding 
agony.  Who  stimulated  and  kept  alive  the  wars  that  grew  out  of  the 
French  revolution,  wherein  three  millions  of  human  lives  were  sacrificed  ? 
England.  How  did  she  sustain  those  wars  ?  By  her  paper  credit.  It 
was  paper  credit  that  held  out  through  twenty-three  years  of  carnage, 
and  at  last  conquered  at  W^aterloo.  It  is  a  stock  corporation,  existing 
by  credit,  and  operating  through  credit,  that  has  "  sold  every  monarch, 
prince,  and  State  in  India,  broken  every  contract,  and  ruined  every 
prince,  and  every  State  who  had  trusted  them,"  *  that  has  bestrewn  that 
whole  empire  with  the  bones  of  slaughtered  millions,  turning  their  temples 
into  charnel-houses,  and  making  their  Eden  a  Golgotha.  It  was  paper 
credit  that  waged  war  eight  years  upon  the  liberties  and  rising  indepen- 
dence of  America.  It  is  paper  credit  that  rivets  the  fetters  of  Ireland, 
and  tightens  the  ligatures  which  check  the  circulation  of  the  British 
empire's  lifeblood. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  is  said  to  have  predicted  at  St.  Helena,  that  the 
next  general  convulsion  of  Europe  would  be  a  conflagration  of  paper 
credit.  Wlien  that  catastrophe  befalls  the  insolvent  governments  of  the 
old  world,  when  the  national  debt  of  England,  "  incurred  one  half  in 
pulling  down  the  Bourbons,  and  the  other  half  in  setting  them  up,"  ex- 
plodes, and  blows  up  with  it  the  bank,  the  East  India  Company,  and  the 
government,  while  the  debts  of  the  continent  topple  down  with  the  shock, 
v/ill  not  the  contest  over  the  wreck  be  fiercer  than  the  memorable  reign 
of  terror,  in  proportion  as  greater  interests  are  at  stake,  and  greater 
numbers  implicated  ?  It  seems  that  elements  exist  to  form  a  crisis  as 
much  more  terrible  than  the  last,  as  the  battle  of  devils  conceived  by  the 
genius  of  Milton  exceeds  in  sublimity  the  ordinary  conflicts  of  men. 

It  is  time  to  return  from  these  speculations  to  our  own  peculiar  perils. 
"  Eet  the  Americans,"  said  William  Pitt,  "  adopt  their  funding  system, 
and  go  into  their  banking  institutions,  and  their  boasted  independence 
will  be  a  mere  phantom." 

Could  William  Pitt  have  •  foreseen,  that  in  about  sixty  years  from  our 
independence,  we  should  have  eight  hundred  and  twenty-three  banks, 
whose  loans  would  exceed  five  hundred  and  ninety  millions  of  dollars  ? 

^  Edmund  Biuke. 


OF  ROBEET   RANTOUL,  JR.  603 

Could  he  have  foreseen,  that  these  banks  woukl  issue  their  bills  to  the 
amount  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  millions,  and  then,  in  May,  1837, 
stop  payment,  and  continue  to  flood  the  country  vrith  irredeemable  paper? 
Could  he  have  foreseen,  that  a  British  banking  house  (the  Barings) 
would  in  their  circulars  describe,  truly  describe,  the  contest  between  the 
banks  and  their  privileges  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  people  and  their 
liberties  on  the  other,  as  a  contest  between  the  aristocracy  of  wealth,  and 
the  democracy  of  numbers  ;  and  that  in  this  contest,  an  institution  model- 
led after  the  Bank  of  England,  and  largely  owned  by  British  stock- 
holders, would  lead  the  bank  interest ;  while  the  democracy  of  numbers 
would  sustain  the  government,  anj  the  Constitution  of  their  country  ? 
Could  he  have  foreseen  that  merchants  having  a  deep  stake  in  the  pre- 
servation of  order,  would  threaten  rather  to  rebel  than  pay  their  dues  to 
the  government,  while  they  could  find  plenty  of  specie  to  export  in  Eng- 
land ;  and  that  the  government  would  be  called  on,  in  every  form  of  en- 
treaty and  menace,  to  allow  the  whole  basis  of  our  circulation  to  be  with- 
drawn from  us,  and  to  flow  from  the  AYest  to  the  Atlantic  cities,  and 
thence  across  the  ocean,  leaving  our  banks  and  our  people  to  certain 
ruin,  in  order  that  the  Bank  of  England  might  not  be  compelled  to  sus- 
pend specie  payments.  Could  he  have  foreseen,  that  for  the  benefit  of 
England  a  new  doctrine  would  be  advanced  in  America,  that  "  the  truth 
is,  the  banks  of  the  United  States  are  always  the  strongest  when  they 
hold  the  least  specie,  and  the  country  always  the  richest  when  it  has  the 
least  gold  and  silver  2''  If  he  foresaw  all  this,  no  wonder  he  anticipated 
that  banks  would  one  day  reduce  our  boasted  independence  to  a  mere 
phantom. 

His  forebodings  y/ill  not,  however,  be  realized.  Our  government  is  a 
popular  government.  With  us,  the  will  of  the  people  is  sovereign,  and 
it  is  not  the  will  of  the  people  to  barter  their  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
pottage.  Though  they  believed  all  the  promises  of  advantage  which 
banks  hold  out,  promises  which  the  history  of  other  nations,  and  the  ex- 
perience of  their  own,  have  shown  to  be  delusive,  yet  liberty  and  inde- 
pendence are  blessings  too  dear  to  them  to  be  weighed  in  the  balance 
with  wealth.  AYhat  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and 
lose  his  own  soul?  The  slaves  of  filthy  lucre,  who  prize  it  above  liberty, 
must  have  sold  themselves,  body  and  soul,  into  the  service  of  the  god  of 
their  idolatry ;  but  the  American  people  cling  to  their  soul's  freedom. 

To  deliver  us  from  thraldom  to  the  banks,  a  sound  currency  is  indis- 
pensable. There  are  in  the  world  more  than  four  thousand  millions  of 
dollars  v/orth  of  gold  and  silver,  coined  and  uncoined,  taken  together. 
Of  this,  we  want  sixty  millions  only,  in  addition  to  Avhat  we  now  have, 
to  give  us  a  currency  as  solid  as  that  of  France,  which  is  nine  tenths 


i304  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

specie.  A  tenth  of  our  exports  would  pay  for  it  in  six  years.  If  we 
will  it,  we  shall  have  it.  It  must  be  had.  The  war  against  abhorred 
paper  must  go  on,  till  liberty  is  triumphant. 

What  though  the  monster  we  assail  towers  in  portentous  proportions, 
and  frowns  upon  us  with  a  fearful  aspect !  It  is  but  an  unholy  image  of 
mammon.  Its  presence  defiles  the  Temple  of  Liberty,  whence  its  frag- 
ments shall  soon  be  cast  out,  for  its  discordant  materials  are  shattered 
and  tumbling.  Its  impudent  forehead  is  of  brass,  and  its  base  feet  of 
clay,  its  hollow  carcase  stuffed  with  worthless  rags,  by  whose  expansion 
it  bursts  asunder,  like  the  Babylonish  dragon,  under  whose  table  those 
that  knew  the  privy  doors  entered  continually,  and  devoured  the  expenses 
of  an  empire. 

Let  the  bandogs  of  faction  howl :  fangless  now,  their  malice  is  im- 
potent. A  great  people  is  conscious  of  its  rights  and  power.  Calmly 
majestic,  it  gathers  its  strength,  and  rises  to  overturn,  smite,  and  de- 
molish whatever  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  cannot  tolerate.  Rashness 
shall  not  rule  the  hour,  nor  an  avenging  fury  confound  innocence  with 
guilt ;  but  the  inflexible  determination  of  virtuous  wisdom  shall  carry  on 
reform,  till  her  warfare  be  utterly  accomplished.  Then  when  the  proud 
bearing  of  paper  feudality  is  humbled,  the  hoarse  throat  of  anarchy 
silenced,  and  popular  sovereignty  sways  over  all  the  sceptre  of  equal 
justice,  then  may  we  exult  in  the  security,  eternal,  as  far  as  human 
foresight  reaches,  of  American  liberty,  union,  and  independence. 


DEBATE  m  MPt.  RAXTOUL'S  OEDER  FOR  M  IXQUIRY  KTO  THE 
MMim  SYSTEM. 

In  the  House  on  Saturday,  March  17.  The  orders  of  the  day  being 
taken  up,  the  first  article  was  the  second  set  of  orders  on  banks  offered 
by  Mr.  Rantoul  in  January,  the  first  set  having  been  postponed  to  Tues- 
day next. 

The  orders  were  then  modified  by  the  mover  —  so  that  they  now 
read  :  — 

House  of  B,epresentatives,  January  22,  1838. 

Ordered,  That  a  committee  of  seven  members  of  this  house  be 
appointed  to  consider  the  expediency  of  providing  by  law :  — 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  605 

1.  That  no  bank,  issuing  bills  for  circulation,  sliall  receive  any  depos- 
its, except  special  deposits. 

2.  That  no  bank  shall  pay  out  the  bills  of  any  other  bank,  except  to 
the  bank  which  issued  them,  or  to  another  bank  in  payment  of  bank 
balances. 

3.  That  no  bank,  after  the  day  of  next,  shall  issue  bills  less 
than  two  dollars  ;  after  the  day  of  bills  less  than  three  dollars ; 
after  the  day  of  bills  less  than  live  dollars  ;  after  the  day 
of  bills  less  than  ten  dollars,  under  pain  of  forfeiting  times 
the  amount  for  every  bill  so  issued. 

4.  That  no  bank  shall  issue  bills  for  dollars  and  fractional  parts  there- 
of, under  pain  of  forfeiting  times  the  amount  for  every  bill  so 
issued. 

5.  That  a  certain  degree  of  publicity  be  given  to  all  the  proceedings 
of  banks. 

G.  That  the  several  banks  shall,  on  the  first  Saturday  of  every  month, 
return  to  the  olTice  of  the  secretary  of  State  an  exact  list  of  all  discounts 
and  loans  of  every  sort  made  during  the  month  previous,  with  the  names 
of  the  borrowers,  sureties,  or  indorsers,  and  a  particular  description  of 
all  the  securities  taken,  which  lists  shall  be  open  to  public  inspection, 
and  be  laid  before  the  legislature  while  in  session. 

7.  That  the  bank  tax  be  repealed,  or  reduced,  or  a  part  thereof  placed 
on  circulation  instead  of  capital. 

Mr.  Rantoul  said,  that  as  it  had  been  intimated  that  these  orders  ought 
not  to  be  referred  at  all,  on  account  of  the  supposed  severity  of  some  of 
their  provisions,  he  would  say  a  few  words,  not  to  show  that  they  ouglit 
to  be  adopted,  because  that  was  not  the  question  before  the  house,  but  to 
show  that  they  at  least  deserved  to  be  inquired  into. 

If  an  inquiry  was  to  be  ordered,  the  house,  he  thought,  would  not  send 
it  to  the  quasi  defunct  committee  on  the  memorial  of  Eliphalet  Williams, 
or  to  the  joint  committee  on  banks,  for  reasons  sufficiently  under- 
stood. The  house  would  no  doubt  prefer  a  select  committee  ;  he  there- 
fore made  that  motion. 

The  first  proposition  is,  that  banks  which  issue  bills  shall  not  receive 
deposits. 

There  ought  to  be  always  on  hand  a  fund  sufficiently  large,  always 
responsible  for  the  redemption  of  any  bills  issued,  otherwise  the  circula- 
tion is  unsafe.  There  can  be  no  such  fund  in  any  bank  that  receives 
free  deposits.  The  depositors  take  away  all  the  security  of  the  bill 
holder.  In  a  race  between  them,  the  depositors  come  out  best,  for  they 
live  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  bank,  are  business  men  and  can  under- 
stand when  there  is  danger,  and  take  large  sums ;  while  the  bills  are 

51* 


606  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  AVRITINGS 

scattered  at  a  distance,  held  in  small  sums,  and  by  j^ersons  often  not 
likely  to  suspect  tlie  danger  till  there  is  nothing  left  in  the  bank  to  pay 
them. 

jS"ow  if  the  law  should  take  a  peculiar  care  of  either  class,  it  should 
be  of  the  bill  holders,  and  not  of  the  depositors. 

Because  with  the  depositor  it  is  a  matter  of  voluntary  arrangement 
where  he  puts  his  money.  He  selects  his  bank  at  his  leisure,  for  good 
reasons,  and  after  sufficient  examination,  and  if  alarmed,  changes  it. 
The  bill  holder  takes  the  bill  when  he  has  no  time  or  opportunity  to  in- 
quire, and  often  when  he  could  get  nothing  else ;  yet  his  interests  are 
sacrificed  to  the  other. 

To  be  redeemable  instantly  on  demand,  without  a  shadow  of  doubt,  is 
the  first  essential  requisite  of  a  paper  designed  to  constitute  a  part  of  the 
circulating  medium.  Delay,  or  doubt  of  redemption,  cause  it  to  depre- 
ciate, and  make  it  unfit  for  a  currency.  Surely  then,  bills  of  banks 
from  which  the  whole  basis  on  which  the  bills  depend  for  their  redemp- 
tion can  be  taken  away  at  once  by  depositors,  ought  not  to  form 
any  part,  much  less  almost  the  whole  of  the  currency  of  any  civilized 
nation. 

Yet  such  is  the  precarious  nature  of  our  paper  money.  The  present 
bankruptcy  of  our  banks  is  from  this  cause.  The  banks  in  the  great 
cities  stopped  payment  because  they  could  not,  or  believed  they  could 
not,  or  pretended  they  could  not  cash  their  deposits  fast  enough  to  meet 
expected  calls.  The  failure  in  the  great  cities  stopped  the  country 
banks.  Would  it  not  be  too  disgraceful  ever  to  fall  a  second  time  into 
the  same  calamity,  because  we  will  not  employ  a  safeguard  so  perfectly 
obvious  as  a  distinction  between  banks  of  discount  and  deposit,  and  banks 
of  discount  and  circulation? 

Let  the  banks  arrange  the  business  among  themselves.  Let  those 
who  choose  still  to  issue,  do  so,  but  on  condition  that  they  keej)  on  hand 
a  proper  proportion  of  specie,  the  balance  of  their  circulation  in  some 
safe  investment  easily  convertible  into  specie,  and  take  no  free  deposits. 
Such  banks  as  consider  that  their  circulation  would  be  of  no  value  to 
them  under  such  restrictions,  would  forego  the  privilege,  and  might  con- 
tinue to  receive  deposits.  If  the  bank  tax  is  to  be  continued,  such  a 
division  of  the  business  would  cause  that  tax  to  bear  more  equally, 
though  that  is  a  matter  of  slight  importance  compared  to  the  additional 
security  to  be  given  to  the  public. 

The  second  proposition  is,  that  banks  shall  not  pay  out  to  the  public 
the  bills  of  other  banks. 

In  the  existing  state  of  things,  the  mutual  action  of  our  banks  gives 
to  the  public  the  worst  possible  circulation.     The  banks  which  are  in  the 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  607 

soundest  condition,  and  most  prudently  managed,  put  out  no  bills  of  their 
own,  but  endeavor  to  withdraw  those  already  in  circulation.  This  is 
right ;  this  they  ought  to  continue  to  do  until  they  resume  the  payment 
of  their  obligations,  for  they  would  have  no  excuse,  pressure  or  no  pres- 
sure, for  contracting  debts  which  tliey  confess  they  cannot  pay,  and 
which  they  declare  they  will  not  even  attempt  to  pay.  These  banks 
deserve  great  credit  for  reducing  their  liabilities  to  the  public,  yet  it 
is  perfectly  plain  that  their  bills  are  the  safest  part  of  the  paper  cur- 
rency, and  the  very  bills  which  the  public  would  prefer  to  have,  if  they 
could  get  them. 

But  while  the  sound  banks  properly  and  from  a  sense  of  duty,  with- 
draw their  bills  from  circulation,  the  unsound  banks  thrust  out  theirs, 
and  those  that  are  in  their  dying  agonies  thrust  them  out  in  great  abun- 
dance. They  are  under  the  strongest  temptation  to  do  this,  a  temptation 
w^hicli  very  few  of  them  ever  have  resisted,  or  ever  will  resist.  An  em- 
barrassed bank,  like  an  individual  in  the  same  situation,  provides  for  one 
liability  by  creating  another,  and  every  struggle  they  make  only  plunges 
them  deeper  in  embarrassment.  A  bank,  like  an  individual  in  failing 
circumstances,  is  like  a  man  dying  of  a  consumption,  always  hoping  to 
recover  down  to  the  last  gasp.  Connected  with  a  failing  bank  are 
usually  failing  debtors  to  the  bank.  The  bank  must  continue  to  accom- 
modate them,  or  they  will  fiiil  and  leave  their  bad  notes  on  its  hands, 
dragging  down  the  bank  with  them  in  tlieir  ruin.  It  must  relieve  its 
debtors  or  perish  with  them.  For  this  purpose  it  throws  out  its  bills 
thicker  than  the  leaves  of  Vallambrosa. 

The  other  banks  continue  to  receive  these  doubtful  bills,  as  they  come 
thicker  and  thicker  down  to  the  final  death  throe,  because  they  all,  as 
well  as  the  immediate  suiferer,  wish  to  put  far  off  the  evil  day  of  a  bank 
failure.  Dy  receiving  them,  they  give  them  credit  with  the  public,  but 
they  do  not  send  them  home  to  the  bank  v/hicli  issued  them ;  that  would 
break  the  bank,  which  they  do  not  wish  to  do.  Instead  of  sending 
home  the  bad  bills,  they  issue  them  again  from  their  own  counters, 
always  issuing  the  worst  first,  that  the  dreaded  loss  may  fall  on  some 
one  else.  Whence  it  happens  that  the  weakest  banks  supply  the  current 
circulation,  and  very  nearly  in  the  proportion  of  their  weakness.  One 
hardly  ever  sees  a  bill  of  that  old  fashioned  institution,  the  Massachu- 
setts Bank,  while  six  or  eight  weeks  ago,  the  Hancock,  Fulton,  and  Com- 
mercial banks,  furnished  more  bills  for  circulation  than  fifteen  of  the 
best  and  soundest  banks  in  the  city. 

Ought  such  a  system  for  throwing  losses  on  the  part  of  the  commu- 
nity least  able  to  bear  them,  the  scattered  bills  holders,  to  be  suffered  to 
continue  for  a  day  ?      It  is  piratical  in  its  operation ;  it  plunders  the 


608  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

mechanic  and  laborer,  to  sustain  the  swindling  speculator.  Your  large 
dealer  does  not  keep  a  doubtful  bill  on  hand;  it  would  burn  in  his 
pocket ;  he  knows  w^hat  it  is ;  he  is  rid  of  it  in  fifteen  minutes ;  and 
pushes  the  loss  on  somebody  who  does  not  keep  up  with  the  state  of  the 
banks,  and  who  has  no  suspicion.  The  man  who  toils  all  day  for  the 
rag  which  ought  to  represent  a  dollar,  takes  it  home  at  night,  happy,  for 
he  believes  he  has  wherewith  to  buy  his  children  bread.  lie  sleeps 
sound.  His  bill  is  "  as  good  as  the  bank ! "  lie  goes  forth  in  the 
morning  to  make  his  little  purchase,  and  lo !  the  bank  has  failed  !  How 
lucky !  how  fortunate !  is  the  cry  he  hears.  The  great  house  of  Gripe 
&  Company  got  rid  of  three  thousand  dollars  of  the  bills  last  Saturday 
night,  —  paid  it  away  for  wages  !  Lucky  for  Gripe  !  Alas,  sighs  the 
man  with  the  lying  dollar,  I  have  lost  my  all ! 

Justice  and  humanity  require  this  species  of  piracy  to  be  suppressed. 
I  cannot  doubt  that  every  honest  man  in  the  house  will  lend  a  helping 
hand  towards  its  suppression. 

The  third  proposition  is,  that  small  bills  shall  be  gradually  suppressed. 

This  is  called  for  by  the  general  interest,  as  the  soundest  principles  of 
political  economy,  such  as  are  universally  admitted  among  intelligent 
men,  will  demonstrate.  By  the  grimace  upon  the  countenance  of  gentle- 
men, when  this  article  w^as  first  read  from  the  chair,  I  w^as  almost  led  to 
doubt  whether  it  were  a  whig  measure.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, of  that  fact.  The  Hon.  Daniel  Webster,  one  of  your  senators  in 
congress,  has  approved  of  it  in  a  speech,  in  his  place  in  the  national  sen- 
ate. Your  other  senator,  Hon.  John  Davis,  has  recommended  it  ex- 
pressly for  this  Commonwealth  while  governor.  But  as  I  know  what 
was  called  whig  doctrine  one  year,  is  often  called  tory  the  next,  I  will 
quote  later  authority.  Honest  Joseph  Ritner,  —  the  illustrious  whig  gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania,  sitting  under  the  droppings  of  the  whig  sanctuary, 
the  great  bank,  and  imbued  with  wisdom  from  the  whig  oracle,  the  paper 
money  autocrat,  Nicholas,  —  honest  Joseph  Ritner,  proposes  to  the  present 
legislature  of  the  keystone  State  the  suppression  of  small  bills.  Ques- 
tionless, therefore,  it  is  a  genuine  whig  measure.  Not  that  I  like  it  any 
the  better  because  it  is  or  is  not  of  the  whig  school,  but  this  is  thrown 
out  for  the  consideration  of  those  gentlemen  who  oppose  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments,  now  that  the  banks  are  able  to  resume,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  a  tory  doctrine  that  a  man  ought  to  pay  his  honest  debts 
according  to  agreement  if  he  can. 

But  as  I  have  noticed  for  some  years  past,  indeed  ever  since  the 
British  party  in  this  country  took  up  a  British  name,  which  was  about 
the  first  day  of  April,  183 1,  that  the  party  calling  themselves  whigs  in 
Massachusetts  always  follow  precedents  furnished  by  British  tories,  I 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  609 

will  give  them  a  British  tory  opinion  on  the  point.  It  is  true  that  it  was 
the  whig  party  in  Great  Britain  who  from  the  first  denounced  the  sus- 
pension of  specie  payments,  and  the  tories  who  justified  that  measure 
and  continued  it  for  twenty-six  years.  But  after  the  resumption,  even 
tories,  those  who  were  not  rabid,  condemned  with  one  voice  the  perni- 
cious use  of  small  notes.  Mr.  Iluskisson,  a  tory  minister,  —  and  I  quote 
him  with  respect,  because  this  distinguished  statesman  brought  to  the 
discussion  of  practical  questions  a  vast  amount  of  practical  information, 
—  Mr.  Iluskisson  said,  on  the  10th  of  February,  1826,  that,  "  it  was 
his  opinion,  an  opinion  not  hastily  formed,  but  the  result  of  long  and 
anxious  observation,  that  a  permanent  state  of  cash  payments,  and  a 
circulation  of  one  and  two  pound  notes,  could  not  coexist."  If  this  be 
true  in  England,  and  their  wisest  statesmen  do  not  doubt  it,  much  more 
is  it  true  with  us,  where  from  other  causes,  the  fluctuations  of  the  cur- 
rency are  three  times  as  sudden  and  severe  as  they  are  in  England.  If 
there  can  be  no  permanent  specie  payments,  where  there  are  one  and 
two  pound  notes,  still  less  can  there  be  where  a  full  fourth,  if  not  a  third 
of  the  circulation  is  in  bills  less  than  one  pound,  as  is  the  case  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

When  Edmund  Burke  sent  word  to  Pitt,  that  if  he  issued  one  pound 
notes,  he  would  never  again  see  a  guinea  in  circulation,  he  announced 
no  new  doctrine,  he  uttered  no  unknown  truth.  It  is  an  axiom  undeni- 
able and  without  exception,  that  paper,  if  freely  issued,  will  expel  coin 
of  the  same  or  nearly  the  same  denominations.  If  we  would  have  per- 
manent and  secure  specie  payments,  we  must  not  rely  alone  upon  the 
coin  actually  in  the  bank  vaults,  but  there  must  be  an  abundance  of  coin 
in  free  circulation,  from  which  the  banks  can  recruit  their  stock  when- 
ever they  have  occasion.  To  command  a  supply  of  specie,  we  must  sup- 
press that  form  of  paper  which  drives  out  gold  coin.  It  would  be  useless 
to  stop  short  of  ten  dollars,  for  you  will  see  no  half  eagles  while  you  have 
the  five  dollar  bill.  Silver  is  too  cumbrous  for  general  use.  There  is 
too  much  of  it  in  the  world,  and  it  is  therefore  too  cheap.  By  suppress- 
ing bills  under  ten  dollars,  we  should  secure  our  share  of  the  benefit 
from  the  rapid  operation  of  the  United  States  Mint  for  a  few  years  past, 
a  blessing  which  we  now  expel. 

With  gold  and  silver  coin  for  the  small  retail  business,  the  community 
would  be  relieved  from  the  loss  from  bills  lost  or  destroyed,  counterfeit 
bills,  and  bills  of  broken  banks,  almost  all  of  which  falls,  through  the 
medium  of  small  bills,  upon  the  poorer  classes.  By  suppressing  that 
part  of  the  paper  currency  which  contributes  most  to  the  periodical  fluc- 
tuations, we  should  make  those  fluctuations  less  severe,  and  thereby 
lessen  the  number  of  bankruptcies,  and  the  innumerable  heavy  losses 


610  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

whicli  in  every  three  years  grow  out  of  those  fluctuations.  To  accom- 
plish this  purpose,  we  should  not  stop  at  ten  dollars.  At  some  future 
time,  to  be  fixed  hereafter,  Ave  should  go  to  twenty,  and  ultimately  as 
high  as  •fifty  dollars.  In  France,  the  smallest  note  of  the  Bank  of  France 
is  for  five  hundred  francs,  and  they  have  no  revulsions  in  their  currency. 
The  smallest  note  of  the  Bank  of  England  is  five  pounds.  They  have 
revulsions,  but  not  a  third  part  so  ruinous  and  terrible  as  ours.  Some 
of  their  prominent  statesmen  believe,  that  by  suppressing  all  bills  under 
twenty  pounds,  they  may  get  rid  of  their  revulsions. 

The  next  proposition,  to  suppress  fractional  bills,  I  have  reason  to  sup- 
pose a  decided  majority  of  the  house  already  approve ;  I  therefore  pass 
it  for  the  present  without  comment. 

The  fifth  proposition  is  for  a  certain  degree  of  publicity  in  banking 
transactions. 

Our  laws  already  sanction  the  .principle,  that  a  man  shall  not  hold  out 
false  appearances  of  property,  and  thereby  defraud  his  neighbors.  All 
titles  of  real  estate,  and  all  incumbrances  thereon,  must  be  upon  the 
public  record.  With  universal  approbation  we  have  abolished  those 
odious  private  attachments,  so  long  the  opprobrium  of  this  Common- 
wealth. We  allow  no  mortgage  of  personal  property  to  be  valid  unless 
it  is  on  the  town  books.  Yet  any  man  who  can  secretly  obtain  a  bank 
loan  to  the  amount  of  five  thousand  dollars,  may  get  property  into  his 
hands  which  gives  him  a  credit  for  five  thousand  dollars  more.  Upon 
this  appearance  he  may  borrow  ten  thousand,  and  then  he  is  good  every- 
where for  twenty  thousand,  and  so  on,  according  to  the  extent  of  his 
genius  for  humbug.  His  business  notes,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  are 
discounted  on  the  strength  of  his  indorsement,  and  he  builds  up  an  enor- 
mous pyramid  resting  upon  a  point,  and  growing  broader  as  it  ascends, 
which  tumbles  from  its  weight,  and  buries  the  unfortunate  by  hundreds 
beneath  its  ruins. 

Should  not  the  law  guard  against  these  stupendous,  wholesale  frauds  ? 
Hang  up  a  true  and  full  tell-tale  book  in  the  entry  of  every  bank,  and 
there  will  be  an  end  of  them  ;  they  are  engendered  by  secrecy.  At  the 
least,  the  stockholders  should  have  a  right  to  know  to  whom  and  in  wliat 
sums  their  money  is  lent.  Even  this  degree  of  publrcity  would  have 
prevented  many  bank  failures  ;  but  a  more  complete  publicity  would  be 
a  most  effectual  check. 

Monthly  returns  of  loans  would  carry  out  the  same  principle. 

The  last  proposition  is  for  the  repeal  of  the  bank  tax,  to  go  hand  in 
hand  with  a  thorough  and  radical  reform  of  the  system. 

This  tax  being  drawn  ultimately  on  goods  consumed,  is  heavier  on  the 
poor  than  on  the  rich,  heavier  on  the  country  than  on  the  city.    It  is  the 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  611 

cause  of  the  increase  of  our  State  expenses  in  thirteen  years  from  two 
hundred  thousand  to  six  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  is  the  cause  o  f 
the  sudden  and  vast  expansion  of  our  banking  system.  It  is  the  shield 
which  now  protects  its  abuses. 

At  the  same  time,  as  this  tax  gives  us  a  hold  upon  the  banking  interest, 
I  would  not  let  go  that  hold  without  a  reform  of  abuses  by  the  same  bill 
that  repeals  the  tax. 

Mr.  Dwight,  of  Springfield,  then  made  a  speech  against  the  removal 
of  the  deposits,  and  the  sub-treasury  bill,  after  which  the  house  adopted 
the  order  to  appoint  a  committee  ;  but  on  Monday,  a  motion  to  reconsider 
was  made,  and  the  subject  laid  on  the  table. 


RESOLVES  AGAIXST  M  IXDEPEXDENT  TREASURY : 

MR.   KANTOUL's   amendment    EMBODYING^    MK.    WEBSTER's    IDEAS. 

The  following  resolves,  which  passed  the  Massachusetts  senate,  March 
8th,  were  discussed  in  the  house  on  Thursday,  March  22d  :  — 

Eesolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill,  by  making  no  provision  for  fur- 
nishing a  currency  in  and  between  the  several  States,  fails  of  performing 
a  duty  authorized  by  the  Constitution,  and  demanded  by  the  interest  of 
the  whole  country. 

Resolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill  would,  by  withdrawing  from  cir- 
culation large  amounts  of  specie,  diminish  the  basis  on  which  State 
institutions  are  founded,  place  them  in  too  great  a  degree  in  the  power 
of  the  general  government,  deprive  them  of  the  means  of  extending 
usual  and  necessary  facilities  to  those  engaged  in  commerce  and  manu- 
factures, and,  by  causing  distrust,  have  a  direct  tendency  to  postpone  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments. 

Resolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill,  by  giving  to  the  government  and 
its  officers  a  different  currency  from  that  provided  for  the  people,  and  by 
increaHing  the  power  and  the  patronage  of  the  executive,  is  hostile  to 
the  genius,  and  may  be  destructive  of  the  permanence  of  our  republican 
institutions. 

Resolved,  That  his  Excellency  the  governor  be  requested  to  forward 
copies  of  the  above  resolutions  to  our  senators  and  representatives  in 


612  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

congress,  and  that  tliej  be  desired  to  use  all  proper  and  honorable  means 
to  prevent  the  bill  in  question  from  becoming  a  law. 

Mr.  Rantoul  moved  to  substitute  for  different  the  word  better,  so  as  to 
read,  a  better  currency  than  that  provided  for  the  people.  A  different 
currency  might  be  a  worse  one  ;  and  if  it  was  not  better,  how  could  gov- 
ernment be  blamed  if  they  gave  themselves  a  currency  precisely  equiva- 
lent ?  He  presumed  it  was  intended  by  this  resolve  to  make  a  charge 
against  the  government.  If  so,  let  it  be  expressed,  and  some  point  given 
to  the  resolve.  If  gentlemen  meant  better  by  dfferent,  why  not  say  so  ? 
If  they  meant  no  better,  why  find  fault  with  the  bill  in  this  particular  ? 
He  supposed  the  resolve  intended  to  charge  that  government  takes  the 
specie  and  leaves  rags  for  the  people  ;  and  although  it  is  not  true  that 
the  government  pays  any  thing  different  from  what  it  receives,  specie 
and  its  own  notes  bearing  interest,  and  payable  in  specie,  yet  this  clause 
furnished  a  good  opportunity  to  test  the  sense  of  the  house  which  was 
the  better  currency,  specie  or  paper,  or  whether  they  are  precisely 
equivalent. 

Mr.  Gray,  of  Boston,  thought  the  resolutions  severe  enough  as  they 
were.  He  was  satisfied  with  them  as  they  were,  and  presumed  all  the 
opponents  of  the  sub-treasury  scheme  were  also. 

The  motion  to  amend  was  lost  by  a  division,  74  to  209. 

[So  it  was  solemnly  decided  that  the  sub-treasury  bill  does  not  give 
the  office  holders  a  better  currency  than  the  people  have.] 

Mr.  Rantoul  said,  that  as  so  large  a  majority  of  the  house  were  of 
opinion  that  specie  is  no  better  than  bank  bills,  he  would  propose  another 
amendment  to  get  at  the  meaning  of  the  resolve  ;  namely,  that  the  sub- 
treasury  bill  provides  a  worse  currency  for  the  government  than  that 
provided  for  the  people.  If  it  was  not  better,  and  was  not  equal,  and  yet 
was  dfferent,  it  must  be  worse. 

The  fact  was,  the  sub-treasury  bill  provided  no  currency.  The  Con- 
stitution had  done  that ;  but  the  resolution  was  utterly  pointless,  as  it 
said  merely  a  different  currency,  with  no  other  qualification. 

This  amendment  was  also  rejected,  7  to  205. 

[So  the  currency  furnished  by  the  government  is  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  that  provided  for  the  people.] 

A  member  rose  and  said  he  wanted  to  move  the  previous  question, 
but  before  he  sat  down  he  changed  his  mind.  * 

Mr.  Rantoul  was  not  surprised  at  this  movement  to  cut  off  discussion 
on  these  resolves.  He  did  not  wonder  at  the  disposition  already  mani- 
fested by  the  majority  to  shield  their  resolves  behind  the  previous  ques- 
tion.     Eleven  weeks  had  been  expended  in  attacks  on  the  general 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  613 

government  and  its  policy.  Not  a  word  had  been  said  on  the  other  side, 
and  yet  the  friends  of  the  resolves  were  so  unwilling  to  hear  their  false 
positions  exposed,  that  they  manifested  a  disposition  to  choke  off  the 
minority,  the  moment  one  of  them  got  the  floor. 

Before  he  went  into  the  subject,  he  had  another  amendment  to  offer. 
It  had  been  thrown  out  in  this  house,  as  a  sort  of  rule  of  party  dis- 
cipline, that  the  majority,  the  whig  party,  would  oppose  any  measure, 
however  proper  or  beneficial,  that  should  be  proposed  by  a  political 
opponent !  Something  of  this  kind,  it  had  been  supposed,  had  influenced 
the  party  vote  given  in  favor  of  sustaining  the  banks  in  their  violated 
charters,  independent  of  the  legislature  ;  but  as  much  stress  had  been 
laid  on  this  doctrine  of  party  discipline,  he  repudiated  it  for  the  majority 
as  a  base  slander.  However  much  the  majority  here  might  be  party 
men  or  collar  men,  according  to  the  manual  of  party  discipline  laid  down 
by  the  gentleman  from  Boston,  Mr.  Austin,  there  could  not  be  such  a 
scoundrel  on  this  floor  as  a  man  who,  with  the  oath  he  had  taken  upon 
him,  would  reject  a  proper  and  beneficial  proposition  merely  because  it 
came  from  a  political  opponent. 

The  gentleman  from  Springfield,  Mr.  D wight,  on  Saturday  of  week 
before  last,  imagined,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  that  I  expressed  some  exulta- 
tion at  even  the  possibility  of  success  in  that  great  and  noble  enterprise 
of  subjecting  the  insurgent  banks  to  the  lawful  government  of  the  Com- 
monwealth. I  was  delighted,  he  said,  at  the  prospect ;  and  there  was 
then  some  chance  that  the  banks  might  not  conquer  us.  And  why  should 
I  not  be  delighted  ?  Every  victory  of  the  spirit  of  justice  over  the 
power  of  evil  delights  me,  and  I  trust  ever  will  delight  me.  Even  the 
faint  glimmering  of  hope  that  men  wandering  in  darkness  will  tread  the 
right  path,  when  I  see  their  blind  eyes  partially  unsealed,  delights  me  ; 
the  more  so,  as  that  triumph  of  truth  is  unexpected.  But  it  was  not  the 
part  of  a  tactician,  says  the  gentleman,  to  manifest  delight,  and  by  that 
exhibition  of  feeling  I  have  lost  good  whig  votes  enough  to  turn  the  scale 
on  the  bank  question  ! 

Sir,  I  do  not  profess  to  be  a  tactician.  I  only  speak  as  a  plain  man 
v/hat  I  think,  and  know  no  reason  to  conceal  an  honest  feeling  for  a 
moment.  The  gentleman  threv/  out  boldly  and  broadly  the  intimation 
that  members  would  vote  against  that  glorious  bank  order,  our  declara- 
tion of  infcependence  from  bank  tyranny,  if  we  had  but  dared  to  pass  it, 
—  that  members  would  vote,  I  say,  against  it,  because  its  passage  would 
delight  the  gentleman  from  Gloucester  !  Other  gentlemen,  some  three- 
or  four,  have  thrown  out  the  same  intimation.  Is  that  a  reason  to  give 
your  constituents  when  you  go  home,  or  to  your  conscience  now  ?     I 

52 


614  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

voted  against  expediency,  right,  and  justice,  to  vex  the  member  from 
Gloucester  !    Dare  any  man,  having  any  character  at  stake,  say  that  ? 

Oh,  no  !  Oh,  no,  sir  !  It  is  impossible.  Gentlemen  had  not  weighed 
their  words,  for  they  could  not  cast  on  any  member  of  this  house  the 
imputation  of  such  baseness.  Even  when  the  compiler  of  the  manual  of 
party  discipline,  Mr.  Austin,  of  Boston,  blew  his  ram's  horn,  and  sum- 
moned the  faithful  to  form  and  wheel  in  platoons  according  to  order,  he 
could  not  look  down  with  such  supreme  contempt  upon  his  fellow  legis- 
lators as  to  expect  that  they  would  rally  at  that  blast.  I  am  not  willing 
to  believe  that  such  could  have  been  the  real  motive  of  a  single  vot(?,  and 
those  who  have  urged  such  motives  cannot  have  done  it  seriously,  but 
rather  in  ill-timed  s^^ort. 

Sir,  we  have  a  great  duty  incumbent  on  us,  and  we  have  sworn  faith- 
fully and  impartially  to  discharge  and  perform  it  according  to  the  best 
of  oar  abilities  and  understanding.  Do  gentlemen  mean  to  charge  on 
any  member  of  this  house  that  he  would  forget  his  accountability  to  his 
constituents,  to  his  country,  to  his  own  conscience,  and  to  his  God,  and 
lay  the  guilt  of  perjury  upon  his  soul,  by  voting  against  a  measure 
which  his  conscience  and  understanding  approve,  because  to  pass  it 
would  delight  the  gentleman  from  Gloucester  ?  It  is  barely  possible 
that  there  exists  somewhere  in  Massachusetts  a  soul  so  vile.  But 
the  miscreant  is  not  here.  lie  does  not  breathe  the  atmosphere  of 
this  hall.  Such  a  wretch  is  transparent.  The  people  would  have 
seen  his  heart.  They  have  not  sent  him  here  intrusted  with  their 
dearest  rights.  It  is  a  libel  on  the  people,  as  well  as  on  the  house,  to 
imagine  otherwise.  They  pick  out  honest  men  to  do  their  business 
here.  Every  member  of  this  house  voted  and  will  vote  impartially  upon 
this  and  every  question.  But  lest  a  good  thing  might  even  be  falsely 
supposed  to  suffer  from  prejudice,  in  consequence  of  its  being  proposed 
from  a  quarter  oj)posed  to  the  majority  of  this  house,  he  would  offer 
nothing  of  his  own,  but  borrow  the  language  of  one  who  had  been  sus- 
tained by  that  majority  through  all  changes  and  on  all  occasions.  It  was 
to  be  presumed  that  the  whigs  could  have  no  objections  to  the  doctrines 
of  their  great  expounder  of  the  Constitution.  They  called  that  distin- 
guished gentleman,  Mr.  Webster,  the  Defender  of  the  Constitution,  and 
he  certainly  was  entitled  to  that  appellation,  for  he  had  defended  it  On  all 
sides,  and  upon  all  grounds.  For  the  last  twenty  years,  the^had  not 
been  a  great  question  of  which  he  had  not  bsen  the  distinguished  defender 
on  hoth  sides,  for  he  would  do  justice  to  his  talents.  He  had  made  what 
were  always  called  the  greatest  speeches  in  the  world,  first  on  one  side 
and  then  on  the  other,  and  his  folloAvers  had  never  questioned  his  being 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  615 

riglit,  whichever  side  he  supported.  It  would  be  easy  to  point  out  the 
opposite  positions  in  which  the  great  whig  champion  had  stood  on  the 
leading  questions  in  the  country.  lie  had  made  the  best  speech  against 
a  bank,  the  best  for  the  bank  ;  the  most  unanswerable  against  a  tariff, 
the  most  convincing  for  a  tariff,  —  and  so  on,  —  so  his  friends  have  said  ; 
and  on  w-hichever  side  he  expounds  the  Constitution,  wdth  them  it  is 
always  the  only  true  doctrine,  nor  do  they  refuse  to  support  both  sides 
of  a  contradiction  at  the  same  time,  if  you  show  them  their  champion  on 
both  sides.  Indeed,  they  sometimes  boast,  and  with  some  plausibility, 
that  he  is  a  remarkably  consistent  man,  being  almost  always  on  all  pos- 
sible sides  of  all  questions.  Some  of  his  speeches  he  had  never  been 
able  to  answer  himself,  tliough  his  friends  were  suffering  for  want  of 
answers  to  them.  Mr.  Rantoul  w^ould  now  offer  as  an  amendment  to 
the  first  resolve,  the  following.     [See  Webster's  Speeches,  181 G.] 

Eesolved,  That  "  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  were  hard  money 
men.  They  had  felt,  and  therefore  duly  appreciated  the  evils  of  a  paper 
medium.  They,  therefore,  sedulously  guarded  the  currency  of  the 
United  States  from  debasement."  "  The  legal  currency  of  the  United 
States  is  gold  and  silver  coin."  This  is  the  law  of  the  land  at  home, 
and  the  law  of  the  world  abroad  ; 

That  "  this  government  has  a  right  in  all  cases,  to  protect  its  own  re- 
venues, and  to  guard  them  against  defalcation  by  bad  or  depreciated 
paper ; " 

That  "  the  only  power  w^liich  the  general  government  possesses  of  re- 
straining the  issues  of  the  State  banks,  is  to  refuse  their  notes  in  the 
receipts  of  the  treasury  ;  " 

That  bank  paper,  — "  not  being  a  part  of  the  legal  money  of  the 
country,  it  cannot  by  law  be  received  in  the  payment  of  duties,  taxes, 
or  other  debts  to  government ;" 

That,  "  as  to  the  opinion  advanced  by  some,  that  the  revenues  cannot 
be  collected  otherwise  than  *  *  *  in  the  paper  of  any  and  every  bank- 
ing association  which  chooses  to  issue  paper,  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be 
admitted.  This  would  be  at  once  giving  up  the  government ;  for  what 
is  government  without  revenue,  and  what  is  a  revenue  that  is  gathered 
together  in  the  varying,  fluctuating,  discredited,  depreciated,  *  *  * 
promissory  notes  of  two  or  three  hundred  distinct,  and  as  to  government, 
irrespcWible  banking  companies  ?  If  it  cannot  collect  its  revenues  in  a 
hetter  manner  than  this,  it  must  cease  to  he  ct  government ;'' 

That  "  it  is  quite  clear  that  by  the  statute  all  duties  and  taxes  are  re- 
quired to  be  paid  in  the  legal  money  of  the  United  States,  or  in  treasury 
notes ; " 

That,  "  if  congress  w^ere  to  pass  forty  statutes  on  the  subject,  they 


616 

could  not  make  the  law  more  imperative  than  it  now  is,  that  nothing 
should  be  received  in  payment  of  duties  to  the  government  but  specie. 
The  whole  strength  of  the  government,  we  are  of  opinion,  should  be 
put  forth  to  compel  the  payment  of  the  duties  and  taxes  to  the  govern- 
ment in  the  legal  currency  of  the  country." 

Mr.  Rantoul  said  he  did  not  quite  go  the  length  of  the  doctrine  in  the 
extracts  he  had  read,  but  being  Mr.  Webster's  doctrine  he  presumed  it 
was  the  doctrine  of  the  whig  party,  and  as  it  was  theoretically  sound 
doctrine,  though  it  might  not  be  possible  to  realize  it  fully  at  once,  there 
could  be  no  reasonable  objection  to  sending  it  to  Mr.  Webster,  to  revive 
his  recollection.  lie  should  not  object  to  it  if  Mr.  Webster's  friends 
did  not. 

[Xo  member  rose  to  reply,  and  the  question  was  about  to  be  taken, 
with  the  evident  intent  of  the  majority  to  vote  Mr.  Webster  down.] 

Mr.  Eantoul  said  he  did  not  want  a  silent  vote.  He  hoped  the  great 
whig  party  were  not  going  to  vote  down  Daniel  Webster.  He  hoped 
they  were  not  going  to  give  their  oracle  the  lie  direct,  here,  by  a  solemn 
vote.  You  say  or  mean  to  say,  in  the  first  resolve,  that  the  Constitution 
authorizes  a  paper  currency.  Mr.  Webster  tells  you  there  is  no  legal 
currency  but  gold  and  silver,  and  thus  you  are  going  to  instruct  him  to 
swallow  his  own  words,  and  give  him  the  lie  in  black  and  white,  for  you 
will  not  pretend  that  he  did  not  understand  the  Constitution  in  181 G. 
That  w^ould  hurt  my  feelings  exceedingly,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  for  I  am 
rather  tender  on  that  point !  I  pray  the  majority  to  pause  before  they 
make  this  issue  between  themselves  and  their  champion  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. If  this  first  resolve  referred  to  any  other  currency  as  a  constitu- 
tional currency,  than  gold  and  silver,  then  it  flatly  contradicted  Mr. 
Webster,  as  well  as  the  Constitution,  and  I,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  cannot 
vote  for  it. 

He  would  show  why  this  substitute  should  be  adopted.  The  first  re- 
solution condemned  the  sub-treasury  bill,  for  what?  For  not  making  a 
currency ;  for  not  doing  wdiat  it  did  not  i)retend  to  do.  It  fails,  says  the 
resolve,  in  furnishing  a  currency  between  the  States.  So  it  fails  to  pro- 
vide for  the  support  of  the  army  and  navy.  It  never  undertook  to  do 
either,  and  gentlemen  might  as  well  object  to  it  for  failing  to  do  the  one 
as  the  other.  The  resolve  affirms  that  the  sub-treasury  bill  fails  to  do 
a  duty  authorized  by  the  Constitution.  The  Constitution  did  ncfrenjoin 
this  duty  on  this  bill.     Why,  then,  find  fault  with  it  on  that  account  ? 

Now  in  vv'hat  part  of  the  Constitution  was  there  any  authority  to 
create  any  other  currency  than  gold  and  silver,  or  treasury  notes,  which 
Daniel  Webster  says  are  the  only  legal  money  of  the  United  States  ? 

The  framers  of  the   Constitution  were,  as  Mr.  Webster  calls  them, 


617 

hard  money  men.  Where  did  they  put  into  the  Constitution  a  power  to 
make  paper  money?  No  man  could  find  it  in  the  Constitution.  If  it 
were  there,  the  resolves  should  point  it  out.  It  would  be  a  great  dis- 
covery. The  coining  of  money  was  all  the  government  could  do  to 
make  money  under  the  Constitution,  and  there  was  no  complaint  that 
they  did  not  do  their  duty  in  this  respect.  Every  man  knew  that  the 
government  had  kept  the  mints  employed,  and  had  carried  on  the  coin- 
ing of  money  to  an  extent  unparalleled  by  any  former  administration. 
It  was  not  the  intention,  then,  to  condemn  the  government  for  not  coin- 
ing money.  What,  then,  did  it  condemn  the  government  for?  For  not 
furnishing  a  currency  by  this  sub-treasury  bill.  In  other  words,  for  not 
furnishing  bank  bills ! 

Could  there  be  a  greater  absurdity  ?  "What  w^ould  the  people  of  other 
States  say  to  see  Massachusetts  putting  forth  resolves  against  the  sub- 
treasury  bill,  for  failing  to  do  what  it  never  pretended  to  do,  and  wdiich 
congress  has  no  power  to  do,  —  that  is,  not  furnishing  a  currency  in  bank 
notes,  between  the  States  ?  Would  they  not  say  v/e  were  mad,  bank 
mad,  to  send  forth  a  declaration  like  this,  that  has  not  a  shadow  to  stand 
on  ?  As  a  Massachusetts  man  he  should  be  ashamed  to  have  the  legis- 
lature send  forth  such  doctrines,  which  Daniel  Webster  himself  has  told 
them  have  no  foundation  in  the  Constitution  even  as  he  expounds  it. 

That  a  paper  currency  was  convenient  for  commercial  purposes  nobody 
denied,  but  that  this  paper  w^as  to  be  furnished  by  the  government,  was 
the  very  doctrine  which  the  hard  money  men  who  framed  the  Constitu- 
tion repudiated.  Was  it  meant  by  this  resolve  that  government  ought 
to  aid  the  bank  paper  now  in  circulation,  and  receive  the  notes  of  broken 
banks  ? 

What  said  the  whigs  themselves,  touching  this  bank  paper  currency  ? 
The  whig  legislative  caucus,  held  in  this  hall,  composed  of  the  same 
men  who  will  vote  for  these  resolves,  if  the  ruling  party  in  this  house 
vote  for  them,  resolutions,  drawn  by  yourself,  Mr.  Speaker,  (Mr.  Win- 
throp,)  w^ere  unanimously  adopted,  a  few  nights  ago,  denouncing,  in 
strong  language,  "the  frauds  and  abominations  of  an  irredeemable  paper 
currency."  That  was  your  own  resolution,  Sir.  You  must  have  meant 
just  such  bank  bills  as  we  have  now,  for  they  are  all  utterly  irredeema- 
ble. Let  us  compare  these  resolutions  a  moment.  In  one,  you  condemn 
an  irredeemable  paper  currency,  as  a  thing  of  frauds  and  abominations, 
and  in  the  other  you  denounce  the  general  government  for  not  furnish- 
ing just  such  a  fraudulent  and  abominable  currency! 

Was  this  the  policy,  to  have  one  set  of  resolutions  passed  in  caucus, 
for  the  use  of  the  people  of  this  Commonwealth,  declaring  irredeemable 
bank  paper  a  fraud,  and  to  send  another  set  to  Washington,  denouncing 

52* 


618  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tlie  government  for  not  furnishing  sucli  a  currency?  If  this  was  the 
whig  poHcy,  if  men  who  voted  for  those  resolutions  vote  for  this,  their 
names  will  ring  from  the  south  fluke  of  Cape  Cod  to  the  northwestern 
mountains  of  Berkshire,  as  the  arrantest  set  of  political  hypocrites  that 
ever  disgraced  God's  earth,  by  trampling  on  its  surface.  Was  tliat  too 
strong  language  ?  No,  Sir.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  are  honest. 
They  love  plain  dealing,  and  despise  a  man  who  talks  to  them  with  a 
double  tongue ;  and  if  gentlemen  meant  to  play  this  game  to  humbug 
the  people,  they  had  better  hide  their  heads  when  they  get  five  miles 
out  of  the  city,  into  the  honest  country.  They  don't  understand  such 
policy. 

In  that  same  whig  caucus,  it  was  resolved,  that  all  proper  and  practi- 
cable restrictions  ought  to  be  put  upon  the  banks  ;  but  in  this  house,  the 
same  men  had  just  voted  not  to  put  any  restrictions  upon  the  banks. 
They  had  just  rejected  (218  to  193)  a  proposition  to  bring  the  banks 
under  the  wholesome  regulations  of  future  legislatures,  and  refused  to 
hold  the  banks  to  resume  specie  payment,  (or  rather  payment,  for  they 
don't  pay  at  all,  but  merely  exchange  one  bad  note  for  another)  at  any 
time. 

Do  not  these  resolves  carry  out  that  refusal,  as  a  part  of  the  policy  of 
the  opponents  of  the  administration  ?  Is  it  not  from  a  determination  to 
keep  the  currency  in  its  present  state,  that  the  majority  in  this  house  op- 
pose the  prudent  policy  of  the  general  government? 

The  whig  resolutions  which  are  to  go  out  to  the  people,  were  passed 
in  secret  conclave.  W^as  the  inference,  that  the  whig  leaders  had  two 
voices  to  speak  in,  one  to  their  masters  at  home,  and  another  to  their 
servants  at  Washington  ? 

Here  was  the  resolution  of  the  whig  caucus,  and  it  was  their  unani- 
mous opinion,  that  irredeemable  bank  paper  is  a  system  of  abominable 
frauds.  He  begged  the  gentleman  opposite  (Mr.  Treadwell)  not  to  sup- 
pose he  was  reflecting  on  him,  because  that  gentleman  had  told  the 
house  that  no  bank  directors  ran  away  but  those  who  managed  pet 
banks. 

[Mr.  Treadwell  begged  to  explain.  His  bank  (the  Merchants,  at 
Salem)  had  paid  the  government  every  dollar  it  owed.] 

Mr.  Rantoul  did  not  doubt  it ;  but  the  gentleman  was  none  the  less 
the  president  of  a  pet  bank,  though  he  did  not  think  he  would  ru|»  away 
on  that  account.  But  he  wanted  to  test  the  sincerity  of  whig  profes- 
sions by  whig  acts.  If  the  whigs  were  sincere,  when  they  unanimously 
adopted  your  resolutions,  Mr.  Speaker,  declaring  irredeemable  bank 
paper  an  abominable  fraud,  can  you  tell  me  why  they  refuse,  when  it 
•  comes  to  the  vote,  to  do  any  thing  to  check  "the  frauds  and  abomina- 
tions "  of  our  banking  system  ? 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  619 

Much  had  been  said  about  widows  and  orphans  owning  stock  in  the 
banks,  to  a  large  amount.  They  woukl  be  rejoiced  to  have  a  stop  put 
to  the  abominable  frauds  by  which  they  are  deprived  of  their  property. 
You  say,  in  caucus,  it  ought  to  be  done,  but  when  you  come  into  the 
house,  you  vote  it  shall  not  be  done. 

But,  at  least,  let  the  resolves  that  are  to  be  sent  to  "Washington  mean 
something.  This  first  resolve  was  pointless,  false  in  fact,  and  of  no 
force  if  true.  He  offered  a  better  one,  in  the  language  of  the  Expounder, 
which  did  mean  something.  Would  they  vote  him  down  ?  Suppose 
there  was  a  little  inconsistency  between  his  position  then  and  now,  when 
did  his  followers  falter  in  following  him,  change  as  often  as  he  might  ? 
He  has  changed  as  often  as  a  chameleon,  and  has  been  sustained  here  in 
all  his  changes.  He  did  not  see  why  the  whigs  did  not  vote  both  sides 
of  the  question,  if  they  find  Daniel  Webster  on  both  sides  of  it.  At  all 
events,  send  him  these  extracts  from  his  own  speeches,  the  best  he  ever 
made,  when  a  young  man,  in  the  freshness  of  all  his  faculties.  He  could 
not  believe  that  the  majority  could  do  Mr.  Webster  such  an  indignity  as  to 
condemn  his  sentiments,  by  rejecting  a  proposition  in  his  own  language. 
Still  less  could  he  believe  that  they  would  deliberately  pass  a  resolve  de- 
claring a  paper  currency  to  be  constitutionally  required  to  be  furnished 
by  government,  when  their  great  Expounder  has  declared  that  the  Con- 
stitution authorizes  no  such  thing,  and  when  every  man  in  this  house 
knows  that  the  Constitution  recognizes  no  legal  currency  of  the  United 
States  but  gold  and  silver. 

Mr.  Savage,  of  Boston,  insisted  that  the  speech  of  Mr.  Webster,  in 
181 G,  strengthened  the  resolves  against  the  sub-treasury.  In  1815, 
1816,  and  1817,  the  situation  of  the  country  was  such  that  three  fourths 
of  the  Union  paid  the  revenue  in  depreciated  paper.  In  the  other  quar- 
ter, it  was  paid  in  gold  and  silver,  or  their  equivalent.  In  1814,  most 
of  the  banks  suspended  specie  payment.  Consequently,  in  all  the  reve- 
nue collected  after  peace,  the  duties  were  actually  received,  in  all  ports 
south  of  Boston,  in  depreciated  paper,  and  in  all  north  of  New  York, 
in  specie  or  specie  paper.  To  correct  this  monstrous  injustice,  the  dis- 
tinguished statesman  made  the  speech  in  181 G,  and  ultimately  the  whole 
country  came  to  his  opinion  ;  as  he  hoped  they  would  do  now  on  the  sub- 
treasury  scheme,  after  his  great  speech  against  that  measure.  Mr.  S. 
Avanted  now  to  see  the  proposition  carried  in  Washington,  that  all  bills 
of  specie  paying  banks  shall  be  received,  and  the  banks  would  resume 
almost  as  soon  as  the  intelligence  should  get  here.  The  government  is 
bent  against  this,  and  that  it  is  that  has  brought  us  to  ruin.  The  gov- 
ernment then,  must  receive  its  dues  in  bank  bills,  and  this  would  bring 
us  back  to  a  sound  currency. 


620  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

What  objection,  then,  was  there  to  the  language  of  Mr.  Webster  in 
181 G?  It  was  his  wish  to  do  then  just  what  the  government  now  re- 
fuses to  do,  but  will  be  compelled  to  do,  namely,  to  receive  bills  of 
specie  paying  banks.  The  banks  now  were  stronger  than  they  were 
fifteen  years  ago.  All  that  was  wanted  to  revive  banks  was  a  ray  of 
sunshine  from  the  south-west.  The  government  was  no  doubt  coining 
all  they  could  of  gold  and  silver,  but  that  was  of  no  benefit  to  the  coun- 
try. It  was  not  gold  and  silver,  but  credit  and  confidence,  which  had 
made  this  country  what  it  was  ;  nobody  wanted  gold ;  he  had  no  opinion 
of  gold.  The  great  republican  basis  was  silver.  It  was  said  there  was 
eighty  millions  of  specie  in  the  country.  This  was  basis  enough  for 
all  the  paper  that  the  sound  banks  ought  to  issue.  Mr.  S.  saw  nothing 
in  the  speech  of  Mr.  Webster,  in  181 G,  inconsistent  with  the  position 
now,  that  the  government  should  take  bank  paper. 

Question  was  called  all  over  the  house,  and  the  extracts  from  Daniel 
Webster's  speech  were  voted  down  by  his  own  friends,  78  to  214. 

[Mr.  Savage  was  totally  mistaken  in  his  notion  of  Mr.  W^ebster's  po- 
sition in  181G.  The  resolution  moved  by  Mr.  Webster  .in  1816,  did  not 
propose  that  government  should  take  the  bills  of  specie  paying  banks, 
but  just  the  contrary.  The  reception  of  bank  bills  was  an  amendment 
of  his  resolution  ;  he  went  against  them. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  government  takes  the  bills  of  all  specie  pay- 
ing banks.  Knowing  this,  the  legislature  gave  the  banks  leave  to  refuse 
payment  of  bills  over  five  dollars,  till  January  next,  with  impunity. 
The  object  of  the  legislature  in  doing  this,  was  to  play  into  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Biddle,  and  the  distress  and  ruin  party,  of  which  he  is  the  leader 
and  the  soul.j 


SPEECH  OF  ME.  RA^^TOUL  01  THE  EESOLVES  AGAIXST  AI 
limVEIdWI  TEEASUEY. 

The  House  having  on  Thursday,  by  an  immense  majority,  rejected 
Mr.  Webster's  ideas  on  the  subject  of  the  currency,  on  Friday,  Mr. 
Rantoul  of  Gloucester  took  the  floor  again,  and  discussed  the  resolves 
against  an  independent  treasury,  which  had  been  unanimously  adopted 
in  the  Senate. 

Mr.  Rantoul  said,  these  resolves  had  been  originally  reported  by  a 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  621 

highly  respectable  joint  committee,  who,  undoubtedly,  like  every  other 
committee  of  this  legislature,  had  discharged  their  duty  honestly  and 
conscientiously,  reporting  according  to  their  own  understanding  or  mis- 
understanding of  the  subject  referred.  Still  those  who  differ  from  them 
in  opinion  have  a  right  to  express  that  diiference  in  as  decided  a  tone  as 
language  will  convey  it.  I  shall,  therefore,  comment  on  these  resolves 
with  whatever  severity  the  case  may  seem  to  require,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  I  must  insist  that  not  the  slightest  disrespect  of  whatever  nature  is 
implied  towards  any  member  of  that  committee. 

He  was  opposed  to  these  resolves  from  their  inherent  and  essential 
falsehood.  He  should  vote  against  them  because  they  seemed  to  him  to 
be  altogether  and  without  qualification,  false.  In  his  opinion  they  were 
false  in  form ;  false  in  substance  ;  false  in  the  letter ;  false  in  the  spirit ; 
false  in  theory ;  false  in  fact ;  false  in  the  general  effect,  and  false  in  the 
details  ;  false  as  a  whole  ;  and  false  in  each  and  every  part.  Such,  and 
so  false  as  I  have  described  them,  said  Mr.  Rantoul,  will  the  unanimous 
verdict  of  the  American  people,  at  no  distant  day,  pronounce  these  re- 
solves and  all  equivalent  propositions,  Avith  which  by  the  power  of  the 
press,  at  the  command  of  allied  wealth,  this  whole  land  has  of  late  been 
flooded. 

He  then  took  up  the  resolves,  and  examining  them  clause  by  clause, 
demonstrated  the  entire  and  unmitigated  falsehood  of  each. 

The  first  resolve  is  in  these  words :  — 

''•  Resolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill,  by  making  no  provision  for 
furnishing  a  currency  in  and  between  the  several  States,  fails  of  perform- 
ing a  duty  authorized  by  the  Constitution,  and  demanded  by  the  interest 
of  the  whole  country." 

This  resolve  is  intended  to  censure  the  policy  of  the  general  govern- 
ment with  regard  to  the  currency.  That  this  is  its  object  appears 
almost  in  the  commencement  of  the  report,  for  the  committee  tell  us 
that  — 

"  The  passage  of  this  bill  may  deeply  affect  the  prosperity  of  this 
Commonwealth.  The  statistical  tables  just  published,  showing  the 
annual  results  of  her  industry,  prove  the  amount  of  circulating  medium 
required,  and  the  distress  that  must  ensue,  if  those  who  depend  on  their 
labor  for  a  subsistence  v/ere  dismissed  for  want  of  a  currency  to  pay 
tliera.  The  general  government  has  the  power  to  render  this  currency 
safe  and  ample.  From  time  to  time,  since  the  first  administration,  they 
have  exercised  this  power  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  community. 
They  now  shrink  from  the  responsibility,  and  after  the  promise  of  a  bet- 
ter currency,  in  fact  declare,  that  the  government  should  secure  a  sound 
one  for  its  own  use,  and  leave  the  rest  to  the  States  and  to  the  people. 


622  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

This  seems  to  your  committee  a  palpable  dereliction  of  duty,  and  calls 
on  the  legislature  to  remonstrate  against  the  bill,  as  failing  to  provide  a 
circulating  medium,  and  as  withdrawing  large  amounts  of  specie,  for  the 
time  at  least,  from  the  purposes  of  trade. 

"  But  a  currency  at  home,  for  the  every  day  uses  of  life,  is  not  all  that 
the  citizens  of  Massachusetts  have  a  right  to  demand  of  a  government 
expressly  authorized  and  empowered  to  regulate  commerce,  and  to  facili- 
tate the  intercourse  between  the  States.  The  products  of  their  indus- 
try are  scattered  over  every  section  of  our  land ;  their  prosperity,  their 
very  existence  as  a  commercial  people,  depends  on  the  facilities  of  ex- 
change. Stoppage  in  this  respect  has  caused  the  failure  of  thousands 
who  were  unable  as  formerly  to  use  at  home  the  funds  they  possessed  at 
a  distance.  The  bill  now  under  consideration  offers  no  such  facilities, 
and  its  mover,  Mr.  Wright,  proposes,  by  an  amendment,  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  receipts  necessarily  issued  by  the  government,  being  used 
for  such  purpose." 

The  charge,  then,  against  the  administration  is,  that  government  does 
not  furnish  a  currency  in  and  between  the  several  States ;  not  simply 
that  it  fails  to  furnish  it  by  the  bill  in  question.  For  if  that  supposed  duty 
were  performed  through  the  instrumentality  of  some  other  bill,  or  by 
virtue  of  some  other  legitimate  authority,  then  it  would  be  absurd  and 
childish  to  complain  gravely  that  this  bill  does  not  effect  what  it  was 
never  pretended  to  contemplate,  but  what  is  already  fully  and  sufficiently 
accomplished  by  other  means. 

I,  said  Mr.  11.,  impute  to  the  committee  no  such  stupid  absurdity. 
Their  resolve  doubtless  means  something,  and  if  so,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  report  which  precedes  it,  it  must  mean,  that  the  Constitution 
authorizes  and  the  public  interest  demands,  that  the  general  government 
shall  furnish  a  currency  in  and  between  the  several  States,  and  that  gov- 
ernment has  not  performed  this  duty. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  currency  to  which  this  resolve  may  allude;  it 
may  speak  of  a  metallic  medium,  it  may  speak  of  a  paper  medium. 

"  The  framers  of  the  Constitution,  (says  Daniel  Webster,)  and  those 
who  enacted  the  early  statutes,  were  hard  money  men.  They  had  felt, 
and,  therefore,  duly  appreciated  the  evils  of  a  paper  medium.  They, 
therefore,  sedulously  guarded  the  currency  of  the  United  States  from 
debasement.  The  legal  currency  of  the  United  States  is  gold  and  silver 
coin." 

Does  the  resolve  assert,  then,  that  the  government  have  made  no  pro- 
vision to  furnish  the  legal  currency  of  the  United  States,  in  and  between 
the  several  States  ? 

If  so,  it  asserts  what  is  false.     The  national  government  has  most 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  623 

faitlifullj  disdiarged  its  duty  in  furnishing  the  legal  currency  for  use  in 
and  between  the  States.  This  it  has  done  directly  by  coining.  Within 
a  few  years  past  the  mint  has  operated  with  unprecedented  rapidity, 
furnishing  many  millions  of  our  own  beautiful  currency,  more  indeed  in 
a  single  year,  than  in  many  years  ever  gladdened  the  eyes  or  cheered 
the  hearts  of  those  hard  money  men  who  framed  the  Constitution. 
They  have  also  brought  into  the  country  in  coin,  a  large  part  of  these 
indemnities  recovered  from  foreign  nations,  which  our  Massachusetts 
merchants  had  long  despaired  of  seeing.  They  have  also,  by  their  gen- 
eral policy,  encouraged  the  importation  of  coin.  From  1821  to  1833, 
inclusive,  the  gold  and  silver  imported  into  the  United  States,  amounted 
to  $89,428,456,  and  there  ^vas  exported  $88,924,738,  leaving  in  the 
country  a  balance  of  $003,718. 

But  during  the  next  three  years,  the  imports  and  exports  of  gold  and 
silver  were  as  follows  :  — 

Imported.  Exported. 

In  1834                                             $17,911,032  $1,G7G,268 

1835  13,131,447  5,748,174 

1836  12,166,372  4,435,815 

Making  during  those  three  years,  a  total  of  imported,  $43,209,451 ; 
exported,  $11,800,247;  balance,  $31,349,204. 

Specie  is  now  arriving,  and  will  continue  to  arrive.  In  the  month  of 
April  there  will  arrive  in  New  York  at  least  two  or  three  millions  of 
dollars'  worth.  The  quantity  now  in  the  country  is  at  least  ninety  mil- 
lions ;  ^about  three  times  what  there  was  eight  years  ago.  The  gov- 
ernment, by  the  specie  circular,  took  an  efficient  step  to  prevent  the 
currency  from  flowing  out  of  the  country  at  a  time  when  it  was  sup- 
posed that  such  might  be  its  tendency.  What  more  w^ould  this  legisla- 
ture have  the  general  government  do  towards  furnishing  the  legal  cur- 
rency in  abundance  ? 

But  if  the  resolve  refers  to  a  paper  currency,  I  totally  deny  that  the 
Constitution  authorizes  the  government  to  furnish  such  a  currency. 
The  hard  money  men  w4io  framed  the  Constitution  expressly  refused  to 
anthorize  the  government  to  carry  on  banking.  In  the  Convention 
which  formed  the  Constitution  the  power  to  grant  acts  of  incorporation 
was  proposed  to  be  given  to  the  new  government,  and  rejected  on  the 
very  ground,  that  under  that  power  they  might  create  a  bank.  Massa- 
chusetts voted  against  the  power.  When  the  old  bank  w^as  chartered, 
the  whole  democratic  party  opposed  the  charter,  and  continued  opposed 
to  the  institution  while  it  existed.  In  1811,  they  refused  to  recharter 
it ;  and  Henry  Clay,  then  a  democrat,  in  his  speech  against  the  recharter 
of  the  bank,  thus  expressed  himself:    "The  great   advantage   of    our 


624  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

system  of  government  over  all  others  is,  that  we  have  a  written  Consti- 
tution, defining  its  limits,  and  prescribing  its  authorities.  But  once  sub- 
stitute practice  for  principle,  —  the  expositions  of  the  Constitution  for 
the  text  of  the  Constitution,  —  and  in  vain  shall  we  look  for  the  instru- 
ment in  the  instrument  itself.  It  will  be  as  diffused  and  intangible  as 
the  pretended  Constitution  of  England.  I  conceive,  then.  Sir,  that  we 
are  not  empowered  by  the  Constitution,  nor  bound  by  any  practice  under 
it,  to  renew  the  charter  of  this  bank." 

Upon  the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  this  institution,  no  new 
light  has  since  been  shed.  The  official  opinion  draAvn  up  by  Jefferson 
in  1791,  wherein  he  demonstrates  that  the  incorporation  of  a  bank  has 
not  been  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution,  still  rests 
unshaken  on  the  same  ground,  which  then  sustained  it.  It  is  as  true 
now  as  it  was  when  Mr.  Clay  delivered  his  unanswerable  argument 
against  the  bank,  in  1811,  that  we  have  a  written  Constitution,  limiting 
the  powers  of  the  federal  government, — that  the  text  of  that  instru- 
ment does  not  contain  one  word  to  warrant  the  federal  government  to 
create  a  bank,  and  that  the  framers  of  that  instrument,  by  an  express 
vote,  refused  to  confer  that  power.  The  assertion  still  continues  unde- 
niably true,  which  Mr.  Webster  advanced  in  his  able  speech  in  1816,  in 
opposition  to  the  charter  of  the  present  bank,  that  "  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  and  those  who  enacted  the  early  statutes  on  the  subject, 
were  hard  money  men,  —  they  had  felt,  and,  therefore,  duly  appreciated 
the  evils  of  a  paper  medium.  They  therefore  sedulously  guarded  the 
currency  of  the  United  States  from  embarrassment.  The  legal  currency 
of  the  United  States  was  gold  and  silver  coin. 

The  government  is  not  authorized,  therefore,  by  the  Constitution  to 
create  a  bank  to  issue  a  paper  currency.  Is  it  authorized  to  receive, 
and  pay  out,  and  thereby  force  into  additional  circulation,  the  present 
irredeemable  paper  ?  Mr.  Webster  called  the  receipt  of  such  bills, 
when  they  were  received  twenty-two  years  ago,  "  a  state  of  things  which 
everybody  knows  to  exist  in  plain  violation  of  the  Constitution^ 

At  New  York,  on  the  loth  of  March  last,  he  said:  — 

"  I  abhor  paper ;  that  is  to  say,  irredeemable  paper,  paper  that  may 
not  be  converted  into  gold  or  silver  at  the  will  of  the  holder."  And 
again :  "  I  hold  this  disturbance  of  the  measure  of  value,  and  the  means 
of  payment  and  exchange,  this  derangement,  and  if  I  may  so  say,  this 
violation  of  the  currency,  to  be  one  of  the  most  unpardonable  of  politi- 
cal faults.  He  who  tampers  with  the  currency  robs  labor  of  its  bread. 
He  panders  indeed  to  greedy  capital,  which  is  keen  sighted,  and  may 
shift  for  itself;  but  he  beggars  labor,  which  is  honest,  unsuspecting,  and 
too  busy  with  the  present  to  calculate  on  the  future.     The  prosperity  of 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  625 

the  working  class  lives,  moves,  and  has  its  being  in  established  credit, 
and  a  steady  medium  of  payment.  All  sudden  changes  destroy  it. 
Honest  industry  never  comes  in  for  any  part  of  the  spoils  in  that  scram- 
ble which  takes  place  when  the  currency  of  a  country  is  disordered. 
Did  wild  schemes  and  projects  ever  benefit  the  industrious  ?  Did  irre- 
deemable bank  paper  ever  enrich  the  laborious  ?  Did  violent  fluctua- 
tions ever  do  good  to  him  who  depends  on  his  daily  labor  for  his  daily 
bread  ?  Certainly  never.  All  these  things  may  gratify  greediness  for 
sudden  gain,  or  the  rashness  of  daring  speculation,  but  they  can  bring 
nothing  but  injury  and  distress  to  the  homes  of  patient  industry  and 
honest  labor.  Who  are  they  who  profit  by  the  present  state  of  things  ? 
They  are  not  the  many,  but  the  few.  They  are  speculators,  brokers, 
dealers  in  money,  and  lenders  of  money  at  exorbitant  interest.  Small 
capitalists  are  crushed,  they  have  no  longer  either  money  or  credit. 
And  all  classes  of  labor  partake  and  must  partake  in  the  same  ca- 
lamity." 

On  another  occasion  he  described  that  "  miserable,  abominable,  and 
fradulent  policy  which  attempts  to  give  value  to  any  paper  of  any  bank 
one  single  moment  longer  than  such  paper  is  redeemable,  on  demand,  in 
gold  and  silver,"  He  asserted  that  such  paper  "  represents  nothing  but 
broken  promises,  bad  faith,  broken  corporations,  cheated  creditors,  and  a 
ruined  people." 

You,  Mr.  Speaker,  have  told  us  in  your  confession  of  political  faith, 
of  the  "frauds  and  abominations  of  irredeemable  paper  money,"  and 
the  whig  members  of  this  legislature  have,  unanimously,  in  convention 
adopted  that  phrase  as  a  part  of  their  creed.  No  man  here  supposes,  I 
believe,  that  the  Constitution  authorizes,  or  the  public  interest  demands, 
that  the  general  government  should  patronize  and  extend  these  frauds 
and  abominations.  Nor  should  I  have  thought  this  supposition  v»'orthy 
of  a  single  remark,  if  the  newspapers  had  not  told  us  that  in  the  United 
States  senate,  Messrs.  Clay  and  Preston  were  manoeuvring  to  make  the 
government  a  participator  in  these  frauds  and  abominations,  and  if  so, 
in  a  week  or  two  such  may  be  the  established  whig  policy.  At  present 
no  man  here  will  vindicate  it. 

Having  thus  shown  the  utter  untruth  of  the  first  resolve,  having 
shown  that  the  government  has  not  failed  to  make  provision  for  furnish- 
ing the  legal  currency,  that  it  is  not  authorized  by  the  Constitution,  or 
required  by  the  interest  of  the  people  to  assist  in  giving  currency  to  the 
present  irredeemable  paper  with  its  frauds  and  abominations,  I  proceed 
to  the  consideration  of  the  second  resolve  which  is  in  these  words:  — 

^^Resolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill  would,  by  withdrawing  from 
circulation  large  amounts  of  specie,  diminish  the  basis  on  which  State 

53 


626  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

institutions  are  founded,  place  them  in  too  great  a  degree  in  the  power 
of  the  general  government,  deprive  them  of  the  means  of  extending 
usual  and  necessary  facilities  to  those  engaged  in  commerce  and  manu- 
factures, and,  by  causing  distrust,  have  a  direct  tendency  to  postpone  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments." 

If  any  one  were  to  assert  that  the  probable  effects  of  the  sub-treasury 
bill  are  greatly  overrated  both  by  friends  and  foes,  perhaps  I  should  not 
differ  from  him.  But  its  effects,  so  far  as  it  has  any,  will  undoubtedly 
be  precisely  opposite  to  those  described  in  the  resolve. 

The  sub-treasury  bill  will  not  withdraw  from  circulation  large  amounts 
of  specie.  There  are  now  in  the  country,  ninety  millions  of  specie,  all 
of  icliich  is  loithdraum  from  circulation  at  this  moment  by  the  operation 
of  that  infallible  law,  founded  on  fixed  principles  of  human  nature,  that 
two  currencies,  the  one  sound  and  the  other  depreciated,  cannot  circulate 
freely  together ;  the  baser  will  always  banish  from  circulation  the  better 
currency.  So,  on  the  10th,  11th,  12th,  and  13th  of  May  last,  bank  notes, 
being  everywhere  dishonored,  in  an  instant  depreciated.  Specie,  which 
before  was  circulation,  was  afterwards  merchandise,  a  debased  and  fluc- 
tuating medium  having  usurped  its  proper  place.  So  soon  as  the  banks 
resume  the  payment  of  their  obligations,  so  soon,  and  no  sooner,  whether 
the  sub-treasury  bill  passes  or  not,  will  specie  return  to  free  circulation ; 
return,  too,  in  great  abundance,  for  the  country  is  likely  to  be  glutted 
with  the  influx  of  coin,  exchange  being  lower  now  than  it  ever  was  be- 
fore known,  witli  scarcely  an  exception,  for  many  years. 

After  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  will  this  bill  withdraw  large 
amounts  of  specie  from  circulation?  Until  the  1st  day  of  January  next, 
all  payments  into  the  treasury  may  be  made  in  the  hills  of  specie  pay- 
ing banks.  So  far,  then,  no  specie  will  be  withdrawn.  But  what  will 
happen  next  year?  In  the  year  1839,  one  sixth  part  shall  be  paid  in 
specie,  and  the  other  five  sixths  in  good  bank  bills.  Will  not  the  busi- 
ness world  come  to  an  end  then  ?  The  revenue  of  the  government  cer- 
tainly cannot  average  more  than  thirty  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  One 
sixth  of  this,  payable  in  specie,  is  five  millions  in  payments  during  the 
year.  And  as  in  the  probable  state  of  our  finances  for  many  years  to 
come,  the  same  dollar  may  be  fairly  presumed  to  be  employed  in  at 
least  ten  payments  in  a  year,  the  additional  quantity  of  specie  required 
for  that  purpose  will  be  five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  paper  cur- 
rency of  the  United  States  and  the  specie  in  the  country  added  together 
have  for  the  last  three  years  averaged  considerably  more  than  two  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars,  of  which  sum  the  proportion  likely  to  be  em- 
ployed under  the  sub-treasury  system  in  1839,  is  just  one  fourth  part  of 
one  per  cent.     If  emptying  a  teapot  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean  makes  the 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  627 

tide  rise,  then  this  alteration  in  the  payment  of  duty  bonds  will  surely 
cause  a  revulsion  in  the  money  markets.  But  as  specie  equalizes  itself 
in  the  markets  of  the  world,  flowing  where  the  state  of  business  requires 
it,  as  easily  as  water  runs  down  hill,  our  inquiry  should  have  reference 
to  the  specie  of  the  world,  and  not  to  the  currency  of  the  country. 

O !  cries  some  great  whig  expounder  of  the  Constitution,  while  each 
particular  hair  bristles  with  horror,  if  we  submit  to  the  reckless  policy 
of  this  mad  administration,  which  shall  never  be  imposed  upon  us  while 
we  have  arms  in  our  hands,  specie  enough  cannot  be  found  on  the  f  ice  of 
the  globe,  or  dug  from  mines  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the  country  ! 

How  is  that  fact?  The  value  of  the  gold  and  silver  on  the  face  of 
the  globe  is  known  to  be  about  five  thousand  millions  of  dollars.  The 
demand  created  by  the  sub-treasury  bill  in  1839,  will  require  the  ten 
thousandth  part  of  that  sum,  or  the  hundredth  part  of  one  per  cent. 
This  one  hundredth  part  of  one  per  cent,  is  the  sum  total,  in  plain  prose, 
of  all  that  splendid  whig  imagery  which  has  so  delighted  our  imagina- 
tions, and  which,  for  the  want  of  an  argument,  has  occupied  so  large  a 
portion  of  the  last  eleven  weeks.  Those  unheard  of  simooms  which 
root  up  oak  trees,  the  hurricanes,  the  volcanoes,  the  earthquakes,  the 
tornadoes,  the  maelstroms,  the  surgical  operations,  the  gallant  ship  stripped 
of  sails,  rigging,  spars,  helm,  compass,  provisions,  sheet  anchor,  the  crew 
in  mutiny  and  no  grog,  darkness  descending  like  a  pall  to  cover  the 
whole  land,  all  these,  and  so  many  other  beautiful  figures,  each  the  cul- 
minating point  of  a  whole  oration,  by  the  application  of  a  little  common 
sense  and  a  little  arithmetic,  are  precisely  equivalent  to  this  one  hun- 
dredth part  of  one  per  cent,  and  no  more. 

But  some  sage  whig  politician  Avill  inquire,  seeing  further  into  a  mill- 
stone than  his  neighbors,  how  are  we  to  get  the  specie  ?  Whence  will 
it  come  from? 

Never  trouble  yourself  about  that.  Sir.  Specie  flows  where  the  state 
of  trade  requires  it.  More  specie  will  arrive  in  the  city  of  New  York 
in  this  next  month  of  April,  than  the  extra  demand  created  by  the  sub- 
treasury  bill,  six  years  hence,  when  it  is  in  full  operation. 

If,  therefore,  the  effect  were  simply  to  withdraw  from  circulation  all 
the  specie  for  Avhich  the  bill  would  create  a  demand,  still  no  perceptible 
influence  in  contracting  the  currency  of  the  world  could  possibly  follow. 
But  the  effect  does  not  stop  here.  This  demand  for  specie  will  cause  it 
to  be  brought  into  the  country  when  scarce  here,  and  will  retain  it  when 
it  would  otherwise  flow^  out,  and  the  whole  quantity  thus  drawn  in,  or 
left  here,  will  be  constantly  thrown  into  circulation.  The  government 
must  pay  out  wdiat  it  receives,  and  in  a  series  of  years  precisely  as  much 
as  it  receives.    Who  does  not  see,  then,  that  the  payment  by  government 


628  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

of  tliirty  millions  of  specie  in  a  year  will  infuse  into  the  circulation  a 
much  greater  proportion  of  the  precious  metals  than  if  the  government 
paid  nothing  but  paper.  The  receipt  of  specie  will  attract  it  from 
iibroad  ;  the  payment  of  specie  will  infuse  it  in  circulation.  The  truth, 
therefore,  is,  in  this  particular,  precisely  the  reverse  of  the  language  of 
the  resolve  from  the  senate. 

How  then  will  the  operation  of  tlie  bill  "  diminish  the  basis  on  which 
State  institutions  are  founded  ? "  It  is  as  plain  as  that  two  and  tw^o 
make  four,  that  it  will  enlarge  that  basis.  The  additional  use  for  specie 
will  insure  an  additional  supply.  If  the  banks  resume  the  payment  of 
specie  in  reality,  and  not  a  mere  nominal  payment  as  w^e  have  witnessed 
for  at  least  fifteen  years  previous  to  May  last,  if  they  pay  specie  to 
every  one  who  calls,  readily,  cheerfully,  and  in  the  most  convenient 
form,  instead  of  resorting  to  a  variety  of  ingenious  expedients  to  pre- 
vent such  calls,  then  the  State  banks  will  keep  on  hand  more  specie 
than  they  now  do,  precisely  in  the  proportion  of  the  demand  they  have 
reason  to  expect.  And  this  they  may  do  without  inconvenience,  having 
six  years'  time  to  prepare  themselves  for  it,  and  that  by  a  process  so 
gradual  that  it  will  be  absolutely  imperceptible  while  going  on,  wdiile 
more  additional  specie  will  flow  into  the  country  during  the  next  month, 
than  this  bill  w^ill  make  it  necessary  for  the  banks  to  accumulate  in  the 
whole  six  years. 

Not  only  will  they  keep  on  hand  more  specie,  but,  as  there  will  be  a 
greater  supply  in  circulation,  it  will  be  easier  for  them  to  recruit  their 
stock  upon  any  emergency.  This  clause  of  the  resolve  is,  therefore, 
like  the  rest,  diametrically  contrary  to  the  fact.  The  bill  will  not  di- 
minish, but  will  enlarge  and  strengthen  the  basis  on  which  State  institu- 
tions are  founded. 

The  next  allegation  of  this  resolve  is,  that  the  bill  w^ill  place  the 
banks  "  in  too  great  a  degree  in  the  power  of  the  general  government." 
This  is,  if  possible,  more  false  than  any  thing  that  has  preceded  it.  Let 
us  examine  the  nature  of  the  change  it  wdll  produce  in  the  relative  posi- 
tions of  the  banks  and  the  government.  How  are  the  banks  now  situ- 
ated with  regard  to  the  government  ? 

They  are  and  for  twenty  years  past  have  been  entirely  at  its  mercy. 
There  has  been  no  time  since  the  war  when  the  government  could  not 
have  broken  nearly  all  the  banks  if  it  had  chosen  to  do  so.  It  has 
always  been  in  its  power  to  collect  the  bills  of  any  banks  it  might  select, 
at  different  points,  in  large  quantities  and  run  upon  them  for  specie,  and 
break  them  down  thereby,  if  the  selection  were  skilfully  made  in  the 
first  instance,  and  tlie  blow  energetically  and  simultaneously  inflicted, 
breaking  all  the  other  banks,  and  involving  the   whole   system  in  one 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  629 

common  ruin.  But  the  government  lias  not  done  this,  and  will  not  do 
it;  and  why  ?  for  the  same  reason,  —  if  gentlemen  will  not  admit  that  it 
may  be  influenced  by  better  motives,  —  for  the  same  reason  that  the  en- 
gineer of  a  steamboat  will  not  blow  up  the  crew  and  passengers,  because 
he  would  not  like  to  blow  himself  up  with  them.  The  government  has 
long  had  the  power  to  break  all  the  banks.  It  has  broken  none  of  them. 
The  United  States  Bank  has  broken  many. 

Not  only  so,  but  with  the  deposit  banks  perfectly  in  its  power,  since 
their  failure  to  discharge  their  duties,  great  forbearance  has  been  dis- 
played, and  the  most  solicitous  caution  exercised  not  to  break  those 
banks  in  the  operation  of  recovering  the  remaining  deposits  from  them. 
By  the  express  recommendation  of  the  administration,  congress  have 
passed  an  act  granting  great  indulgence  in  extending  their  time  to  pay 
over.  Before  this  took  effect  the  conduct  of  the  treasury  department 
toward  them  must  have  been  extremely  guarded ;  for  if  it  had  not  man- 
aged the  withdrawal  of  the  public  funds  with  the  utmost  delicacy, 
shrewdness,  and  skill,  in  the  determination  not  to  involve  a  single  bank 
in  any  unnecessary  embarrassment,  it  could  not  have  failed  to  break 
down  many  of  them. 

It  has  broken  none.  Vv^ill  it  now  begin  ?  I  have  shown  that  it  has 
not  had  the  disposition ;  is  it  any  more  likely  to  entertain  destructive 
propensities  hereafter?  Just  the  contrarj'-,  for  if  the  bill  passes,  and 
the  banks  resume  payment,  as  they  must,  and  will,  and  shall  very  soon, 
in  whatever  shape  it  may  pass,  then  the  strength  of  the  administration 
will  depend  very  much  upon  a  secure  and  steady  state  of  the  currency; 
for  a  second  suspension  of  specie  payments,  with  the  consequent  confu- 
sion and  distress,  would,  in  all  the  commercial  cities,  be  charged,  whether 
justly  or  unjustly,  to  the  policy  of  the  general  government ;  while  on  the 
other  hand,  that  returning  prosperity,  of  which  we  already  hail  the 
bright  dawn,  will  be  very  generally  attributed,  whether  rightly  or  wrong- 
fully, to  the  action  of  government,  and  the  more  so  if  it  shall  continue 
to  bless  us,  as  it  probably  will,  without  intermission,  for  the  next  three 
or  four  years.  The  government,  therefore,  have  the  strongest  possible 
inducement,  a  controlling  inducement,  even  if  you  could  remove  the 
present  administration  and  put  bad  men  in  their  places,  to  throw  no  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  a  healthy  action  of  the  banks  after  they  have  re- 
sumed ;  but  on  the  contrary  its  hold  on  public  favor  depends  much  on 
their  success  in  the  honest  payment  of  their  debts,  which  it  will  there- 
fore cherish  and  promote  as  it  values  its  own  interest. 

The  government  has  taken  the  ground,  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy, 
and  on  this  doctrine  it  stakes  its  claim  to  support.  If  the  banks,  by  sin- 
cerely attempting  to  be  honest,  and  failing  in  that  attempt,  should  estab- 

53* 


630  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

lisli  the  doctrine  in  the  minds  of  many,  that  honesty  was  the  worst 
pohcy,  such  a  result  would  go  far,  very  far,  to  overthrow  the  present 
administration.  The  government  will  encourage  them  to  become  honest, 
and  afterwards  to  continue  so,  by  all,  the  aid  and  facilities  witltin  its  con- 
stitutional power. 

However  this  may  be,  until  the  1st  day  of  January  next,  as  the  bill 
now  stands,  the  banks  are  to  be  neither  more  nor  less  in  the  power  of 
the  general  government  than  they  are  at  this  moment,  and  always  have 
been.  If  they  are  in  too  great  a  degree  in  its  power,  it  is  false  that  this 
bill  places  them  there.  They  are  placed  there  and  left  there  by  Mr. 
Webster's  resolution  of  April,  1816.  If  this  bill  passes,  by  the  twenty- 
third  section,  until  next  January  government  must  receive  bills  of  specie 
paying  banks,  and  no  others  ;  if  tliis  bill  does  not  pass,  by  the  resolution 
of  18 IG,  they  receive  bills  of  specie  paying  banks,  and  no  others.  The 
bill  makes  no  alteration,  at  present,  as  to  the  reception  of  bank  bills. 

This  being  the  case,  do  gentlemen  imagine  that  the  administration, 
immediately  on  the  passage  of  a  bill  which  does  not  alter  the  law  in 
this  respect  at  present,  will  madly  destroy  itself  by  unjustly  and  without 
provocation  exerting  its  power  to  destroy  the  banks,  just  at  the  moment 
when  they  return  to  the  path  of  honesty  and  duty  ?  Do  gentlemen  be- 
lieve that  the  administration  will  commit  suicide  ? 

Their  past  experience  should  teach  them  to  give  a  democratic  admin- 
istration credit  for  some  practical  sagacity.  W^henever  State  street 
and  Kilby  street  have  congratulated  themselves  that  democracy  had 
taken  the  fatal  step,  had  plunged  itself  into  an  abyss  from  wliich  it  could 
never  rise,  behold  it  standing  on  firmer  ground  than  ever.  When  they 
look  for  its  disastrous  eclipse,  it  shines  out  brighter  than  ever.  When 
they  look  for  its  final  downfall,  behold  it  towering  more  secure  and 
lofty  in  the  esteem  and  affection  of  a  whole  people,  smiling  at  the  im- 
potent malice  of  the  billows  of  wrath  that  lash  the  foot  of  the  adaman- 
tine rock  of  truth  whereon  it  stands.  In  1832,  loud  and  long  was  the 
anthem  of  joy  from  the  whole  host  of  Mammon.  The  recoil  of  the 
veto  had  prostrated  Old  Hickory  !  The  veto  strengthened  him.  In 
1833,  his  popularity  was  unbounded.  Some  of  us  may  judge  of  this 
from  the  evidence  of  our  own  senses.  W^ith  our  own  eyes  we  saw  the 
aristocracy  of  the  city  of  Boston  welcome  the  old  hero  with  the  homage 
of  the  heart,  —  for  it  could  not  have  been  all  mere  lip  service.  We 
heard  them  send  up  the  universal  shout  that  almost  rent  the  blue  con- 
cave. We  saw  them  thronging  his  antechamber,  —  besieging  his  bed- 
chamber, —  scarcely  leaving  uninvaded  his  refuge  on  the  couch  of  sick- 
ness ;  so  eager  were  they  to  pour  into  his  ear  the  testimony  of  their  re- 
spect, their  gratitude,  and  their  love.     Our  ancient  university  of  liar- 


OF   KOBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  631 

vard  bestowed  her  highest  honors  upon  her  illustrious  visitor,  thereby 
honoring  herself  more  than  she  honored  him.  And  at  Bunker  Hill,  the 
scene  of  the  iirst  great  battle  in  the  long  struggle  with  British  power 
which  he  himself  had  closed  so  gloriously  at  New  Orleans,  one  of  our 
most  eloquent  orators  exhausted  the  language  of  panegyric  to  do  justice 
to  his  virtues  and  his  valor,  for  which  appropriate  tribute,  in  conjunction 
with  his  other  merits,  the  orator  has  .been  nominated  and  elected  by  the 
dominant  party  in  the  Commonvrealth  to  the  office  of  governor.  O  no, 
Sir !  King-loathed  Columbia's  brave  and  wise  old  man  cannot  have 
been,  at  that  time,  the  object  of  the  hatred  of  any  citizen  of  Zvlassachu- 
sctts.  We  have  no  bold,  bad  men,  no  senators,  like  Catiline,  the  Roman 
senator,  when  he  aspired  to  the  consulship,  striving  to  pull  down  the 
virtue  they  cannot  rise  to  emulate.  Thousands  witnessed  the  affection, 
it  might  almost  be  said  the  adoration,  which  the  whigs  of  Boston  mani- 
fested in  1833  for  the  defender  and  restorer  of  the  Constitution,  and 
since  that  time  he  has  done  much,  very  much,  to  strengthen  their  devo- 
tion, having  fairly  subdued,  so  that  it  will  never  recover,  that  deadly 
enemy  whom  we  most  hated  and  feared,  the  United  States  Bank  mono- 
poly. 

Yet,  Sir,  in  1831,  State  street  and  Kilby  street  were  again  on  tiptoe 
with  glad  expectation.  I^icholas  Biddle  and  the  hero  were  in  their 
death  grapple.  Nicholas  vv'ill  throttle  him,  was  the  cry  of  the  Biddleites. 
Nicholas  had  loud  talkers  and  fierce  writers  in  his  pay,  some  he  had 
bought  like  cattle  in  the  market ;  and  they  talked  and  wrote  that  Nich- 
olas had  the  victory.  In  point  of  fact,  who  came  out  uppermost  ?  Every- 
body knows,  except  in  Boston  and  Philadelphia.  In  those  two  cities  it 
is  still  a  secret,  but  history  and  posterity  will  set  the  matter  right,  even 
in  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  as  well  as  all  over  the  world. 

History  and  posterity  will  say  that  Andrevv^  Jackson,  by  loosening  the 
hold  which  the  bank  had  on  the  government  and  on  the  people,  was  en- 
abled to  bid  defiance  to  its  arts  and  power,  to  defeat  its  onset  to  recon- 
quer us  and  subject  us  anew  to  its  detested  sv/ay;  and  that  he  thereby 
restored  to  its  original  pristine  purity  the  violated  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

Do  not  gentlemen  remember  the  endless  catalogue  of  whig  victories 
in  1834,  the  tens  of  thousands  of  new  made  whig  converts  in  almost 
every  State  in  the  Union,  that  for  a  few  short  months  delighted  wliig 
credulity?  And  do  not  gentlemen  remember  that  in  1835  the  adminis- 
tration was  stronger  than  ever  ?  So  mote  it  be !  So  will  it  be  now. 
The  dark  clouds  that  sheltered  the  dim-eyed  owls  and  bats  of  \Aug  delu- 
sion are  fast  dissipating  before  the  refulgence   of  truth,  and  in  brief 


632  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

space  the  glorious  sun  of  democracy  will  burst  upon  their  gaze  in  daz- 
zling splendor,  clear  and  unspotted  as  the  sun  of  Austerlitz. 

A  bold,  just,  and  consistent  course  is  the  only  safe  policy  for  an  indi- 
vidual, or  for  a  government,  whatever  hoarse  clamors  of  prejudice,  or 
howling  tempests  of  faction  may  rage  around  you.  It  is  as  true  that 
there  is  no  safety  in  cowardice,  as  that  there  is  no  peace  for  the  wicked. 
The  administration  knows  this  truth,  and  it  will  push  onward  and 
right  on. 

Why  will  not  gentlemen,  then,  seeing  how  often  the  government  has 
been  right  and  they  have  been  wrong,  how  often  the  verdict  of  a  great 
people  has  sustained  and  justified  the  administration  and  poured  confu- 
sion into  the  hearts  of  its  enemies,  believe  that  it  has  still  sagacity  enough, 
far-sighted  and  comprehensive  wisdom  enough,  not  to  destroy  itself?  If 
they  will  not  believe,  the  event  will  convince  them.  The  government 
will  not  run  upon  the  banks  the  moment  they  resume  payment ;  nor  am 
I  simple  enough  to  suppose,  notwithstanding  all  the  declamation  we 
have  heard  in  this  house  for  three  months,  that  there  is  a  man  here  who 
apprehends  that  they  will  do  any  such  thing. 

For  the  whole  season  the  cry  has  been,  that  if  the  banks  resume,  the 
general  government  will  collect  their  bills  and  send  them  home  for 
specie,  and  so  break  them  down.  This  was  sufficiently  absurd  of  itself; 
and  now,  to  show  that  those  who  raised  it  understood  its  absurdity,  the 
gentleman  from  Boston,  Mr.  Savage,  complains,  for  a  novelty,  that  the 
government  will  not  take  the  bills  of  specie  paying  banks  ;  if  they  would, 
says  he,  the  banks  would  resume  in  a  moment,  as  fast  as  the  joyful  in- 
telligence could  fly  through  the  land.  What  would  the  gentleman  have  ? 
First,  if  the  government  takes  the  bills,  it  is  to  ruin  the  banks  by  taking 
them.  Second,  if  the  government  should  refuse  the  bills,  it  would  ruin 
the  banks  by  refusing  them.  It  is  hard  to  suit  those  whose  chief  aim 
and  study  is  not  to  be  suited.  Our  whigs  seem  to  think,  that  because  in 
a  whig  monarchy,  the  king  can  do  no  wrong,  therefore  in  a  democratic 
republic  the  government  can  do  nothing  but  wrong.  Such  a  creed  is 
surely  consistent. 

But  the  government  will  take  the  bills  of  specie  paying  banks  whether 
the  bill  passes  or  not,  as  the  gentleman  will  see  if  he  reads  it ;  and,  there- 
fore, by  the  gentleman's  own  showing,  the  banks  ought  to  resume  to-day. 
In  this  I  agree  with  him. 

The  bill  does  not  propose  to  alter  the  position  of  the  banks  until  Janu- 
ary next.  After  that  time,  will  it  "  place  them,  in  too  great  a  degree,  in 
the  power  of  the  general  government  ?  "  Far  from  it.  Indeed,  directly 
the  reverse  will  be  its  operation.     The  banks  are  now  completely  in  the 


OF  EGBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  633 

power  of  the  general  government  the  moment  tliey  resume  ;  because,  by 
the  resokition  of  181 G,  it  must  receive'  their  bills  for  all  its  dues,  and 
may  with  its  whole  receipts  run  on  them  for  specie.  But  after  next 
January,  one  sixth  part  of  this  power  over  them  is  to  be  taken  away,  for 
one  sixth  of  its  receipts  are  to  be  in  specie,  and  it  can  only  run  on  the 
banks  with  the  other  five  sixths,  which  it  receives  in  their  bills.  In  18 10 
it  can  only  run  upon  them  with  two  thirds  of  its  receipts  ;  in  18-11,  with 
one  half;  in  1842,  with  one  third  ;  in  1843,  v/ith  one  sixth  ;  and  in  1844 
they  are  to  be  entirely  emancipated  from  all  fear  of  attack  from  the  gov- 
ernment, for  it  will  have  totally  lost  the  power  to  act  upon,  being  legally 
incom})etent  to  have  in  its  hands  any  demands  against  them,  except  the 
small  balance  that  might  lie  over  from  the  former  year.  If  the  banks 
did  really  fear  the  government,  therefore,  they  would  rejoice  in  the 
passage  of  the  23d  section  of  the  sub-treasury  bill ;  they  would  ardently 
desire  it,  for  when  that  section  had  gone  into  operation,  if  the  govern- 
ment were  disposed  to  crush  the  banks,  regardless  of  consequences,  and 
■without  scruples  as  to  the  method,  it  could  not  touch  them.  It  would 
move  in  a  different  S2)here,  and  would  have  no  possible  capacity  to  come 
into  contact  or  collision  with  them.  The  opposition  of  the  banks,  there- 
fore, to  this  section,  shows  that  their  pretended  fear  of  the  government 
is  the  rankest  hypocrisy.  Indeed,  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  They 
know  that  the  government  is  not  desirous  to  break  down  banks,  for  it 
liAs  handled  them  tenderly.  The  government  might  have  broken  the 
deposit  banks,  had  it  run  upon  them  when  failing  to  discharge  their 
duty.  It  might  have  broken  them  without  leaving  room  to  censure  the 
treasury  department,  but  so  that  all  the  blame  which  did  not  fall  on  the 
banks,  would  have  fallen  on  the. distribution  bill.  Gentlemen  may  say 
these  banks  were  managed  by  their  friends,  and  therefore  they  would 
not  attack  them.  Not  so  !  A  majority  of  the  directors  of  the  deposit 
banks  have  always  been  whigs,  taking  all  those  banks  together.  The 
latest  definition  of  a  Vvhig  is  one  v>dio  is  opposed  to  the  sub-treasury 
system,  and  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  nineteen  twentieths  of  the  per- 
sons connected  with  those  banks  are  included  v.'ithin  this  definition.  If 
the  government  liad  thought  it  right  to  do  evil  that  good  might  come  of 
it,  as  the  banks  do  vv-hen  they  refuse  to  pay  their  debts,  because  they  say 
it  is  better  for  the  public  that  they  should  not,  they  might,  by  breaking 
down  these  banks,  have  rendered  certain  the  passage  of  the  sub-treasury 
bill.  For  the  choice  was,  and  is,  between  these  tv/o  systems,  and  the 
more  ex[)losions  of  pet  banks  the  stronger  the  argument  for  the  only 
system  that  can  take  their  place.  The  report  on  the  Commonwealth 
Bank,  published  by  the  whig  legislature,  perhaps  aided  as  eifectually 


634  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  passage  of  tlie  sub-treasury  bill,  as  any  thing  that  could  have  been 
done  here,  if  this  legislature  had  been  unanimously  in  favor  of  the  bill. 
If  the  government  did  not  run  hard  on  those  banks  when  they  were 
embarrassing  it,  it  will  aid  to  the  utmost  such  banks  as  shall  sustain  it, 
by  doing  their  duty  to  smoothe  the  advent  of  returning  prosperity. 

So  plain  is  this,  that  I  am  afraid  lookers-on,  who  do  not  know  the  patri- 
otic motives  which  actuate  every  member  of  this  house,  will  suspect,  when 
they  hear  it  assigned  as  the  principal  reason  why  the  banks  should  not 
resume  payment,  first,  that  the  government  will  take  their  bills  ;  second, 
that  it  will  not  take  them  ;  and  neither  fact  having  the  slightest  bearing 
on  their  duty  or  ability  to  pay  their  debts,  w'ill  suspect,  I  say,  that  there 
is  a  large  party  in  this  house  determined  to  put  off  specie  payments  for 
reasons  which  they  do  not  choose  to  avow,  and  not  caring  under  w^hat 
pretence.  I  am  afraid  they  will  suspecj  from  your  conduct,  for  some 
persons  are  simple  enough  to  suppose  that  actions  speak  louder  than 
words,  that,  after  denouncing  in  a  printed  resolution  the  frauds  and 
abominations  of  an  irredeemable  paper  currency,  you  intend  to  encour- 
age and  prolong  these  frauds  and  abominations  to  the  utmost  possible 
extent.  Your  conduct  carries  with  it  that  appearance,  and  I  confess  I 
could  not  help  drawing  that  inference  myself,  if  I  did  not  know  how  far 
above  suspicion  is  every  member  of  this  house,  and  that  we  all  sit  here 
sworn  to  the  faithful  discharge  of  our  duty.  Such  being  the  case,  I 
should  feel  bound  to  resent  the  imputation,  if  any  one  should  charge  o*n 
the  majority  of  this  house  a  settled  design  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the 
W'hole  trading  community  for  the  chance  of  gaining  a  contingent  pohtical 
advantage  by  an  insignificant  faction,  willing  to  purchase  even  a  remote 
prospect  of  power  and  office,  by  any  amount  of  misery  that  it  may  be 
necessary,  for  that  purpose,  to  inflict  on  the  whole  commercial  class,  and 
indirectly  through  them,  on  the  whole  industry  of  the  Commonwealtli. 

I  know  the  almost  overwhelming  mass  of  circumstantial  evidence  that 
might  be  accumulated  in  support  of  such  a  charge  ;  but  I  have  long 
learned  not  to  place  implicit  confidence  in  circumstantial  evidence.  It 
is  sufficient  for  me  to  have  shown  that  the  sub-treasury  bill,  for  this  year, 
places  the  banks  no  more  in  the  power  of  the  government  than  they 
were  before,  and  that  after  this  year,  it  will,  if  carried  into  full  effect, 
gradually  withdraw  them  entirely  from  the  power  of  the  government, 
leaving  no  possible  medium  through  which  it  can  operate  on  them. 

Tlie  next  allegation  preferred  by  the  resolve  against  the  bill  is  this, 
that  it  will  "deprive  them  [the  banks]  of  the  means  of  extending  usual 
and  necessary  facilities  to  those  engaged  in  commerce  and  manufactures." 
This  is  no  more  true  than  what  precedes  it.     The  present  system  ex- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  635 

tends  unusual  and  unnecessary  facilities  precisely  at  the  moment  ^vhen 
their  influence  is  most  mischievous,  and  withholds  the  usual  and  neces- 
sary facilities  when  they  are  most  needed.  The  bill,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
will  reverse  that  operation. 

To  make  the  public  deposits  a  basis  for  bank  discounts,  and  to  receive 
bank  bills  in  payment  to  government,  are  two  practices  having  a  com- 
mon tendency.  The  effect  of  each  is  to  promote  the  periodical  inflation, 
and  quicken  the  consequent  periodical  spasmodic  contraction  of  bank 
accommodations  and  of  the  currency.  If  this  destructive  fluctuation 
which  makes  bankrupts  of  a  majority  of  the  young  men  who  go  into 
business  in  our  great  cities,  be  indeed  a  real  benefit  to  those  who  are 
ruined  by  it,  and  to  the  public  wdio  suffer  in  their  ruin,  then  the  bill  is 
objectionable,  for  it  will  diminish  that  fluctuation,  which  makes  business 
in  America  a  lottery  with  many  blanks  to  one  prize. 

Let  us  examine  first  the  practice  of  discounting  on  the  deposits. 
These  afford  no  assistance  to  business  in  its  ordinary  state,  for  the  ex- 
penses of  government  being  in  the  long  run  equal  to  its  receipts,  the 
balances  on  hand  will  be  small,  and  only  sufficient  to  carry  on  the  busi- 
ness conveniently.  But  when  trade  tends  to  overaction,  as  soon  as 
there  is  an  excess  of  imports  a  surplus  will  accumulate  from  payments 
on  duty  bonds,  and  speculation  in  land  being  excited  by  the  same  bank 
expansion  which  stimulates  foreign  commerce,  a  surplus  also  accumulates 
from  land  sales.  All  this  surplus  is  thrown  in  at  once  to  increase  the 
expansion,  adding  fresh  fuel  to  the  flame :  and  the  greater  the  previous 
tendency  to  excess,  the  more  additional  stimulus  will  this  employment 
of  the  deposits  supply.  The  baleful  consequences  of  this  course  are 
fresh  in  all  our  memories.  The  wrecks  are  now  before  us,  the  fragments 
strewed  around  us,  the  groans  of  sufferers  ringing  in  our  ears  ;  and  yet 
our  wnse  men  tell  us  that  it  is  all  usual  and  necessary^  that  an  abundance 
of  shipwrecks  is  an  advantage  to  coast  plunderers,  and  quite  an  agreeable 
variety  in  the  life  of  the  mariners  ;  and  they  advise  us  to  hang  out  again 
just  such  false  lights  as  tempted  these  miserable  victims  to  run  on  the 
rock,  and  all,  say  they,  for  the  benefit  of  navigation,  and  especially  to 
throw  into  circulation  the  useless  funds  of  insurance  offices,  and  to  make 
work  for  shipbuilders. 

They  would  hang  out  false  lights,  I  say,  luring  to  destruction.  For 
the  large  loans  from  the  deposits  being  made  when  speculation  is  rife, 
they  cannot  be  made  at  any  other  time,  urge  on  the  feverish  spirit  of 
enterprise  in  its  mad  career.  They  urge  it  on,  but  like  the  demon  con- 
jured up  by  the  spell  of  the  magician,  they  abandon  it  In  the  extreme 
crisis  of  utmost  need.    "When  the  inevitable  contraction  follows  the  fullest 


636  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  AVMTINGS 

expansion,  as  naturally  as  nigbt  follows  clay,  the  government  feels  the 
general  effect ;  its  receipts  from  duties  and  from  lands  are  cut  off,  and  it 
must  use  up  its  surplus  deposits.  It  calls  on  the  banks  for  millions,  just 
when  their  own  necessities  from  the  natural  reaction  were  compelling 
them  to  curtail  millions.  Having  powerfully  contributed  to  exaggerate 
the  reckless  expansion,  it  now  contributes  equally  to  exacerbate  the 
terrible  contraction. 

If  the  trading  community  delights  to  be  ground  up  in  this  way  every 
three  or  four  years,  ought  not  the  government  to  allow  them  to  be  pulver- 
ized, ought  it  not  to  indulge  them  in  their  marvellous  taste  for  misery  ? 
I  think  not :  at  least  it  should  not  help  grind. 

The  receipt  of  bank  bills  for  public  dues  has,  to  a  certain  degree,  the 
same  effect  as  banking  on  the  deposits.  It  hurries  on  the  expansion  most 
when  it  is  most  ruinously  crushing. 

What  gives  rise  to  these  fluctuations  is  that  inherent  and  essential 
defect  in  the  nature  of  paper  money,  its  wrongful  elasticity.  It  expands 
when  it  ought  to  contract,  and  contracts  when  it  ought  to  expand.  To 
this  evil  the  sub-treasury  bill  proposes  to  apply,  not  an  effectual  remedy, 
but  certainly  a  very  useful  palliative. 

If  this  bill  goes  into  full  effect,  and  the  deposits  are  not  loaned,  and 
specie  only  received,  six  years  hence,  the  effect  would  be  this.  As  soon 
as  the  effect  of  speculation  is  felt  in  increased  importations  and  land  pur- 
chases, the  receipts  of  the  government  will  withdraw  from  circulation  a 
considerable  amount  of  specie  ;  this,  by  diminishing  the  amount  of  the 
circulation,  will  retard  the  too  rapid  rise  of  prices  and  prevent  the  ex- 
cessive overaction.  When  the  tide  has  turned,  and  business  stagnates, 
and  prices  fall,  then  the  receipts  of  government  will  be  less  than  their 
expenditures,  and  they  must  pay  out  specie,  thereby  increasing  the  cir- 
culating medium,  and  stopping  prices  in  their  downward  course.  If  the 
depression  continues  till  it  has  paid  out  all  its  surplus,  it  must  then  issue 
treasury  notes,  for  it  must  have  funds,  and  its  issues  will  still  alleviate 
the  pressure. 

The  sub-treasury  system  furnishes,  therefore,  a  balance-wheel.  It 
checks  when  you  need  a  check,  and  it  stimulates  when  you  need  a  stim- 
ulus ;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  deposit  system  drives  when  you  go 
too  fast,  and  drags  when  you  go  too  slow. 

The  sub-treasury  system,  by  its  tendency  to  keep  the  currency  steady, 
and  prices  steady,  tends  to  enable  the  banks  to  extend  at  all  times  usual 
and  necessary  facilities  to  those  engaged  in  commerce  and  manufactures, 
though  it  does  not  enable  them  at  any  time  to  extend  those  unusual  and 
unnecessary  facilities,  prompting  only  to  destruction,  which  have  made 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  637 

the  deposit  system  the  prolific  mother  of  such  wide  spread  woes.  The 
contrary  assertion  of  the  resolve  is  proved  to  be  false,  and  to  this  demon- 
stration there  will  be  no  attempt,  in  this  house,  to  reply. 

The  next  allegation  is,  that  "  by  causing  distrust,"  it  will  "  have  a  direct 
tendency  to  postpone  the  resumption  of  specie  payments."  How  ?  Every 
thing  is  uncertain  and  afloat ;  the  passage  of  this  bill  will  remove  the 
uncertainty.  The  banks  will  know  what  to  depend  upon.  They  will 
know  that  the  government  must  take  their  bills  if  they  resume.  Tliey 
will  resume  with  confidence,  for  they  will  know  that  it  is  the  policy  of 
the  administration  that  the  sub-treasury  bill  shall  be  fortunate  in  its 
operations.  It  will  be  for  their  evident  interest  not  to  disturb  or  derange 
the  currency.  If  any  portion  of  these  pretended  fears  are  really  enter- 
tained, if  any  distrust  exists,  it  will  be  removed  ;  for  if  the  administration 
were  worse  than  Beelzebub,  as  seems  to  be  the  prevailing  doctrine  in  this 
house,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  must  compel  them  to  do  all  they 
can  to  promote  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  banks  will  know 
prices  are  to  be  more  steady,  and  business  more  regular,  and  the  news 
of  the  passage  of  the  bill  ought  to  be  a  signal  for  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments,  the  only  serious  obstacle  to  which,  at  the  present  moment,  is 
the  opposition  of  Nicholas  Biddle. 

There  remains  for  consideration  only  the  third  resolve,  which  is  in 
these  words  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  sub-treasury  bill,  by  giving  to  the  government 
and  its  ofiicers  a  different  currency  from  that  provided  for  the  people, 
and  by  increasing  the  power  and  patronage  of  the  executive,  is  hostile 
to  the  genius,  and  may  be  destructive  to  the  permanence  of  our  republi- 
can institutions." 

The  house  have  voted  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  that  the  currency 
furnished  to  the  government  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  that  pro- 
vided for  the  people.  Where  then  would  be  the  crime,  if  the  charge 
were  true  ?  To  have  furnished  two  kinds  of  currency  precisely  equiva- 
lent, would  not  be  a  great  practical  evil.     But  the  charge  is  not  true. 

The  government  proposes  to  receive  and  pay  out  specie,  ultimately. 
So  far  it  must  furnish  to  others  precisely  what  it  requires  for  itself. 
Besides,  it  provides  for  the  people  the  hard  money  of  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  as  fast  as  the  mint  can  strike  it  off,  and  by  its  policy,  it  has 
trebled  the  amount  of  gold  and  silver  coin  in  the  country. 

If  certain  corporations  provide  for  the  people  an  irredeemable  paper 
currency,  with  its  frauds  and  abominations,  is  that  to  be  laid  to  the 
charge  of  the  government,  which  does  all  it  can  to  discountenance  the 
ruinous  practice  ? 

Messrs.  Clay  and  Preston  have  intimated  in  the  United  States  Senate, 

54 


638 

that  the  way  to  remove  this  incongruity  is,  for  the  government  to  pat- 
ronize irredec^iable  paper.  This  house,  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Mr. 
Webster,  and  with  the  doctrines  of  181 G  ringing  in  their  ears,  cannot 
mean  to  recommend  the^  frauds  and  abominations,  which  your  whig 
members  denounced  unanimously  the  other  night. 

But  the  great  argument  against  the  bill  was,  that  it  increased  execu- 
tive power.  Heretofore  the  whig  statesmen  had  insisted  that  with  the 
power  of  the  deposit  banks,  the  government  could  corrupt  and  control 
the  whole  nation. 

A  man  should  be  a  candidate  for  the  insane  hospital,  who  should  say 
that  the  appointment  of  four  solitary  receivers,  in  cities  distant  from 
each  other,  would  give  such  a  power  as  has  been  attributed  to  the  de- 
posit system. 

Instead  of  taking  power,  the  government  relinquished  it.  The  oppo- 
sition say  to  the  administration,  take  this  great  power ;  we  offer  it ;  we 
urge  it  on  you.  Mr.  Rives  says  take  twenty-five  banks.  Others 
say,  take  a  national  bank,  the  most  tremendous  engine  of  political  in- 
fluence. 

The  government  says,  no !  We  will  put  the  money  where  we  cannot 
use  it  for  the  purposes  of  power  and  patronage  ;  where  it  shall  not  be- 
come a  fountain  of  corruption. 

The  opposition  say,  loan  out  to  the  banks  thirty  millions,  and  take  the 
control  of  a  thousand  bank  officers,  and  the  many  thousand  debtors  of 
the  banks,  who  cannot  be  influenced  by  this  exercise  of  executive  pat- 
ronage. 

The  administration  reject  this  offer,  and  prefer  to  stand  on  their 
strength  in  the  deserved  confidence  of  the  people.  They  decline  all  this 
influence  and  power,  and  you  cry  out,  usurpation,  increase  of  executive 
power !  With  this  spectacle  of  calm  forbearance,  and  pati'iotic  self-de- 
nial before  your  eyes,  you  select  for  your  charge  against  the  administra- 
tion that  very  crime  from  which  they  are  furthest  removed,  an  undue 
assumption  of  power. 

Another  allegation  was,  that  the  sub-treasury  bill  would  endanger  the 
permanence  of  the  Union.  Not  so.  It  was  an  United  States  Bank  that 
would  disturb  the  Union.  It  gave  unequal  advantages  to  particular 
States  and  sections,  and  was  a  bone  of  contention  between  them.  The 
sub-treasury  produced  uniformity,  equal  justice  to  all  States  and  sections, 
and  was  perfectly  consonant  with  the  genius  of  republican  institutions. 
A  great  bank  was  necessarily  hostile  to  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  for 
it  builds  up  a  power  within  the  government  that  may  be  stronger  than 
the  government ;  a  sovereignty  waging  war  with  it. 

The  system  of  deposit  banks  was  equally  adverse  to  republican  insti- 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  639 

tutions.  The  inequality  was  the  same  by  the  operation  of  a  few  banks 
as  by  one  bank  ;  it  distributes  its  favors  locally. 

The  government  was  right  in  selecting  the  deposit  banks  as  a  step- 
ping stone,  in  a  course  of  reformation,  for  it  would  have  been  too  great 
a  stride  to  have  gone  from  a  United  States  Bank  to  the  system  now  pro- 
posed, but  it  would  be  wrong  to  continue  longer  than  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  a  convenient  transition,  in  an  intermediate  position  to  which 
there  are  such  well  grounded  objections. 

Justice  is  the  only  foundation  of  a  lasting  union.  The  mode  of  keep- 
ing the  public  money  which  is  cheap,  simple,  comfortable  to  the  genius 
of  our  institutions,  and  equal  in  its  operation,  is  decidedly  the  most  con- 
ducive to  the  permanence  of  the  Union,  and  of  republican  institutions, 
which,  it  is  to  be  feared,  could  not  survive  the  Union. 

I  have  gone  through  these  resolves,  and  shown  the  total  falsehood  of 
every  sentence  and  part  of  a  sentence  in  them.  If  there  is  a  shred  left 
of  them,  I  should  be  glad  to  know  where  it  is.  I  shall  vote  against  them 
hecause  they  are  utterly  false  throughout. 

If  any  gentleman  undertakes  to  reply,  he  will  amuse  the  house  with 
general  declamation  against  the  government,  such  as  we  have  heard  for 
eleven  weeks  past.  He  will  not  attempt  to  show  that  there  is  a  particle 
of  truth  in  either  of  these  resolves.  No  man  in  this  house  dares  to  en- 
counter so  desperate  a  task. 


EEMARKS  OX  THE  REPOPJ  LTOX  THE  MODE  OF  KEEPIXG  THE 
PUBLIC  MOXEY. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  24,  1838. 

[When  Mr.  Rantoul  took  the  floor,  Mr.  Gray,  of  Boston,  requested 
him  to  give  way  for  a  motion  to  prefix  a  title  to  the  resolves  before  the 
house,  saying  that  they  had  accidentally  been  reported,  and  allowed  to 
pass  the  senate,  without  any  title,  which  was  very  unusual;  but  on  the 
suggestion  of  the  speaker,  that  the  title  might  be  prefixed  when  the  re- 
solves came  to  be  passed,  Mr.  Gray  withdrew  that  request,  and  Mr.  Ran- 
toul  proceeded  as  follows  :]  — 

Mr.  Speaker,  —  I  am  not  at  all  surprised  at  that  unprecedented  pecu- 
liarity of  these  resolves,  which  seems  to  strike  my  friend  from  Boston 
so  unpleasantly.  The  resolves,  it  seems,  have  no  title.  WeH,  Sir,  why 
should  they  have  ?     The  committee  probably  felt  the  insuperable  diffi- 


•640  MEMOIRS,   SrEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

•culty  of  describing  or  defining  tliem.  No  title  that  the  house  would  like 
to  sanction,  could  adequately  express  the  mass  of  misrepresentation 
which  they  contain,  and  the  total  absence  of  any  direct  bearing  on  the 
question  now  before  the  nation  —  how  shall  the  public  funds  be  kept? 
The  resolves  propose  nothing ;  they  only  denounce,  as  worthy  of  all  con- 
demnation, the  proposition  for  which  every  representative  from  Massa- 
chusetts voted,  in  1835,  to  dispense  with  the  agency  or  instrumentality 
of  banks,  in  the  fiscal  operations  of  the  government.  The  resolves  are 
merely  negative,  and  nondescript.  I  think  I  could  propose  a  title  that 
would  be  strictly  applicable,  but  it  would  be  far  from  flattering,  and  I 
let  it  pass. 

I  have  stuck  these  three  resolves  to  the  w\all  like  three  bugs  in  a  mu- 
seum for  the  bystanders  to  gaze  at.  Gentlemen  can  take  them  down 
if  they  please,  and  send  them  to  Washington ;  they  will  be  only  three 
dead  nondescript  insects  when  they  get  them  there,  —  droll  looking,  while 
alive,  with  wings  too  weak  to  bear  them  up,  and  no  stings  in  their  tails, 
—  now,  nothing  but  three  dead  humbugs.  As  nobody  rises  to  rescue 
them,  as  the  whole  house  sits  silent  under  the  melancholy  impression  of 
their  vanity  and  nothingness,  I  leave  them  where  they  are,  and  proceed 
to  discuss  the  great  question  of  the  day,  the  mode  of  keeping  the  public 
moneys,  for  which,  be  it  remembered,  the  resolves  contain  no  proposition 
or  suggestion. 

Before  I  enter  on  the  main  subject,  let  me  notice,  a  little  more  par- 
ticularly, one  or  two  intimations  of  the  report  that  accompanies  the 
resolves. 

1.  The  report  urges  that  the  vast  annual  results  of  the  industry  of 
Massachusetts  "  prove  the  amount  of  circulating  medium  required,  and 
the  distress  that  must  ensue,  if  those  who  depend  on  their  labor  for  a 
subsistence  were  dismissed  for  want  of  a  currency  to  pay  them." 

This  appeal  to  a  f>rejudice,  only  consistent  with  the  most  benighted 
ignorance,  would  not  have  been  made  by  any  one  who  did  not  wofully 
underrate  the  intelligence  of  the  people.  The  annual  products  of  the 
industry  of  Massachusetts,  including  those  not  mentioned  in  our  statisti- 
cal tables,  amount  to  considerably  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars.  This  fact  has  no  tendency  to  show  that  the  circulation  ought  to 
be  depreciated  by  increasing  the  quantity.  If  the  silver  in  the  world 
were  only  one  sixteenth  part  as  great  as  it  now  is,  it  would  be  as  valua- 
l)le  as  gold  is ;  it  would  perform  the  same  exchanges  that  it  now  does, 
and  perform  them  more  conveniently ;  so  that  no  labor  would  be  discon- 
tinued for  want  of  money  to  pay  wages,  and  the  world  would  be  no 
poorer  than  before,  except  the  want  of  silver  bullion  for  use  in  the  arts. 


641 

On  the  other  hand,  if  gold  were  as  plenty  as  silver  now  is,  it  would  be 
as  cheap  ;  the  whole  quantity  in  the  world  would  make  no  more  pur- 
chases and  pay  no  more  wages  than  at  present,  only  one  would  have  oc- 
casion for  sixteen  ounces  of  gold  to  make  the  purchase  that  he  now 
makes  with  a  doubloon  ;  the  world  would  be  no  richer  than  it  is  now, 
except  as  to  the  use  of  gold  for  various  purposes  in  the  arts.  What 
gives  money  value,  therefore,  is  its  scarcity ;  and  if  gold  and  silver  could 
be  rendered  more  abundant  than  paving  stones,  this  would  be  no  benefit 
to  the  productive  industry  of  the  State,  but  just  the  contrary.  There  is 
no  danger  of  a  deficiency  in  the  amount  of  the  whole  circulating  medium, 
though  there  may  be,  and  often  is  a  great  scarcity  of  a  sound  currency 
when  a  baser  currency  has  banished  it  from  sight,  and  while  it  is  strug- 
gling to  find  its  way  back  again. 

2.  "  The  general  government  has  the  power  to  render  this  currency 
safe  and  ample,"  says  the  report,  and  "  they  now  shrink  from  the  re- 
sponsibility." "  This  seems  to  your  committee  a  palpable  dereliction  of 
duty." 

A  specie  currency  is  perfectly  safe.  A  currency  of  specie  for  small 
transactions,  with  paper  of  larger  denominations  for  commercial  pur- 
poses, resting  on  a  large  specie  basis,  and  redeemable  at  any  moment, 
on  demand,  in  specie,  w^ould  be  both  convenient  and  safe. 

A  currency,  wholly,  or  mostly  composed  of  bank  paper  is,  and  ever 
must  be  unsafe.  Twice  since  the  last  war  was  declared,  the  banks  in 
the  United  States  have,  generally,  stopped  specie  payments,  the  last 
sto2)page  being  almost  universal.  In  1830,  there  were,  according  to  Mr. 
Gallatin,  three  hundred  and  thirty  banks  in  operation,  and  one  hundred 
and  sixty-five,  just  half  that  number,  had  failed  since  1811,  in  less  than 
twenty  years  !  The  total  failures  of  banks  from  1811  to  1835,  were  one 
hundred  and  ninety-seven,  and  since  that  date  the  list  has  been  fearfully 
lengthened. 

Mammoth  banks  and  national  banks  are  no  safer  manufacturers  of  a 
currency  than  these  smaller  banks.  Almost  all  the  national  banks  in 
Europe  have  issued  irredeemable  and  greatly  depreciated  paper,  during 
most  of  the  period  of  their  existence.  The  Bank  of  England,  the  ob- 
ject of  idolatry  of  all  the  disciples  of  Mammon  among  us,  has  issued  ir- 
redeemable paper,  more  than  half  of  the  time  since  the  first  bank  of  the 
United  States  was  chartered.  ]Mr.  Biddle's  bank,  which  v/as  asserted 
by  him  to  be  safer,  stronger,  and  more  prosperous  than  it  ever  was,  hav- 
ing got  rid  of  a  connection  disadvantageous  both  to  the  bank  and  to  the 
government,  has  not  only  failed  to  fulfil  its  obligations,  but  is  the  great- 
est, and  indeed  the  only  serious  obstacle  to  that  general  and  immediate 
resumption  of  cash  payments,  which  honesty  and  honor  dictate  to  the 

54* 


642  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

banks,  and  which  the  best  interests  of  the  whole  nation,  I  mean  its  pe- 
cuniary, political,  and  moral  well  being,  imperatively  demands. 

The  general  effect  of  paper  money  banking  in  the  excess  to  which  it 
naturally  tends,  was  admirably  depicted  by  the  late  president  of  the 
United  States  in  his  message  at  the  commencement  of  the  second  ses- 
sion of  the  twenty-fourth  congress.  His  views  are  thus  expressed  in 
his  usual  plain  and  decided  manner :  — 

"•  Variableness  must  ever  be  the  characteristic  of  a  currency,  of  which 
the  precious  metals  are  not  the  chief  ingredient,  or  which  can  be  ex- 
panded or  contracted  without  regard  to  the  principles  that  regulate  the 
value  of  those  metals  as  a  standard  in  the  general  trade  of  the  world. 
With  us,  bank  issues  constitute  such  a  currency,  and  must  ever  do  so 
until  they  are  made  dependent  on  those  just  proportions  of  gold  and 
silver,  as  a  circulating  medium,  which  experience  has  proved  to  be 
necessary  not  only  in  this,  but  in  all  other  commercial  countries.  Where 
those  proportions  are  not  infused  into  the  circulation,  and  do  not  control 
it,  it  is  manifest  that  prices  must  vary  according  to  the  tide  of  bank 
issues,  and  the  value  and  stability  of  property  must  stand  exposed  to  all 
the  uncertainty  which  attends  the  administration  of  institutions  that  are 
constantly  liable  to  the  temptation  of  an  interest  distinct  from  that  of 
the  community  in  which  they  are  established. 

"  The  progress  of  an  expansion,  or  rather  a  depreciation  of  the  cur- 
rency, by  excessive  bank  issues,  is  always  attended  by  a  loss  to  the 
laboring  classes.  This  portion  of  the  community  have  neither  time  nor 
opportunity  to  watch  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  the  money  market.  En- 
;gaged  from  day  to  day  in  their  useful  toils,  they  do  not  perceive  that  al- 
though their  wages  are  nominally  the  same,  or  even  somewhat  higher, 
they  are  greatly  reduced  in  fact  by  the  rapid  increase  of  a  spurious  cur- 
rency, which,  as  it  appears  to  make  money  abound,  they  are  at  first  in- 
clined to  consider  a  blessing.  It  is  not  so  with  the  speculator,  by  whom 
this  operation  is  better  understood,  and  is  made  to  contribute  to  his  ad- 
vantage. It  is  not  until  the  prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life  become  so 
dear  that  the  laboring  classes  cannot  supply  their  wants  out  of  their 
wages,  that  the  wages  rise,  and  gradually  reach  a  justly  proportioned 
rate  to  that  of  the  products  of  their  labor. 

"  When  thus  by  the  depreciation  in  consequence  of  the  quantity  of 
paper  in  circulation,  wages  as  well  as  prices  become  exorbitant,  it  is  soon 
found  that  the  whole  effect  of  the  adulteration  is  a  tariff  on  our  home  in- 
dustry for  the  benefit  of  the  countries  where  gold  and  silver  circulate, 
and  maintain  uniformity  and  moderation  in  prices.  It  is  then  perceived 
that  the  enhancement  of  the  price  of  land  and  labor,  produces  a  corres- 
ponding increase  in  the  price  of  products,  until  these  products  do  not 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  643 

sustain  a  competition  with  similar  ones  in  other  countries ;  and  thus  both 
manufactured  and  agricuUural  productions  cease  to  bear  exportation 
from  the  country  of  the  spurious  currency,  because  they  cannot  be  sold 
for  cost.  This  is  the  process  by  which  specie  is  banished  by  the  paper 
of  the  banks.  Their  vaults  are  soon  exhausted  to  pay  for  ibreign  com- 
modities ;  the  next  step  is  a  stopparje  of  specie  payment,  —  a  total  degra- 
dation of  paper  as  a  currency, —  unusual  depression  of  prices,  —  the 
ruin  of  debtors,  and  the  accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  credi- 
tors and  cautious  capitalists." 

Is  such  a  currency  safe  ?  It  has  been  the  curse  of  England  and 
America,  from  which  the  present  administration  are  laboring  hard  to 
free  us  now,  and  in  some  good  degree  to  secure  us  hereafter.  The  ma- 
jority of  this  house  are  the  implicit  followers  of  Daniel  Webster,  and 
before  they  call  upon  government  to  adopt  a  course  which  will  extend 
the  empire  of  irredeemable  paper,  before  they  remonstrate  against  the 
application  of  the  only  check  which  government  can  apply  to  prevent 
excessive  issues,  it  may  be  well  to  remember  the  character  attributed  by 
Mr.  Webster,  less  than  six  years  ago,  to  the  currency  they  now  regard 
with  so  much  favor.  I  will  read  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  Daniel 
Webster  on  the  floor  of  congress,  in  1832:  — 

"  Of  all  the  contrivances  for  cheating  the  laboring  class  of  mankind, 
none  have  been  more  effectual  than  that  which  deludes  them  with  paper 
money.  Tins  is  the  most  effectual  of  inventions  to  fertilize  tJie  rich 
inan's  feld  hy  the  sweat  of  the  poor  mail's  hroio.  Ordinary  tyranny, 
oppression,  excessive  taxation,  these  bear  lightly  on  the  happiness  of 
the  mass  of  the  community,  compared  with  fraudulent  currencies,  and 
the  rohheries  committed  hy  a  depreciated  paper.  Our  own  history  has 
recorded  for  our  instruction  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  of  the 
demoralizing  tendency,  the  injustice  and  intolerable  oppression,  on  the 
virtuous  and  well  disposed,  of  a  degraded  j^aper  currency,  authorized  hy 
law,  or  in  any  ivay  countenanced  hy  government.'''' 

The  "  palpable  dereliction  of  duty  "  of  which  the  report  complains  is, 
that  the  government  will  not  authorize,  by  law,  or  in  any  way  counte- 
nance, "  the  most  effectual  of  inventions  to  fertilize  the  rich  man's  field 
by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  brow."  That  they  will  not  altogether 
surpass,  in  the  enormity  of  their  oppressions,  all  ordinary  tyranny,  op- 
pression, excessive  taxation,  by  overwhelming  them  with  fraudulent  cur- 
rencies, and  the  robberies  committed  by  a  depreciated  paper.  This  is 
the  crime,  charged  in  the  report,  that  they  will  not,  at  your  bidding, 
embark  in  that  "  miserable,  abominable,  and  fraudulent  policy,  which 
attempts  to  give  value  to  any  paper  of  any  bank  one  single  moment 
longer  than  such  paper  is  redeemable,  on  demand,  in  gold  and  silver ; " 


644  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

that  tliey  will  not  assist  to  force  into  circulation  a  currency  whicli  "  re- 
presents nothing  but  broken  promises,  bad  faith,  bankrupt  corporations, 
cheated  creditors,  and  a  ruined  people  ; "  that  they  will  not  assist  you  to 
perpetuate  what  you  voted  unanimously,  the  other  night,  to  be  "  the 
frauds  and  abominations  of  irredeemable  paper  money ; "  and  that  they 
propose  to  check  these  "  frauds  and  abominations,"  in  the  mode  pointed 
out  by  Mr.  Webster,  in  181 G,  by  exercising  "the  only  power  which  the 
general  government  possesses  of  restraining  the  issues  of  the  State 
banks,  to  refuse  their  notes  in  the  receipts  of  the  treasury."  These,  in- 
deed, are  weighty  charges  for  a  whig  legislature  to  present  before  the 
sovereign  people  against  the  government  of  that  people's  choice,  and 
the  report,  in  selecting  its  point  of  attack,  furnishes  an  admirable  and 
characteristic  exemplification  of  whig  sagacity  and  consistency. 

It  now  remains  to  see  what  government  has  done  ;  and  it  is  believed 
we  shall  find  that  they  have  mitigated  the  very  evils  charged  upon  them. 

WHiat  has  the  government  done  ?  It  has  attempted,  by  gradually  in- 
fusing more  of  the  precious  metals  into  the  circulating  medium,  to  fix  it 
upon  a  basis  which  would  not  be  subject  to  those  extreme  fluctuations 
which  our  banks  have  produced.  In  this,  they  have  been  steadily  op- 
posed by  the  whole  federal  press  and  party,  with  a  zeal  and  determina- 
tion worthy  a  better  cause.  When  that  policy  has  been  pursued  which 
has  served  to  alleviate  and  prevent  that  confusion  into  which  our  mone- 
tary system  had  been  thrown,  we  have  heard  only  the  repeated  cries  of 
*' war  on  the  people,"  —  "tampering  with  the  currency,"  —  and  "oppo- 
sition to  the  banks."  But,  notwithstanding,  the  government  has  pro- 
gressed, in  spite  of  opposition,  and  has  greatly  increased  the  amount  of 
gold  and  silver.  The  mint  was  established  in  1783,  and  on  examining 
the  history  of  its  operations,  it  would  be  found  that  more  than  half  of 
the  whole  amount  coined  had  been  since  the  election  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son as  president.  The  whole  amount  coined  since  the  establishment  of 
the  mint,  as  appears  by  its  return,  was,  in  gold,  $23,250,340 ;  in  silver, 
$48,835,192;  in  copper,  $795,915;  total,  $72,881,547. 

Of  that  sum,  over  fifteen  millions  of  gold,  and  nearly  twenty-two  rail- 
lions  of  silver,  had  been  coined  since  Andrew  Jackson  commenced  ruin- 
ing the  country,  —  as  much  as  had  been  coined  for  the  thirty -five  pre- 
ceding years. 

In  this  time  of  shin-plasters  and  fractional  bills,  too,  it  would  be  in- 
quired what  government  had  done  in  coining  small  change.  I  have  .be- 
fore me  a  true  and  correct  statement  of  the  coinage  of  small  change 
from  1829  up  to  and  including  the  past  year,  —  and  being  greater  by 
two  thirds  for  the  last  eight  years,  than  for  thirty-five  years  preced- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  645 


25  cents. 

10  cents. 

5  cents. 

1829, 

• 

77,000 

1,230,000 

1830, 

510,000 

1,240,000 

1831, 

388,000 

771,550 

1,242,700 

1832, 

320,000 

522,500 

965,000 

1833, 

156,000 

484,000 

1,370,000 

1834, 

286,000 

635,000 

1,480,000 

1835, 

1,952,000 

1,410,000 

2,760,000 

183G, 

272,000 

1,190,000 

1,900.000 

1837, 

250,400 

1,042,000 

2,276^000 

The  question  next  follows,  where  is  this  coin,  large  and  small  ?  It 
has,  some  of  it,  been  purchased  for  exportation,  and  the  general  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payments  of  banks  in  Alay  last,  lias  afforded  them  all  an 
opportunity  to  sell  it  and  speculate  upon  it.  Yet  the  best  data  from 
which  estimates  can  be  drawn,  show  that  we  must  have  about"  ninety 
millions  of  specie  in  the  country  now,  while  between  twenty  and  thirty 
millions  was  the  sum  in  1830. 

Here,  then,  was  another  fact  that  the  course  of  the  general  govern- 
ment had  been  one  which  was  calculated  to  assist  our  banks  in  resuming 
specie  payments.  It  could  be  mathematically  demonstrated,  then,  that 
if  any  given  time  was  required  for  them  to  resume,  on  eighty  or  ninety 
millions  of  specie,  it  would  require  four  times  as  long  to  get  ready  on 
twenty  millions.  These  things  show  what  government  has  done,  —  and 
it  was  most  deeply  regretted  that  its  policy  was  not  earlier  commenced. 
Had  such  been  the  case,  the  blasting  influence  of  our  present  monetary 
system  would  not  have  swept  over  our  happy  land  like  a  besom  of  de- 
struction. 

At  present  government  is  doing  all  it  can  to  carry  out  its  policy  of 
furnishing  a  safe  currency,  and  the  course  of  trade  favors  its  efforts. 
In  183G,  the  imports  of  specie  were,  $12,160,372,  and  the  exports, 
$4,435,815.  In  1837,  imports,  $10,954,432  ;  exports,  $7,714,990;  and 
it  is  now  flowing  in  faster  than  ever  before  known. 

3.  The  report  alleges,  that  our  "  very  existence  as  a  commercial  peo- 
ple depends  on  the  facilities  of  exchange  ;  stoppage,  in  this  respect,  has 
caused  the  failure  of  thousands,"  &c. 

Exchange  is  the  transmission  of  values,  and  to  complain  that  the 
government  has  not  furnished  the  vehicle  for  this  transmission  is 
about  as  reasonable  as  to  complain  that  it  has  not  provided  wagons  for 
the  transportation  of  beef,  pork,  and  flour.  Facilities  for  the  transfer 
of  values,  and  for  the  conveyance  of  merchandise,  are  both  highly  ad- 
vantageous ;  but  the  govei-nment  has  not  been  authorized,  in  the  Consti- 
tution, to  create  either.  It  would  be  a  dangerous  usurpation  of  power 
not  given,  if  the  government  were  to  monopolize  the  building  and  sale 
of  sliipping  for  the  coasting  trade;  it  would  be  a  usurpation  equally  ob- 
jectionable for  the  government  to  take  into  its  own  hands  the  instrument 


646  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

of  exchange,  since  it  would  thereby  coytrol  the  whole  course  of  busi- 
ness ;  a  power  not  to  be  tolerated,  whether  exercised  directly,  or  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  corporation,  or  a  league  of  them. 

But  though  government  should  not  furnish  the  instrument  of  exchange 
any  further  than  by  coining  money,  yet  in  determining  how  it  shall  re- 
ceive, keep,  and  disburse  its  own  funds,  it  is  important  to  ascertain  how 
any  proposed  mode  would  incidentally  affect  exchanges.  To  receive  the 
public  dues  in  bank  paper,  and  make  them  the  basis  of  discounts,  goes 
as  far  as  government  can  go  to  increase  the  fluctuations  in  the  currency 
and  in  business,  and  thereby  to  derange. the  exchanges.  To  receive  the 
public  dues  in  the  legal  currency  of  the  United  States,  and  employ 
them  only  for  constitutional  purposes,  does  all  the  government  can  do 
to  make  the  currency  and  business  of  the  country  steady,  and  thereby 
to  keep  the  exchanges  also  steady. 

While  the  exports  of  the  country,  with  the  profit  on  them,  pay  for 
the  imports,  and  the  productions  of  each  section  pay  for  its  consumption, 
there  is  no  derangement  of  either  foreign  or  domestic  exchanges,  whether 
you  have,  or  have  not,  a  national  ban-k.  But  when,  by  the  stimulus 
which  the  United  States  Bank,  the  deposit  banks,  and  the  wiiole  bank- 
ing system,  have  applied  to  trade,  a  general  overaction  is  engendered,  so 
that  the  imports  exceed  the  exports  some  fifty  or  sixty  millions  of  dol- 
lars in  a  year,  and  the  west  and  south-west  purchase  more  than  all  their 
ready  means,  and  their  next  year's  crop  spent  before  it  is  planted,  can 
pay  for,  it  is  evident  that  our  credit  abroad  must  suffer  a  shock,  and  our 
domestic  exchanges  be  thrown  into  confusion.  If  the  proceeds  of  all 
the  products  shipped  from  New  Orleans  have  been  used  up,  and  the 
proceeds  of  two  years'  crops  anticipated,  and  all  the  credit  that  can  be 
based  upon  them  used  up  also,  it  is  plain  that  nobody  in  New  Orleans 
can  draw  a  good  bill  on  New  York,  simply  because  neither  funds  nor 
credit  are  left  there  to  be  drawn  for.  Unless  a  United  States  Bank  en- 
ables people  to  pay  their  debts,  who  have  nothing  wherewith  to  pay 
them,  it  could  not  cure  this  mischief.  It  might,  and  would,  have  made 
it  worse,  by  enabling  the  sjieculating  debtors  to  push  their  credit  a  little 
further  beyond  their  means  of  actual  payment,  and  thereby  making  the 
crash  more  terribly  ruinous,  when  the  crazy  fabric  of  fictitious  credit 
finally  toppled  down.  Fifty  banks,  each  as  large  as  Biddle's,  could  only 
have  delayed  the  catastrophe  of  overstrained  credit,  to  overwhelm  its 
victims  more  fatally,  when  the  dam  burst,  in  a  deeper  torrent  of  de- 
struction. 

No  bank  or  banks  can  equalize  the  currency  of  different  sections 
while  such  vast  balances  remain  unsettled.  The  United  States  Bank 
tried  this  in  1819.     It  drained  the   west  of  specie,  broke   the  western 


OF  ROBEKT  RANTOUL,  JR.  647 

banks  and  merchants,  bankrupting  whole  cities  together ;  then  closed  its 
western  offices,  and  abandoned  the  attempt  in  despair,  for  if  it  had  per- 
sisted, it  must  have  perished.  Its  president,  Mr.  Cheves,  testified  that 
"  all  the  resources  of  the  bank  would  not  have  sustained  it  in  this  course 
and  mode  of  business  another  month,"  so  that  it  paused  only  when  on 
the  very  brink  of  bankruptcy.  Many  years  after,  when  the  exchanges 
had  regulated  themselves,  the  bank  stepped  in  to  reap  the  profit,  and 
took,  as  usual,  the  lion's  share  of  the  spoils. 

In  the  chaos  which  follows  a  regulation  of  the  currency  by  a  mam- 
moth bank,  stimulating  all  other  banks  to  a  delirious  overaction,  it  may 
often  happen  that  the  difference  of  exchange  will  equal  the  difference  of 
depreciation  in  the  local  currencies  of  two  sections.  Between  New 
York  and  Mississippi,  or  Alabama,  there  is  now  a  difference  of  twenty 
or  twenty-five  per  cent.,  or  even  more.  If  there  were  in  circulation  an 
abundance  of  gold,  the  premium  for  exchange  could  never  exceed  the 
expense  of  transporting  gold,  a  very  small  per  centage  for  the  greatest 
distances. 

The  sub-treasury  bill,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  banishes  paper  and  intro- 
duces gold,  not  only  prevents  that  wild  excess  in  speculation,  which 
throws  the  exchanges  into  confusion,  but  furnishes  an  easy,  speedy,  and 
effectual  remedy  for  such  confusion,  the  transmission  of  distant  balances 
in  gold.  Under  such  a  system  the  facilities  of  exchange  can  never  be 
cut  off. 

4.  The  report  asserts  that  "  the  people  of  Massachusetts  are  attached 
to  their  old  institutions,  and  are  unwilHng  to  sacrifice  them  to  vague 
theories  and  untried  experiments.  With  their  State  institutions,  they 
have  advanced  to  prosperity  and  affluence  ;  on  these  institutions  no  stain 
was  ever  cast,  until  acts  of  the  general  government  crippled  them  as  to 
their  means,  or  tempted  them  to  their  destruction." 

Sir,  our  present  mode  of  banking  in  this  State  was,  until  quite  lately, 
an  untried  experiment.  It  rests  upon  a  vague  theory  that  banks  can, 
by  some  legerdemain,  alchemy,  or  magic,  create  wealth  out  of  nothing, 
and  it  is  to  this  vague  theory  that  our  old  institutions,  and  old  fashioned 
merchants,  have  been  sacrificed  by  swindling  experimenters.  The  ex- 
periment, untried  before,  but  now  satisfactorily  tested,  was  to  ascertain 
how  long  a  bank  could  pay  its  debts,  having  nothing  In  its  vaults  but 
confidence  wherewith  to  pay  them.  The  result  is  before  us.  The  con- 
fidence lasted  twelve  years,  which  Is  longer  than  one  would  have  thought. 
The  experiment  began  in  1825,  and  ended  in  the  dim  eclipse  of  1837, 
which  still  sheds  its  disastrous  twilight  over  us. 

From  1803  to  1824,  inclusive,  it  appears  by  the  returns  which  we 
have  ordered  to  be  published,  that  the  specie  in  our  Massachusetts  banks 


648  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

averaged  considerably  more  titan  half  the  full  amount  of  their  circula- 
tion. In  1825,  it  suddenly  sunk  to  iibout  one  fourth  part,  which  was  the 
average  for  six  years,  from  1825  to  1830,  inclusive.  In  1831,  it  suddenly 
sunk  again  to  less  tha7i  ojie  eighth  part,  which  continued  to  be  about  the 
average  proportion  for  the  next  seven  years. 

That  it  may  be  seen  there  is  no  mistake  about  these  facts,  I  will  give 
the  official  returns,  as  we  have  ordered  them  to  be  published.  They  are 
found  in  printed  document  of  the  senate.  No.  38. 

I.  First  period,  from  1803  to  1824,  twenty-two  years,  during  which 
the  specie  is  equal  to  half  the  circulation. 

Years,  1803.  1804.  1805.  1806. 

Bills  out,         $1,56.5,189  1,695,301  1,553,824  1,613,684 

Specie,  1,079,928  977,902  847,998  959,394 

Years,  1807.  1808.  1809.  1810.  1811. 

Bills  out,       $1,481,777        1,038,042       1,334,948       2,098,491       2,355,571 
Specie,  714,783       l,0i5,843  821,942       1,347,722       1,513,000 

For  the  next  four  years  the  specie  exceeded  the  circulation.  I  omit 
them  for  the  present. 

Yea-s,  1816.  1817.  1818.  1819.  1820. 

Bills  out,      $2,134,690       2,495,260       2,680,477       2,464,057       2,614,734 
Specie,  1,260,210       1,577,453       1,129,598       1,198,889       1,280,852 

Years,  1821.  1822.  1823.  1824. 

Bills  out,         $3,010,762  3,132,552  3,128,986  3,842,641 

Specie,  3,048,829  946,266  1,033,375  1,939,842 

II.  Second  period,  from  1825  to  1830,  six  years,  during  which  the 
specie  is  about  one  fourth  of  the  bills  not  on  interest.  In  1825,  bills  hear- 
ing interest  make  their  first  appearance  in  the  returns,  but  disappear 
again  in  1820. 

Years,  1825.  1826.  1827.                    1828. 

Bills  not  on  interest,  $4,091,411  4,549,814  4,936,442  4,884,538 

Bills  bearinr^  interest,  1,902,8.53  1,855,065  1,728,881  2,599,326 

Total  of  bills  out,  5,994,264  6,404,879  6,665,323  7,483,864 

Specie,  1,038,986  1,323,820  1,466,261  1,144,645 

Years,  1829  1830. 

Bills  out,  $4,747,784  5,124,090 

Specie,  987,210  1,258,444 

III.  Third  period,  from  1831  to  1837,  during  which  the  specie  was 
about  one  eighth  of  the  circulation,  and  the  "vague  theory"  was  fully 
tested,  blowing  up  the  experimenters  with  a  prodigious  explosion  in  May, 
1837. 


Years, 

183\ 

1832. 

1833. 

Bills  out, 

$7,739,317 

7,122,856 

7,889,110 

Specie, 

919,959 

902,205 

922,309 

OF  ROBEKT   RA]SfTOUL,  JE.  649 

Years,  1834.  1835.  1836.  1837. 

Bills  out,       $7,050,146  9,430,357  10,892,249  10,273,118 

Specie,  1,160,296  1,136,444  1,455,230  1,517,984 

In  these  tables  we  have  the  full  history  of  the  Massachusetts  experi- 
ment to  ascertain  whether  banking  on  confidence  and  delusion  and 
moonshine,  is  not  vastly  safer  and  better  than  banking  on  gold  and  silver. 
One  would  think  the  result  conclusive  ;  but  what  are  facts  to  whig  prin- 
ciples ?  Have  they  not  always  been  opposite  to  each  other  ?  The  pre- 
vailing opinion  in  State  street  still  is,  that  gold  is  a  silly  humbug,  and 
that  rags  and  moonshine  are  something  solid,  substantial,  durable,  — 
something  that  can  be  depended  upon.  The  whig  doctrine  in  this  house 
and  through  this  State  is,  that  it  is  both  foolish  and  wicked  not  to  have 
implicit  confidence  in  the  truth  of  promises  known  and  avowed  to  be 
false.  If  any  one  whispers  a  doubt,  the  whig  oracles  rave  like  a  Pytho- 
ness on  the  stool  of  inspiration  against  specie  humbugs,  and  to  the 
praise  and  glory  of  the  "  sound  currency  "  of  promises  impossible  to  be 
performed.  A  bank  says  to  its  customer,  in  effect,  I  promise  to  pay  you 
on  demand  so  many  dollars,  but  don't  be  fool  enough  to  imagine  you  will 
ever  touch  one  of  them  ;  I  give  you  fair  warning  that  I  never  keep  my 
promises.  The  printed  and  written  contract  which  you  hold  in  your 
hand  is  false  ;  but  if  you  do  not,  in  all  times  and  places,  profess  to  believe 
it  is  true,  you  deserve  a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers,  for  impairing  the  public 
confidence  in  my  ability  and  disposition  to  pay  what  I  can't  pay  if  I 
would,  and  what  I  wont  pay  if  I  could.  The  tables  show  us  the  precise 
gradations  by  which  the  banks  arrive  at  this  appropriate  and  final  con- 
summation of  the  whig  policy  on  the  subject  of  the  currency. 

For  the  first  period  of  twenty-two  years,  the  banks  had  on  hand  specie 
equal  to  one  half  of  their  circulation ;  and  as  they  discounted  short  busi- 
ness paper  for  the  convenience  of  the  trading  community,  they  always 
had  it  in  their  power,  by  a  slight  curtailment,  to  command  resources 
sufficient  to  redeem  all  their  bills  on  demand  in  specie,  as  fast  as  they 
could  possibly  be  sent  home  upon  them.  During  this  first  period,  there- 
fore, whatever  other  objections  might  be  urged  against  the  banks,  their 
bills  were,  generally  speaking,  sure  to  be  convertible  into  specie  ;  there 
was  no  danger  of  a  very  general  failure. 

But  during  the  second  period,  while  the  circulation  on  demand  was 
four  times  the  amount  of  the  specie,  and  including  post  notes,  or  bills 
bearing  interest,  five  times,  and,  in  one  instance,  six  times,  the  amount 
of  the  specie,  the  practice  began  to  grow  up  of  organizing  banks  by  bor- 
rowers, instead  of  lenders,  and  of  making  long  loans  by  renewing  accom- 
modation notes  for  the  convenience  of  their  directors.  Their  resources 
were  much  less  within  their  control;  and  there  was  a  possibility,  to  say 

55 


650  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

the  least,  of  a  general  suspension  of  cash  payments,  if  war,  or  any  other 
national  calamity,  had  suddenly  shaken  the  public  confidence  in  the  sta- 
bility of  the  banks.  The  danger,  however,  was  not  so  imminent  as  to 
attract  the  immediate  attention  of  any  but  close  and  philosophic  observers. 
It  was  a  state  of  transition ;  and  but  few  saw  where  it  would  end. 

The  banks  becoming  more  than  ever  before  instruments  of  speculation, 
there  was  a  strong  inducement  to  multiply  them  far  beyond  the  legiti- 
mate v/ants  of  business.  The  number  of  banks,  the  amount  of  their 
capital,  loans,  and  circulation,  increased  rapidly.  In  1815,  there  were 
25  banks,  with  a  capital  of  $11,462,000,  and  the  total  amount  of  their 
loans  was  $13,735,101.  In  1824,  there  were  37  banks  with  a  capital  of 
$12,857,350,  and  their  loans  in  all,  $17,401,613.  Their  capital  had  been 
almost  stationary  for  nine  years,  and  their  loans  had  risen  only  about 
one  fourth.  Now  mark  the  rapid  increase  of  the  second  period,  at  least 
for  the  first  five  years,  until  the  stagnation  of  1830. 

Years,  1825:  1826.  1827.  1828.  1829. 

No.  of  banks,  41  55  60  61  66 

Capital,  s$14,535,000  16,649,996  18,269,750  19,337,800  20,420,000 

Loans,  21,973,961  23,617,660  24,271,031  27,073,978  28,590,896 

The  number  of  banks  had  doubled  since  1822,  in  only  seven  years  ; 
the  amount  of  capital  and  of  loans  had  almost  doubled  in  the  same  time. 


No.  of  banks. 

Capital. 

Loans. 

In  1822, 

33 

$10,821,125 

14,.57 1,020 

1829, 

66 

20,420,000 

28,590,896 

The  business  of  the  Commonwealth,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  been  pass- 
ing through  a  series  of  the  most  destructive  catastrophes.  The  sudden 
and  terrible  crash  of  the  autumn  of  1825,  the  prolonged  disasters  and 
the  settled  gloom  and  despondency  of  1828  and  1829,  are  associated  in 
our  memories  with  the  banking  and  speculating  spirit  of  that  period. 

The  third  period,  however,  in  which  the  specie  was  equal  to  one  eighth 
of  the  circulation,  was  to  try  the  "  untried  experiment,"  and  sacrifice 
both  banks  and  people  to  the  "  vague  theory "  of  Massachusetts  whig 
legislation.  The  untried  experiment  was  to  prove  how  far  the  bubble 
.could  be  inflated  without  bursting.  The  vague  theory  was,  that  paper 
without  a  specie  basis  is  better  than  with  it.  Both  points  are  now  settled 
by  experience,  yet  the  exploded  paper  mills  are  dearer  than  ever  to  the 
millers  and  their  men. 

This  cheap  mode  of  coining  money  from  rags  was  too  captivating  a 
privilege  not  to  be  eagerly  sought  for  and  improved.  It  was  a  legahzed 
system  of  plunder  and  piracy,  whereby  the  privileged  order  levied  con- 
tributions on  the  industrious,  and  appropriated  their  gains.    The  number 


OF  ROBERT  RAISfTOUL,  JR.  651 

of  bank?,  tlieir  capital,  and  their  loans,  which  had  doubled  in  seven  years 
prior  to  1829,  doubled  again  in  seven  years  after  1830.  The  following 
is  their  progression  in  the  third  period  of  our  banking,  taking  the  year 
1830  as  a  point  of  depression  to  start  from. 

Years,  1830.                       1831.                      1832.  18S3. 

No.  of  banks,  63                         70                       83  102 

Capital,  s$l  9,295,000  21,439,800  24,520,200  28,230,250 

Loans,  27,987,2.34  30,040,760  38,889,727  45,201,008 

Years,  1834.                       1835.                      1836.                      1837. 

No.  of  banks,  103                       105                     117                     129 

Capital,  $29,409,450  30,410,000  34,478,110  38,280,000 

Loans,  47,200,477  48,342,019  50,643,171  58,414,182 

In  fifteen  years,  the  number  of  banks,  the  amount  of  capital,  and  of 
loans,  had  been  quadrupled,  or  thereabout.  This  immense  fabric  of 
credit  reposed  upon  a  very  narrow  basis.  While  the  specie  in  the  banks 
had  not  increased  for  twenty  years,  their  inflated  circulation  was  not  the 
only  dangerous  symptom  of  their  new  condition.  Owing  to  the  altered 
mode  of  doing  business,  consequent  on  the  multiplication  of  banks,  the 
deposits  had  increased  in  as  great  a  proportion  as  the  circulation. 

Contrast  their  last  year's  returns,  in  this  respect,  with  those  of  ten, 
twenty,  or  thirty  years  ago. 


Circulation. 

Deposits. 

Specie. 

1807, 

$1,481,777 

1,713,908 

714,783 

1817, 

2,495,200 

3,520,793 

1,577,453 

1827, 

0,005,323 

3,300,746 

1,400,201 

1837, 

10,273,118 

14,059,448 

1,517,984 

In  1807,  the  specie  is  to  the  aggregate  of  circulation  and  deposits,  as  one 
to  three ;  in  1817,  as  one  to  four ;  in  1827,  as  one  to  seven  ;  and  in  1837, 
as  one  to  sixteen ;  yet  people  are  astonished  at  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments,  as  if  something  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  things  had  be- 
fallen them. 

To  show  more  fully  the  progress  of  the  deposits,  I  will  state  them  for 
each  period.  Deposits  on  interest  are  reckoned  with  those  not  on  inter- 
est, and  indeed  they  are  more  dangerous  to  the  stability  of  a  bank, 
tempting  it  more  insidiously  to  its  ruin. 


Circulation. 

Deposits. 

Specie. 

In  1803, 

$1,505,189 

1,. 522,2  71 

1,079,928 

1804, 

1,095,301 

1,122,119 

977,902 

1805, 

1,553,824 

1,021,229 

847,998 

1800, 

1,013,684 

2,036,490 

959,394 

Take  also  the  last  years  of  the  same  period. 


652  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 


Circulation. 

Deposits. 

Specie. 

1818, 

$2,080,477 

2,905,797 

1,129,598 

1819, 

2,404,057 

2,574,340 

1,198,889 

1820, 

2,014,734 

3,170,003 

■1,280,852 

1821, 

3,010,702 

5,448,008 

3,048,829 

1822, 

3,132,552 

3,235,828 

940,200 

1823, 

3,128,980 

3,122,058 

1,033,375 

1824, 

3,842,041 

5,238,044 

1,939,842 

During  the  second  period  of  six  years,  from  1825  to  1830,  inclusive, 
the  deposits  averaged  considerably  less  than  the  circulation,  which  I  have 
:already  said  was  four  of  paper  to  one  of  specie. 

But  during  the  third  period,  from  1831  to  1837,  while  the  whig  "  vague 
theory  "  of  banking  was  carried  to  its  full  length,  the  deposits  averaged 
<;onsiderably  more  than  the  circulation,  which  I  have  already  said  was 
eight  of  paper  to  one  of  specie.  Look  more  particularly  at  the  sudden 
.and  alarming  increase  of  deposits  in  this  third  period,  taking  the  year 
1830,  as  a  sample  of  the  second  period,  for  a  point  of  departure. 


Circulation. 

Deposits. 

Specie. 

In  1830, 

$5,124,090 

0,379.825 

1,258,444 

1831, 

7,739,317 

8,952,913 

919,959 

1832, 

7,122,850 

9,207,555 

902,205 

1833, 

7,889,110 

11,000,123 

922,309 

1834, 

7,050,140 

13,308,058 

1,100,290 

1835, 

9,430,357 

10,921,700 

1,130,444 

1830, 

10,892,249 

15,202,445 

1,455,230 

1837, 

10,273,118 

14,059,448 

1,517,984 

These  facts  are  pregnant  with  instruction  for  all  future  experimental 
l)ankers.  Let  us  measure  the  approach  of  danger  with  still  greater  pre- 
cision. The  proportion  of  the  aggregate  of  circulation  and  deposits  to 
the  specie  was. 

In  1830,  as     nine     to     one.  In  1834,  as  eighteen  to  one. 

1831,  ciglitccn         "  1835,          cigiitccn 

1832,  eighteen         "  1830,          eighteen         " 

1833,  twenty-one    "  1837,          sixteen           " 

It  seems,  then,  that  the  approach  of  the  danger  was  not  gradual,  but 
eudden.  It  was  fastened  on  the  banks  between  June,  1830,  and  October, 
1831.  During  the  whole  period  from  1825  to  1830,  the  proportion  of 
specie  liabilities  to  specie,  had  been  about. seven  to  one.  In  1830,  they 
were  nine  to  one,  and  in  1831,  they  rose  suddenly,  and  at  a  single  bound, 
to  the  perilous  disproportion  of  eighteen  to  one  ;  at  or  near  which  point 
they  continued,  through  all  vicissitudes  of  business,  until  the  explosion. 
The  banks,  which,  as  a  whole,  were  safe  down  to  1824,  were  in  a  very 
precarious  condition  from  1825  to  1830;  but  in  1831  it  became,  and  for 
six  years  continued  to  be,  perfectly  certain  that  a  universal  refusal  to 
pay  their  bills  and  deposits  must  be  the  effect  of  the  first  serious  run  on 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  653 

them  for  specie.  Of  this  they  were  forewarned,  again  and  again,  but 
they  laughed  at  counsel,  and  persisted  in  trying  the  before  "  untried  ex- 
periment," until  they  had  sacrificed  to  a  "  vague  theory"  the  honor  and 
credit  of  our  old  institutions.  Let  them  not  now  basely  attempt  to  shuffle 
off  the  responsibility  of  their  own  unwise  policy,  and  to  throw  it  on  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  never  ceased  to  remonstrate  in  loud,  and  earnest, 
and  indignant  tones,  against  their  insane  temerity,  and  its  inevitable, 
wretched  issue. 

This  review  of  the  course  of  Massachusetts  banking  enables  us  to 
decide  with  certainty  upon  the  justice  or  injustice  of  the  imputation  cast 
by  the  report  upon  the  general  government,  which,  it  is  asserted,  crip- 
pled our  banks  as  to  their  means,  or  tempted  them  to  their  destruction. 

To  what  acts  of  the  general  government  can  this  charge  refer  ?  I 
suppose  the  bank  veto,  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  and  the  specie  cir- 
cular, are  the  three  acts  of  which  the  dominant  party  in  this  Common- 
wealth, and  to  which,  by  a  vague  theory,  they  ascribe  the  derangement 
of  the  currency.  Neither  of  these  acts  produced  an  effect  on  our  banks 
sufficient  to  be  perceptible  in  the  returns. 

President  Jackson  vetoed  the  bill  for  the  recharter  of  the  United 
States  Bank,  on  the  10th  of  July,  1832.  The  bank  had  out  a  loan  of 
about  seventy  millions,  and  the  danger  apprehended  was,  that  in  calling 
in  this  loan,  it  would  compel  all  other  banks  to  curtail  their  loans  and 
circulation,  and,  by  settling  balances  with  them,  deprive  them  of  their 
specie.  No  doubt  this  fear  somewhat  checked  the  tendency  to  expan- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  banks,  and  the  disposition  to  embark  in  the  busi- 
ness of  banking,  but  it  could  not  entirely  repress  the  tendency.  The 
capital,  loans,  and  circulation,  all  increased  during  the  next  year,  in  spite 
of  the  check  experienced  from  the  alarm  the  veto  occasioned. 


Capital. 

Loans. 

Circulation. 

Specie. 

:n  1832, 

$24,-520,200 

38,889,727 

7,122,856 

902,205 

1833, 

28,236,250 

45,261,008 

7,889,110 

922,309 

It  does  not  appear,  therefore,  from  the  conduct  of  the  banks  imme- 
diately after  the  veto,  that  that  act  of  the  general  government  had 
"  crippled  them  as  to  their  means."  On  the  contrary,  their  means  were 
increased,  and  they  made  an  increased  use  of  them.  Nor  "  did  it  tempt 
them  to  their  destruction,"  for  it  put  them  upon  their  guard ;  if  it  had 
any  effect,  it  was  to  make  them  cautious,  for  all  their  friends  predicted 
ruin  to  banks  and  banking.  Mr.  Webster  declared  that  the  blow  would 
be  one  "  of  tremendous  force  and  frightful  consequences,"  and  such  was 
the  professed  belief  of  the  whole  bank  party.  Of  course,  it  will  not  be 
pretended  that  this  blow  was  a  temptation. 

The  removal  of  the  deposits  commenced  on  the  first  of  October, 
55* 


654  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

1833.  Did  this  act  cripple  them  of  their  means?  It  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  few  of  their  number,  large  sums  of  money,  for  about  three 
years,  which,  if  prudently  managed,  would  have  been  a  boon  of  great 
value,  and  which  excited  great  envy  and  jealousy  in  all  the  other  banks. 
This  enabled  them  to  counteract  the  pressure  by  which  the  United 
States  Bank  was  crippling  them  of  their  means.  In  August,  1833,  the 
bank  began  to  contract,  and  in  six  months  its  curtailment,  in  Boston 
alone,  amounted  to  four  millions  and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  By 
this  fierce  warfare  of  that  powerful  institution  upon  the  banks,  the  cur- 
rency, and  the  people,  it  crippled  them  of  their  means,  so  far  as  to  pro- 
duce a  very  slight  falling  off  in  the  circulation  ;  but  the  government 
sustained  them,  so  that  they  not  only  increased  their  loans  under  the 
pressure,  but  in  seven  months  added  twenty-five  per  cent,  to  their  stock 
of  specie.  The  change  in  their  condition  from  October,  1833,  the  date 
of  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  to  May,  1834,  the  last  days  of  the 
panic,  was  as  follows  :  — 


Capital. 

Loans. 

Circulation. 

Specie. 

October, 

1833, 

$28,230,250 

45,261,008 

7,889,110 

922,309 

May, 

1834, 

29,409,450 

47,200,477 

7,650,140 

1,160,296 

Consider  this  statement  carefully,  and  make  what  estimate  you  please 
for  the  effect  of  the  unrelenting  cruelty  with  which  the  mammoth  bank 
applied  the  torture,  and  you  must  allow,  that  the  relief  afforded  by  the 
bold  movement  of  the  government  was  of  immense  benefit,  both  to  the 
banks,  and  to  the  trading  community.  By  virtue  of  this  relief,  the 
total  diminution  of  bank  accommodations  to  the  citizens  of  this  Com- 
monwealth, was  less  than  one  half  the  actual  curtailment  by  the  United 
States  Bank  in  Boston.  Yet  those  who  suffered  under  this  curtailment, 
in  the  midst  of  their  agony,  with  signal  wisdom  and  gratitude,  blessed 
Biddle,  their  tormenter,  and  cursed  the  government,  their  preserver. 

Tlie  effect  attributed  to  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  in  popular 
declamation,  by  the  panic  makers  in  Congress  and  out,  was,  that  it  made 
money  so  scarce,  that  it  could  not  be  had  on  the  best  of  credit.  The 
stated  increase  of  loans  shows  this  to  be  false,  but  the  amount  of  depos- 
its on  hand  shows  the  falsehood  of  the  charsie  in  a  more  fflarin"; 
manner.  From  1825  to  1830  the  deposits  averaged  less  than  four 
millions.  After  that  they  increased  rapidly.  In  1832  they  were  larger 
than  they  ever  had  been  before.  Let  us  see  whether  the  veto,  or  the 
.removal,  diminished  them. 

Deposits. 
In  1832,  ■  $9,207,555 

1833,  11,666,123 

1834,  13,308,058 

The  panic  commenced  in  September  and  ended  in  June.  Here,  then,  we 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  655 

have  the  fact,  that  a  month  after  the  setting  in  of  the  panic,  there  Avere 
eleven  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars,  and  a  month  before  its  departure, 
more  than  thirteen  millions,  lying  idle  in  the  vaults  of  tlie  banks,  which 
the  owners  had  no  occasion  to  use,  either  in  their  own  business,  or  in 
safe  loans  to  individuals.  There  was  plenty  of  money  on  hand  then, 
owned  by  those  who  had  no  use  for  it ;  and  if  those  who  wanted  could 
not  borrow  it,  because  their  credit  was  shaken  by  a  false  alarm,  for  all 
such  distress,  let  them  thank  Messrs.  Biddle,  Clay,  McDufFie,  Webster, 
and  other  industrious  manufacturers  of  groundless  panic,  who  spared  no 
pains  to  ruin  them. 

The  deposits  at  that  time  were  largely  on  interest.  It  is  w^orth  our 
while  to  notice,  therefore,  that  the  deposites  not  on  interest  increased 
after  the  veto  and  the  removal.     They  were  in 


1832, 

$2,938,970 

1835, 

5,422,266 

1833, 

3,716,182 

1836, 

8,784,516 

1834, 

4,910,053 

1837, 

8,467,198 

Thus  continuing  at  this  high  point,  notwithstanding  the  withdrawal  of 
all  the  government  deposits  from  the  pet  banks,  except  some  small 
balances. 

The  removal  of  the  deposits  in  1833  did  not,  then,  cripple  the  banks 
as  to  their  means ;  did  it  tempt  them  to  their  destruction?  Certainly 
not  as  a  whole,  for  their  condition  immediately  became  more  safe,  as 
shown  by  the  aggregate  returns.  In  1833,  at  the  time  of  the  removal, 
the  proportion  of  circulation  and  deposits  to  specie  was  as  twenty-one 
to  one  ;  but  in  May,  1834,  it  was  only  eighteen  to  one,  and  did  not 
rise  higher  until  the  suspension  of  cash  payments.  As  a  whole,  they 
were  not  quite  so  unguarded  after  the  removal  as  before. 

If  the  removal  of  the  deposits  tempted  either  city  or  country  banks 
to  put  out  a  circulation  which  they  were  not  prepared  to  redeem,  it  must 
have  had  this  effect  on  the  city  banks.  What  change,  then,  took  place 
in  this  respect  in  October,  1833,  and  afterwards  ?  The  specie  basis  in 
the  city  banks,  which  was  reduced  very  low  in  the  sudden  change  in  the 
state  of  our  banks  wdiich  took  place  in  1831,  suddenly  improved  at  the 
time  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  and  has  continued  down  to  this 
day  to  be  rather  more  respectable  than  it  had  been  for  two  years  before 
that  act.     The  city  banks  had, 


Circulation. 

Specie. 

rroportion. 

In  1830 

$2,171,417 

910,390 

About  2  and  1-4  to  I 

1831 

3,464,275 

.       578,008 

6                   to  1 

1832 

3,060,129 

596,381 

5  and  1-6  to  1 

1833 

2,823,617 

647,618 

4  and  1-2  to  1 

1834 

2,934,451 

876,332 

3  and  1-3  to  1 

1835 

3,396,584 

861,842 

4                 to  1 

1836 

4,260,948 

1,155,853 

3  and  2-3  to  1 

1837 

4,386,414 

1,129,942 

3  and  5-6  to  1 

G56  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

The  circulation  of  the  Boston  banks,  therefore,  never  rested  on  so 
slender  a  specie  basis  as  in  1831,  the  year  before  the  veto. 

Tlie  country  banks  were  not  affected  at  all  by  the  removal  of  the 
deposits ;  let  us  see  how  their  proportion  of  specie  compares  with  the 
city  banks,  which  were  influenced  by  that  act. 

From  1803  to  1824  inclusive,  the  first  period  in  our  bank  returns,  the 
circulation  of  the  country  banks  averaged  a  little  less  than  two  dollars 
in  paper  for  every  dollar  in  specie  in  their  vaults.  The  last  year  in  the 
period,  1824,  gives  circulation,  $2,046,041;  specie,  $820,014;  which  is 
in  the  proportion  of  two  and  a  half  to  one. 

From  1825  to  1830,  the  second  period,  the  country  banks  had  about 
six  dollars  of  paper  in  circulation  for  one  in  specie  in  their  vaults.  The 
last  year  of  the  period,  1830,  gives,  circulation,  $2,952,073;  specie, 
$348,053 ;  eight  and  a  half  to  one. 

In  the  third  period,  the  country  banks  threw  themselves  entirely  into 
the  power  of  the  Suffolk  Bank,  so  that  when  the  bank  stopped  payment 
they  must  stop  also.  It  was  not  the  veto,  or  the  removal  of  the  de- 
posits, that  caused  them  to  do  this.  It  was  wholly  a  Massachusetts 
policy.  The  contrast  between  their  former  and  their  present  state  is 
very  striking. 

From  1803  to  1824  they  averaged  one  dollar  and  ninety-two  cents 
for  every  dollar  of  specie. 

From  1825  to  1830,  six  dollars  for  one. 


Circulation. 

Specie. 

Proportion. 

:n  18.31 

$4,27.5,042 

341,951 

12 

and  1-2  to  1 

1832 

4,062,727 

305,823 

13 

to  1 

1833 

5,06.5,493 

274,691 

18 

to  1 

1834 

4,715,695 

283,953 

17 

to  1 

183.'> 

6,033,773 

274,601 

22 

to  1 

1836 

6,631,301 

299,377 

22 

and  1-6  to  1 

To  see  how  impossible  it  was  that  these  banks  should  redeem  their 
obligations,  compare  the  aggregate  of  the  circulation  and  deposits  with 
their  specie  for  two  years  before  the  suspension. 

In  1835,  the  proportion  was  thirty-one  to  one.  In  183G,  the  propor- 
tion was  thirty-four  to  one. 

Banks  in  such  a  situation  must  necessarily  be  stopped  by  the  first 
commercial  revulsion.  If  it  be  said,  no  commercial  revulsion  ever 
stopped  them  before  the  last,  the  answer  is  perfectly  plain ;  never  before 
were  they  found  in  such  a  situation.  They  knew  so  well  that  they 
could  not  pay,  that  they  cried,  No !  before  they  were  asked.  How  dif- 
ferent was  their  conduct  in  1814  ! 

Last  May  the  hundred  and  twenty-nine  banks  were  like  a  row  of 
bricks  standing  on  end,  near  enough  each  to  strike  the  next  in  its  fall. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  657 

Knock  down  the  Suffolk,  and  you  knock  down  all  the  rest.  Was  this 
arrangement,  tempting  them  to  their  destruction,  an  act  of  the  general 
government  ? 

Besides  the  veto,  and  the  removal  of  the  deposits,  there  is  but  one 
other  act  of  the  general  government,  which  the  authors  of  this  report,  or 
the  majority  of  this  house,  would  incline  to  put  forward  as  having 
crippled  the  banks  of  their  means,  or  tempted  them  to  their  destruction ; 
and  that  last,  as  our  whig  orators  style  it,  worst  act,  was  the  specie 
circular  of  July,  1836,  which  forbade  the  receipt  of  any  thing  but  gold 
and  silver  at  the  land  offices.  This,  it  is  said,  withdrew  specie  from  the 
Atlantic  cities  to  pay  for  land  in  the  west,  and  so  crippled  our  banks.  If 
any  such  effect  happened  in  Massachusetts,  the  returns  will  show  it  in  a 
diminution  of  specie,  or  of  deposits,  wdiich  were  then  specie  funds. 
Both  increased. 


Deposits. 

Specie. 

In  May,             1835, 

$10,921,700 

1,136,444 

September,  1836, 

15,262,445 

1,455,230 

So  vast  an  increase  of  deposits  was  never  before  known,  and  the 
increase  of  specie  was  nearly  thirty  per  cent.,  carrying  it  higher  than  it 
had  been  since  1827,  Neither  deposits  nor  specie  have  since  fallen  so 
low  as  they  were  before  the  specie  circular  was  issued.  They  stood,  in 
September,  1837,  deposits,  $14,059,448;  specie,  $1,517,984. 

The  deposits  being  higher  than  they  ever  were,  except  in  1836,  and 
the  specie  higher  than  it  had  been  since  1824.  In  February,  1838,  the 
specie  was  $1,701,460. 

If,  then,  the  legislation  or  action  of  the  general  government  brought 
our  banks  into  tlieir  present  deplorable  condition,  it  must  have  been  by 
the  influence  of  other  acts  than  those  complained  of  on  this  floor  almost 
every  day  of  this  session. 

If  acts  of  the  general  government  produced  the  changes  in  the  condi- 
tion of  our  banks,  those  acts  must,  of  course,  have  preceded  the  changes. 
The  date  of  the  first  important  change  in  their  condition  was  the  year 
1825  ;  and  it  was  on  the  4th  of  March,  1825,  that  a  whig  administration 
began  to  be  organized.  Was  the  fact,  that  the  whig  party  were  in  power, 
the  cause  that,  while  for  twenty -two  years  previous  to  that  4th  of  March, 
the  specie  in  our  banks  had  averaged  more  than  half  the  circulation,  it 
has  ever  since  averaged  less  than  one  fourth  of  their  circulation  ?  This 
would  seem  to  be  a  much  fairer  inference  than  charging  that  deplorable 
change  which  occurred  in  1831  to  the  account  of  the  bank  veto  in  1832, 
or  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits  in  1833,  or  of  the  specie  circular  in 
1836 ;  which  are  the  three  whig  reasons  for  the  derangement  into  Avhich 
the  banks  fell  in  1831,  and  from  which  they  have  not  yet  recovered. 


658  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

But  in  candor  and  justice  I  must  say,  that  I  do  not  believe  the  election 
and  administration  of  Mr.  Adams  produced  the  derangement  of  the 
Massachusetts  banks  in  1825,  and  the  next  five  years.  Its  causes  were 
partly  foreign,  partly  domestic. 

In  England,  that  was  the  point,  in  the  periodical  fluctuation  of  business, 
for  a  great  inflation,  overaction,  and  speculation,  with  corresponding 
high  prices.  This  tendency  was  heightened  by  certain  operations  at  the 
Bank  of  England,  and  by  peculiar  circumstances  in  the  state  of  trade, 
generally  known,  and  therefore  not  necessary  to  be  repeated  here. 

The  prodigious  overaction  of  1825  raised  the  price  of  cotton,  and 
American  exports,  as  well  as  all  other  prices,  in  a  ratio  quite  sufiicient, 
independently  of  all  other  causes,  to  impart  a  fearful  impulse  to  specula- 
tion here.  This  impulse  exactly  coincided  with  the  periodical  fluctuation 
in  the  United  States,  which,  without  the  aid  of  foreign  influence,  tended 
to  over-trading  in  1825.  It  was  heightened  by  the  action  of  the  United 
States  Bank,  and  of  all  the  lesser  banks  of  other  States,  stimulated  by 
the  disturbing  power  of  the  great  regulator,  as  it  was  falsely  called. 

The  only  act  of  the  general  government  which  had  any  important 
bearing  to  foment  the  mischiefs  of  the  time,  was  not  under  Mr.  Adams's, 
but  Mr.  Monroe's  administration.  It  was  the  tariff  of  1824.  That  act 
drove  the  manufacturing  interests  into  sudden  and  premature  overaction. 
It  also  impelled  the  merchants  to  over-trade  by  the  credit  it  gave  them 
for  the  enormous  amount  of  duties  payable  on  time,  all  of  which,  while 
their  bonds  were  pending,  became  an  available  capital  in  their  hands, 
the  goods  imported  being,  in  the  meantime,  salable  at  high  prices.  By 
the  promise  of  an  immense  and  unprecedented  influx  of  deposits  as 
the  duties  should  be  paid,  it  urged  the  United  States  Bank,  which  needed 
the  check-rein,  and  not  the  spur,  to  enlarge  its  discounts  and  circulation, 
thereby  stimulating  all  other  banks  in  the  same  career. 

From  all  these  causes  ensued  that  unparalleled  augmentation  of  trade, 
with  distempered  and  preternatural  energy  in  all  its  branches,  which 
marked  the  crisis  of  1825.  Speculation  raged,  banks  over-issued,  cur- 
rency depreciated,  prices  mounted  with  insane  rapidity,  each  of  these 
disorders  reacting  upon,  and  inflaming  the  violence  of  the  other,  so  that 
the  year  1825  will  long  be  remembered  in  the  annals  of  commerce,  for 
the  mad  and  reckless  fury  with  which  over-trading  hurried  to  its  height, 
and  for  the  disastrous  prostration  and  dismal  ruin  which  resulted  as 
the  natural  consequence  and  necessary  penalty  of  such  excesses. 

That  at  such  a  time  the  banks  of  Massachusetts  should  have  been 
driven  from  their  propriety,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  seeing  State  legis- 
lation had  provided  neither  check  nor  safeguard,  but  left  them  exposed 
and  fully  susceptible  to  every  malign  influence.     Nor  is  there  any  occa- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  659 

slon  to  wonder  that  they  have  not  since  returned  to  their  ancient,  safe, 
and  cautious  mode  of  business.  We  have  offered  them  no  inducement 
to  return.  We  have  suffered  over-banking  to  be  more  profitable  to  them 
than  banking  prudently.  Acting  on  the  known  principles  of  human  na- 
ture, our  State  legislation  has  encouraged  them  to  plunge  into  all  the 
abominations  that  have  lately  been  developed ;  and  we  have  always  re- 
fused, and  now  refuse,  to  impose  any,  even  the  slightest  restriction,  on 
their  downward  tendencies.  The  second  great  change  in  the  condition 
of  our  banks,  which  took  place  in  1831,  was  also,  in  some  degree, 
brought  about  by  the  action  of  the  general  government.  There  were 
two  acts  which  had  an  important  influence  on  it,  and  I  do  not  know 
of  any  other  that  deserves  to  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  these 
two. 

The  first  was  the  tariff  of  1828 ;  "  the  bill  of  abominations,"  as  it 
was  so  justly  styled.  This  tariff  held  out  to  the  manufacturer  the 
promise  of  a  monopoly  of  the  home  market,  which,  though  it  could  not 
prevent  the  failures  of  the  factories  in  1828  and  1829,  finally  overcame 
the  stagnation  of  1830,  and  engendered  innumerable  speculations  in 
1831.  This  tariff  took,  for  the  share  of  the  government,  about  half  the 
total  value  of  the  imports.  The  consequence  was,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  much  capital  employed  in  commerce  was  forcibly  expelled 
from  its  former  channels,  some  branches  of  trade  being  entirely  ruined, 
so  that,  in  1830,  the  imports  were  reduced  to  about  seventy  millions. 
In  1831,  trade  recovered;  and  in  that  year,  and  the  next,  the  imports 
averaged  one  hundred  and  two  millions  of  dollars,  —  an  advance  of 
nearly  50  per  cent,  from  1830. 

Of  those  tempted  by  the  tariff  to  embark  in  the  manufacturing  spec- 
ulations, many  had  little  capitah  These  desired  to  be  borrowers,  and 
for  that  purpose  got  up  banks,  of  which  they  became  directors,  and  ac- 
commodated themselves  with  long  loans.  In  this  year,  1831,  and  among 
this  class  of  adventurers,  grew  up  the  practice  of  a  minority  of  the  di- 
rectors, and,  finally,  the  president  and  cashier,  transacting  the  business 
of  the  bank.  Our  State  legislation  applied  no  check  to  these  abuses, 
but  encouraged  them,  by  granting  the  petitions  of  borrowers  for  acts  of 
incorporation  to  bank  at  the  cost  and  risk  of  the  public.  We  now  be- 
hold the  results. 

The  other  cause  of  the  fatal  expansion  of  1831,  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  the  general  government,  v/as  the  report  of  the  house  of  rep- 
resentatives of  the  United  States,  by  the  committee  of  ways  and  means, 
through  their  chairman,  Mr.  McDuffie,  on  the  13th  of  April,  1830.  This 
report  contained  a  high-wrought  eulogy  upon  the  bank,  and  a  labored 


660  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

and  very  able  argument  to  show  the  expediency  and  necessity  of  con- 
tinuing the  institution  in  existence  with  all  its  privileges.  Tlie  discus- 
sions Avhicli  followed  that  report,  and  the  favor  with  which  it  was  re- 
ceived, both  in  congress  and  out  of  it,  produced  a  general,  and  in 
New  England  an  almost  universal  belief,  that  the  bank  would  be  re- 
chartered. 

This  belief  was  not  shaken  by  the  president's  message  to  congress,  in 
December,  1830,  for  the  sentiments  of  that  congress  were  well  known, 
and  it  was  understood  that  the  executive  was  upon  this  point  in  a  minor- 
ity, which  the  banking  and  speculating  interest  firmly  believed  would  be 
still  further  reduced  at  the  next  election.  No  doubt  of  the  recharter 
was  entertained  in  Massachusetts,  among  the  bank  party,  until  after  the 
message  of  the  Gth  of  December,  1831 ;  and  even  then  the  doubt  was 
very  slight,  for  the  executive  was  still  in  a  minority  in  congress,  the 
speculators  judged  that  either  he  would  not  veto,  or,  that  if  he  did, 
which  they  rather  hoped  than  feared,  they  were  secure  of  defeating  his 
reelection,  and  seating  in  his  place  a  candidate,  who,  owing  office  to  the 
bank,  would  be  bound  to  her  interest.  It  was  not  until  after  the  veto 
that  her  friends  in  Massachusetts  became  seriously  alarmed,  nor  until 
after  the  presidential  election  that  they  began  to  apprehend  that  the  bank 
must  go  down. 

From  June,  1830,  to  October,  1831,  there  prevailed,  therefore,  the 
most  undoubting  confidence  among  our  banking  interest,  that  the  great 
bank  would  be  rechartered.  During  this  time  our  bank  capital  increased 
in  as  rapid  a  ratio  as  it  has  done  since ;  its  inflation  and  insecurity,  in 
every  particular  of  its  condition,  increased  with  vastly  more  alarming 
rapidity.  Weigh  well  the  proof,  for  this  fact  brands  as  the  basest  false- 
hood the  assertion  so  many  millions  of  times  repeated,  generally  by 
those  who  do  not  know  it  to  be  false,  that  the  veto  was  the  cause  of  an 
imprecedented  increase  of  bank  capital,  and  of  the  inflation  and  insecu- 
rity of  our  banks. 

From  1824  to  1829,  our  bank  capital  increased  from  $12,857,350  to 
$20,420,000,  which  is  58  per  cent,  in  five  years  of  whig  legislation. 

From  1832  to  1837,  our  bank  capital  increased  from  $24,520,200  to 
$38,280,000,  which  is  56  per  cent.,  in  five  years  after  the  veto. 

In  1831,  the  increase  was  from  $10,295,000  to  $21,439,800,  which  is 
a  fraction  over  11  per  cent.  Had  the  annual  increase  during  the  five 
years  after  the  veto  been  at  the  same  ratio,  it  would  have  given  an 
aggregate  increase  of  about  70  per  cent. 

In  1832,  the  increase  was  from  $21,439,800  to  $24,520,200,  which  is 
about   14  and   1-3  per  cent.     If  the  annual  increase  for  the  five  years 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  661 

after  the  veto  had  been  at  this  rate,  It  would  have  given  an  aggregate 
increase  of  about  05  per  cent.,  for  a  given  annual  increase  of  course  ac- 
cumulates like  compound  Interest. 

So  far,  therefore,  was  the  veto  from  occasioning  the  Increase  of  capital, 
that  since  that  act  the  increase  has  slackened  Its  pace  every  year  except 
the  year  of  the  first  alarm,  when  one  would  have  thought  the  blow  of 
"  tremendous  force  and  frightful  consequences,"  might  have  stopped  the 
increase  of  banking.  But  every  year  since  the  removal  of  the  deposits 
the  increase  has  been  much  less  rapid. 

In  1831,  It  was  11  per  cent.;  In  1832,  14  1-3  per  cent,  before  the 
veto;  In  1833,  15  per  cent,  before  the  removal;  In  1834,  4  per  cent, 
after  the  veto  and  rernoval;  in  1835,  3  1-3  per  cent,  after  the  veto  and 
removal;  in  183G,  13  per  cent,  before  the  circular;  In  1837,  11  per 
cent,  after  the  circular. 

Yet  with  these  returns  in  their  hands,  gentlemen  rise  In  this  house 
every  day,  and  gravely  tell  us  that  the  sudden  Increase  of  bank  capital 
in  this  State  was  the  etTect  of  the  joint  action  of  the  bank  veto,  and  of 
the  removal  of  the  deposits !  An  assertion  just  as  opposite  to  truth  as 
whig  doctrines  generally  are. 

But  the  inflation  and  insecurity  of  the  banks  are  of  more  consequence 
to  the  public  than  the  mere  Increase  of  capital;  and  this  year,  (1831,) 
when  the  United  States  Bank  stood  strong  and  confident,  was  the  very 
year  in  which  the  banks  were  tempted  towards  their  destruction,  with 
downward  progress  unequalled  before  or  since,  so  fast  and  so  far  that 
they  have  never  recovered. 

In  1831  the  loans  increased  from  $27,987,234  to  $3G,040,7G0,  which 
is  28  and  2-3  per  cent.  The  same  rate  of  increase  from  1832  to  1837, 
would  have  carried  the  loan  to  more  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  mil- 
lions, instead  of  58,414,182,  as  It  was  by  last  year's  returns. 

The  deposits  not  on  interest  Increased,  In  1831,  In  almost  exactly  the 
same  ratio  that  they  did  for  the  five  years  after  the  veto ;  but  the  de- 
posits bearing  Interest  increased  in  the  ratio  of  GO  per  cent.,  which  an- 
nual rate,  every  year  from  1832,  would  have  carried  them  twelve  times 
their  actual  amount  In  1837.  But  Instead  of  advancing  at  this  rate, 
they  have  averaged,  for  the  last  three  years,  about  the  same  sum  as  In 
1832. 

The  circulation  in  1831  increased  31  per  cent.;  this  ratio  every  year 
to  1837,  starting  from  the  diminished  circulation  of  August,  1832,  would 
give  nearly  three  times  Its  actual  amount. 

The  specie  in  1831  fell  from  $1,258,444  to  $919,959,  26  per  cent, 
and  a  fraction.     If  it  had  fallen  eyerj  year  at  the  same  rate,  it  would 

56 


662  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Lave  been  about  $200,000  in  1837,  instead  of  $1,517,984,  the  actual 
amount. 

Had  the  circulation  increased,  and  the  specie  diminished,  as  rapidly 
since  the  veto,  as  they  did  in  1831,  the  specie  would  have  been  to  the 
paper  as  one  to  one  hundred  and  thirty,  instead  of  one  to  six  and  two- 
thirds  in  1837. 

This  expansion  of  1831,  which  whigs  seem  to  forget,  w^as  not  only 
stimulated  by  the  tariff  of  1828  and  Mr.  Duffie's  report  of  1830,  but 
directly  by  the  United  States  Bank.  In  that  report  we  read,  that  "  upon 
the  soundest  principles  of  banking,  the  very  ample  resources  of  the  in- 
stitution would  justify  the  directors  in  granting  accommodations  to  a 
much  greater  extent  than  they  have  yet  done ;  and  though  they  have 
increased  the  circulation  of  their  paper  from  four  and  a  half  to  fourteen 
millions,  since  January,  1823,  they  are  ready  and  willing  to  increase 
it  still  further  by  discounting  bills  of  exchange,  and  other  business 
paper." 

They  soon  begun  this  increase,  and  in  1831,  enlarged  their  loans  about 
twenty  millions,  —  an  advance  of  nearly  50  per  cent,  in  a  single  year 
on  their  former  amount.  From  October,  1830,  to  April,  1832,  it  ex- 
panded itself  within  a  fraction  of  thirty  millions,  till  its  loans  exceeded 
seventy  millions,  of  course  stimulating  all  other  banks  to  overaction. 
There  is  no  need  to  look  further  for  causes  of  the  sudden  inflation  of  our 
banks  the  year  previous  to  the  veto. 

There  was  another  act  of  the  general  government  wdiich  did  much  to 
bring  about  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  ;  the  distribution  act  of 
June  23d,  1836,  forced  upon  the  government  by  the  manoeuvres  of  the 
whigs,  who  hoped,  with  the  plunder  of  the  treasury,  to  buy  votes  at  the 
fall  elections.  In  this  they  were  disappointed,  but  the  distribution  fully 
answered  their  expectations  in  another  point  of  view  :  it  deranged  incur- 
ably the  circulation  and  business  of  the  country.  In  August,  1833,  the 
public  deposits  in  the  United  States  Bank  amounted  to  about  seven  mil- 
lions and  six  hundred  thousand  dollars :  in  December,  of  the  same  year, 
they  were  diminished  to  about  live  miUions  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. During  part  of  the  intermediate  time  the  amount  was  increasing 
instead  of  diminishing.  What  was  withheld  was  deposited  in  other 
banks  in  the  same  cities,  where  it  was  loaned  on  quite  as  liberal  terms, 
to  say  the  least.  Yet  every  whig  statesman  in  the  country  is  pledged  to 
the  opinion,  that  this  removal  of  less  than  two  and  a  half  millions,  in 
more  than  four  months,  by  an  operation  carefully  conducted,  from  one 
side  of  the  street  to  the  other,  was  sufficient  to  convulse  the  whole  com- 
merce of  the  nation,  to  bankrupt  tens  of  thousands,  and  to  overwhelm 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  663 

in  one  common  ruin  the  industry  and  enterprise  of  these  United  States. 
It  will  be  recollected,  that  it  was  in  August  that  the  great  bank  began  to 
contract,  and  in  December  that  those  terrible  panic  orations  were  fulmi- 
nated from  the  capitol,  to  spread  desolation  through  the  land,  if  panic 
could  break  down  credit,  and  if  the  annihilation  of  credit  could  be  as 
disastrous  as  they  proclaimed  the  gentle  touch  it  had  received  had  been 
already.  If  those  gentlemen  believed  their  repeated  declarations,  and 
if  they  Avere  not  idiots,  they  must  have  intended,  when  they  voted  for 
the  distribution  bill,  to  produce  calamities  tenfold  greater  than  those  they 
attributed  to  the  removal  of  the  deposits.  The  distribution  bill  removed 
eighteen  millions  of  dollars  from  the  United  States  treasury,  in  about 
three  months,  —  not  a  half  million  in  a  month,  and  gradually,  across  the 
street,  but  nine  millions  in  little  more  than  one  month,  and  nine  millions 
more  at  once,  on  the  first  day  of  April,  much  of  it  to  be  carried  thou- 
sands of  miles  from  the  points  at  which  the  necessities  of  business  had 
collected  and  required  it.  Nine  millions  more  were  called  for,  on  the 
1st  of  July,  and  the  same  sum  was  to  have  been  again  abstracted  from 
the  channels  of  business  on  the  1st  of  October.  If  there  w\'is  a  man  in 
congress  who  believed  the  tithe  of  the  panic  doctrines  promulgated  there 
four  years  ago,  he  must  have  anticipated  with  perfect  certainty  that  this 
violent  operation  w^ould  effect  the  last  great  whig  exploit,  the  suspension 
of  specie  payments.  Those  who  denounced  the  removal  of  the  deposits 
as  fraught  with  ruin,  and  yet  afterwards  advocated  the  policy  of  distri- 
bution, should  inform  us  whether  they  wish  to  be  regarded  as  hypocriti- 
cal in  their  professions  in  the  first  instance,  or,  in  the  latter  case,  dishon- 
est in  their  conduct. 

The  suspension  of  specie  payments  having  been  naturally  brought 
about  by  the  paper  money  party,  by  their  unprecedented  over-banking 
and  consequent  speculation,  having  been  precipitated  by  their  favorite 
measure,  the  distribution,  having  been  recommended  by  them  long  be- 
fore it  happened,  justified  by  them  ever  since,  and  profitable  to  them 
while  it  lasts,  is  the  appropriate  consummation  of  the  whig  policy  upon 
the  subject  of  the  currency.  By  a  currency  of  irredeemable  paper,  the 
many  are  made  to  pay  tribute  to  the  few.  The  aristocracy,  who  in  all 
countries  desire  to  enrich  themselves  out  of  the  taxes  of  the  people, 
make  it  an  engine  of  taxation. 

In  1820,  it  seemed  to  the  whig  leader,  "  ^o  he  the  part  of  ivisdom  to 
found  government  on  property.''  Now^  we  are  subjected  to  a  much  baser 
dominion,  the  aristocracy  of  false  pretences  to  wealth,  who  levy  contri- 
butions on  both  rich  and  poor,  but  chiefly  from  the  laborer,  and  men  of 
moderate  property. 

After  all,  it  is  mainly  our  own  legislation  that  has  subjected  us  to  this 


664  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

paper  aristocracy.  It  was  our  own  legislature  that  doubled  our  bank 
capital  in  the  seven  years  previous  to  1829,  and  then  doubled  it  again, 
in  seven  years  after  1830;  that  neglected  and  still  refuses  to  make  any 
security  for  a  specie  basis,  only  substituting  therefor  the  farce  of  dollars 
counted,  and  then  carted  away;  that  incorporated  borrowers  without 
capital,  with  swindling  privileges  ;  that  permitted  and  still  permits,  self- 
elected  directors  to  loan  to  themselves  double  their  capital ;  that  has,  for 
six  or  seven  years,  suffered  the  president  and  cashier,  illegally,  and  yet 
notoriously,  to  wield  the  whole  power  of  a  board  of  directors  ;  that 
tempted  them  to  their  destruction  by  the  post  note  abomination,  and  that 
now  indulges  them  in  the  daily,  open,  and  bold  violation  of  their  contracts, 
which  they  are  able  to  perform,  and  acts  upon  the  doctrine  that  it  would 
tarnish  the  honor  of  the  Commonwealth  to  provide  checks  for  the  pre- 
vention of  fraud,  and  protection  for  the  little  pittance  of  the  widow  and 
the  orphan.     The  general  government  did  none  of  this. 

It  is  in  our  own  legislature  that  the  doctrine  is  shamelessly  avowed, 
that  the  representatives  of  the  people  are  not  to  be  trusted  with  the 
power  to  do  right,  lest  they  should  abuse  it  to  do  wrong,  and  that  there- 
fore bank  directors,  living  in  perpetual  defiance  of  the  law,  ought  not  to 
be  prohibited  from  gross  abuses,  because  it  is  safer  to  trust  power  with 
them  than  with  the  people.  It  is  here  that  statesmanship,  morality,  and 
honor  are  thought  to  require  that  the  lamb  should  be  delivered  over  to 
the  wolf  for  safe  keeping,  and  that  the  shepherd  should  not  be  allowed 
to  interfere,  lest  he  might  do  the  lamb  a  harm.  This  is  Massachusetts 
legislation  !     This  is  whig  legislation  ! 

What,  Sir  !  If  it  was  the  action  of  the  general  government  that  broke 
up  your  banks,  and  exposed  their  rottenness,  it  was  no  action  from  abroad 
that  engendered  the  corruption.  No,  Sir  ;  I  see  its  fathers  around  me. 
They  cannot  deny  the  consanguinity,  though  they  may  well  blush  to  own 
the  soft  impeachment. 

If  the  action  of  the  general  government,  the  distribution,  broke  up  the 
wrecks,  it  was  because  there  was  not  a  sound  timber  or  fastening  in  them, 
else  why  do  the  New  York  banks  ride  safe  at  their  moorings,  all  ready 
to  set  sail  again,  sea-worthy  as  ever,  now  that  the  storm  is  over?  That 
much  reviled  safety  fund,  which  no  true  whig  failed  to  laugh  to  scorn,  is 
in  good  order,  and  well  conditioned,  but  there  is  no  redemption  here  for 
Chelsea  or  for  Commonwealth  Bank  bills. 

New  York,  with  a  commerce  which  embraces  the  world,  had  greater 
engagements  in  proportion  to  her  wealth  than  Boston.  She  had,  in  pro- 
portion to  her  business,  less  bank  capital  to  divide  the  shock ;  having  had 
more  of  the  public  deposits,  they  were  suddenly  withdrawn  in  larger 
masses  ;  in  one  night,  a  conflagration  had   swept  away  twenty  millions 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  665 

of  dollars,  annihilating  three  times  the  value  of  those  deposits,  which, 
called  in  on  one  side  of  the  street  to  be  loaned  out  on  the  other,  by  a 
gradual  process  of  many  months,  created  such  an  uproar,  as  if  the  earth 
had  started  from  its  orbit.  New  York  is  nearer  Philadelphia,  and  has 
therefore  more  to  fear  from  the  convulsive  struggles  of  the  dying  monster. 
Yet  she  is  ready  and  eager  to  resume  cash  payments,  and  no  one  of  her 
banks  is  yet  known  to  be  finally  bankrupt  in  the  present  troubles. 

While  we  had  the  advantage  of  New  York  in  so  many  particulars  of 
our  situation,  our  leading  banks  are  not  yet  ready  to  be  honest ;  the  bank 
influence  of  Massachusetts  opposes  a  return  to  cash  payments  ;  and  nine 
at  least  of  our  banks  are,  or  must  be  broken  up,  while  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  several  more  must  follow. 

If  the  action  and  advice  of  the  general  government  had  been  detri- 
mental to  the  security  of  banks,  we  should  have  seen  the  effect  in  demo- 
cratic States,  such  as  New  York,  New  Hampshire,  and  Missouri,  where 
their  action  was  not  opposed,  and  where  their  advice  had  some  weight. 
There  is  no  such  exhibition  of  rottenness  in  those  States.  "Whig  Mas- 
sachusetts, which  for  nine  years  has  resisted  that  action,  and  spurned 
that  advice,  may  now  claim  the  undisputed  preeminence  in  bank  corrup- 
tion. She  has  brought  upon  herself  this  ignominy.  She  sits  in  sack- 
cloth and  ashes,  and  mourns  over  these  disgraceful  calamities,  not  be- 
cause the  general  government  exercised  too  much  influence  over  her 
banks,  but  because  she  chose  to  go  with  her  whole  strength  in  direct 
opposition  to  that  wholesome  influence.  She  still  opposes  that  influence, 
and,  takes  counsel  of  Nicholas  Biddle,  her  worst  enemy. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  conceal  from  ourselves,  that  we  are  at  this  moment 
on  the  brink  of  a  dreadful  precipice ;  the  question  is,  whether  we  shall 
submit  to  be  guided  by  the  hand  which  hath  driven  us  to  it,  or  whether 
we  shall  follow  the  patriot  voice  which  has  not  ceased  to  warn  us  of  our 
dangers,  and  which  would  still  declare  the  way  to  safety  and  to  honor." 
Did  the  administration  advise  the  rechartering  of  the  United  States 
Bank  by  Pennsylvania  ?  Did  the  administration  advise  that  the  num- 
ber of  banks,  the  amount  of  bank  capital,  of  loans,  and  of  paper  circula- 
tion, should  be  more  than  doubled,  nay,  almost  trebled,  within  six  years, 
through  the  whole  United  States,  and  that  the  banks  of  Massachusetts 
should  double  their  liability  to  disaster  in  the  single  year  1831  ?  Did 
the  administration  urge  the  banks  to  issue  more  notes  than  they  could 
redeem  ;  the  merchants  to  import  more  than  they  could  pay  for ;  and  to 
supply  the  retailers  with  more  goods  than  they  could  dispose  of?  Did  it 
instigate  thousands  of  young  men  to  abandon  the  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
and  throng  to  the  great  cities  to  embark  in  the  lottery  of  trade  ?  Did  it 
run  up  the  prices  of  articles  of  commerce  ?   Did  it  encourage  speculators 

56* 


666 

to  invest  immense  amounts  in  fiincy  stocks,  in  products,  house  lots,  and 
public   Iraids  ?      Did  it  recommend  the  distribution  bill,  to  withdraw,  in 
four  payments,  near  forty  millions  from  the  channels  of  commerce  ? 
These  are  the  causes  of  our  distress,  and  against  these  it  has  never  failed 
to  remonstrate  ;  it  has  not  ceased  to  warn  us  of  our  dangers.     The  bank 
party  have  driven  us  towards  the  precipice,  over  which  they  would  now 
compel  us  to  plunge.     The  administration  has  labored  faithfully  to  avert 
impending  evils.     The  bank   veto  was  intended  to  put  an  end  to  that 
great  disturbing  power  over  the  currency,  which  has  made  its  successive 
expansions  and  contractions  so  sudden  and  terrible.    The  removal  of  the 
deposits  paralyzed  the  destructive  energy  with  which  the  bank  was  then 
waging  war  on  credit  and  industry,  and  prepared  the  community  for  the 
redemption  of  its  notes  and  the  collection  of  its  debts  by  that  institution, 
if  it  had  been  disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision  of  the  nation.     The 
specie  circular  checked  the  frauds,  speculations,  and  monopolies,  in  the 
public  lands  ;  checked  the  excessive  bank  credits  in  the  West ;  checked 
also  the  overbanking  and  overtrading  of  the  Atlantic  cities,  from  which 
it  retained  specie  ;  secured  the  safety  of  the  treasury  receipts  ;  strength- 
ened the  western  banks,  and  thereby  lessened  the  losses  of  the  merchants 
on  the  seaboard  by  their  inland  debtors ;  and  by  retarding  the  exporta- 
tion of  gold  and  silver  to  England,  made  the  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ments possible,  whenever  the  honest  indignation  of  the  people  shall  com- 
pel the  banks  to  the  performance  of  their  promises.     The  suppression  of 
small  bills,  so  repeatedly  and  urgently  recommended  by  the  administra- 
tion, and  adopted  in  several  of  the  democratic  States,  strongly  tends  to 
discourage  the  ruinous  extension  of  bank  issues  and  bank  credits.     Mr. 
Huskisson,  in  his  speech  of  February  10,  1826,  said, -"  it  was  his  opin- 
ion, an  opinion  not  hastily  formed,  but  the  result  of  long  and  anxious 
observation,  that  a  permanent  state  of  cash  payments,  and  a  circulation  of 
one  and  two  pound  notes,  could  not  coexist."     Our  late  experience  has 
abundantly  confirmed  Mr.  Iluskisson's  opinion.    If  we  had  no  bank  notes 
under  fifty  dollars,  the  late  stoppage  of  specie  payments  w^ould  never 
have  taken  place.     The  collection  of  the  government  dues  in  specie  is 
not  only  necessary  to  enable  the  government  to  go  on,  but  is  the  only 
course  which  could  prevent  the  sudden  withdrawal  of  protection  from 
our  manufactures,  to  an  amount  greater  than  that  which  the  whigs  of  the 
Massachusetts  legislature  resolved  would  be  '•'■  the  death-iv arrant  of  the 
manufacturing  establishments  of  New  England.'^     It  is  the  only  course 
which  could  prevent  great  inequality  in  the  duties  levied  at  different 
ports,  and  the  consequent  transfer  of  business  to  those  points  where  the 
currency  had  depreciated  most  to  the  ruin  of  our  own  merchants.     It  is 
the  only  course  which  could  keep  specie  in  the  country,  so  as  to  give  us 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  667 

a  chance  of  the  return  of  a  sound  currency  without  running  through  the 
miseries  of  assignats  and  continental  paper.  The  government  would  not 
usurp  the  arbitrary  power  to  dispense  with  the  laws  and  violate  the  Con- 
stitution, for  the  sake  of  thus  ruining  our  merchants,  signing  the  death- 
warrant  of  our  manufacturing  establishments,  and  fastening  upon  us  the 
curse  of  irredeemable  paper,  though  our  merchants  and  manufacturers 
should  be  louder  and  more  clamorous  than  they  have  been,  in  imploring 
to  be  ruined,  for  the  benefit  of  the  distress,  panic,  and  ruin  party,  and 
the  glory  of  Nicholas  Biddle. 

Why  charge  the  national  government  with  your  own  sins  ?  Who  has 
fastened  the  system  upon  us  ?  Clearly  those  who  profit  by  it,  the  aris- 
tocratic, or  whig  party,  so  called  because  they  somewhat  resemble  the 
party  in  Great  Britain,  thus  described  in  the  Edinburgh  Review:  '''•  the 
strength  of  the  ivJdgs  lay  in  the  great  aristocracy^  in  the  corporations,  and 
in  the  trading  or  moneyed  interests^'  Look  at  their  course  in  Massachu- 
setts. In  the  spring  session  of  1835,  there  were  many  petitions  for  new 
banks.  Some  few  whig  presidents  and  casliiers  of  banks  opposed  peti- 
tions asking  for  a  share  in  their  monopoly  ;  but  the  majority  of  the  whig 
party  voted  to  grant  them.  The  whole  democratic  party  opposed  them, 
as  did  many  nominal  whigs,  with  democratic  consciences,  from  among 
the  yeomanry,  and  they  were  defeated.  All  the  support  they  received 
came  from  whigs ;  the  most  ardent  opposition  they  encountered  was  from 
democrats.  If  one  fourth  part  of  the  democrats  in  the  legislature  had 
supported  them,  they  would  all  have  passed,  and  a  numerous  litter  of 
banks  would  that  year  have  cursed  the  State. 

In  the  fall  session  of  the  same  year,  an  order  discharging  the  commit- 
tee on  banks,  and  most  other  committees,  and  confining  the  action  of  the 
house  to  the  Revised  Statutes,  was  reported  by  a  democrat,  most  vio- 
lently and  repeatedly  assailed  by  prominent  whigs,  sustained  by  the 
reporter,  and  the  whole  democratic  party,  \njive  distinct  and  most  ani- 
mated debates,  and  with  the  aid  of  votes  from  the  semi-whig  farmers, 
carried  and  adhered  to.  Had  that  order  been  rescinded,  the  door  would 
have  been  opened  for  all  the  bank  petitions  of  the  former  session. 

In  183G,  petitions  came  in  asking,  in  the  aggregate,  for  an  increase  of 
the  bank  capital  of  the  State  from  thirty  millions  to  fifty-six  millions, 
and  the  bank  capital  of  Boston  and  its  immediate  vicinity  from  eigliteen 
millions  to  double  that  amount.  The  whig  leaders,  the  Suffolk  delega- 
tion, and  a  large  majority  of  the  whig  members,  went  for  the  petitions. 
The  democrats  went  in  mass  against  them.  The  semi-whig  farmers 
discriminated  and  passed  bills  for  about  ten  millions,  rejecting  the  peti- 
tions for  the  other  sixteen  millions. 

Of  all  the  rejected  petitions  the  most  formidable  w^as  that  for  the  ten 


668  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

million  bank.  The  whole  aristocracy  of  the  city  and  country  enlisted  to 
carry  it  through.  They  commanded  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  repre- 
sentatives from  Suifolk  county,  and  all  the  thorough  going  whig  partisans. 
The  debate  lasted  in  the  house,  with  intervals,  for  weeks.  It  opened  the 
eyes  of  several  to  the  true  state  of  affairs  ;  it  enlarged  their  ideas  ;  it 
removed  prejudices  ;  it  harmonized  opinions.  At  its  conclusion  the 
house,  by  an  independent,  noble,  spirited,  and  unexpected  majority,  in 
the  teeth  of  all  the  old  mercenary  Swiss  of  State,  in  despite  of  all  the 
speculators  and  augurs  of  political  events,  in  defiance  of  the  whole  era- 
battled  legion  of  party  hacks  and  willing  instruments,  rejected  the  bill. 

That  majority  looked  in  the  face  one  of  the  ablest,  and  not  the  most 
scrupulous,  combinations  ever  formed  in  this  State,  and  which  embodied 
the  whole  power  of  wealth.  Every  sort  of  intrigue,  artifice,  and  nego- 
tiation were  carrying  on.  Persuasion  and  argument,  conviviality  and 
intimidation,  were  exhausted.  Every  thing  on  every  side  was  full  of 
traps  and  mines.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos  of  plots  and  counter- 
plots ;  it  was  in  the  midst  of  this  complicated  warfare  against  public  op- 
position and  private  treachery,  that  the  firmness  of  the  democratic  party 
was  put  to  the  proof.  They  never  stirred  from  their  ground ;  no,  not  an 
inch.  They  remained  fixed  and  determined  in  principle,  in  measure, 
and  in  conduct.  They  practised  no  managements.  They  secured  no 
retreat. 

If  one  of  our  majority  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  we  should  have 
been  defeated.  It  was  a  time  for  a  man  to  act  in.  We  had  powerful 
enemies  ;  but  we  had  faithful  and  determined  friends,  and  a  glorious 
cause.  We  had  a  great  battle  to  fight ;  but  we  had  the  means  of  fight- 
ing ;  our  arms  were  not  tied  behind  us.  We  did  fight  that  day,  and 
conquered. 

From  that  victory  the  democracy  of  Massachusetts  received  new  life 
and  vigor.  They  went  into  the  legislature  of  1837,  recruited  in  numbers, 
and  with  renovated  strength.  Again  bank  petitions  swarmed  as  before. 
Again  the  whole  weight  of  whig  influence  was  thrown  into  their  scale. 
Again  a  large  majority  of  whigs  went  for  the  petitions,  but  a  few  nominal 
■\vhigs  had  the  independence  to  vote  with  the  democratic  party,  and  again 
the  petitions  were  rejected. 

Do  not  these  facts  show  who  it  is  that  is  responsible  for  the  increase 
of  bank  capital  in  Massachusetts  ?  Not  a  dollar  of  it  has  been  chartered 
for  these  three  years,  except  by  the  vote  of  the  whig  party.  Not  a  dol- 
lar has  b3en  chartered,  except  in  defiance  of  the  cogent  arguments,  the 
earnest  entreaties,  the  vehement  remonstrances,  and  constant  votes  of 
the  democratic  members  of  this  house.  You  sat  tliere,  Sir,  and  heard 
them,  and  you  know  that  I  speak  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  6G9 

Sir,  the  democratic  party  need  not  have  voted  for  a  single  bank  ;  if  they 
had  absented  themselves,  and  declined  to  vote  against  them,  the  bank 
capital  of  the  State  would  have  been  increased  more  than  twenty  mil- 
lions beyond  what  it  has  been  in  the  last  three  years. 

Sir,  if  this  increase  and  inflation  be  a  mischief,  I  may  say  to  the  city 
of  Boston,  You  did  it.  I  may  say  to  every  member  of  the  Boston  dele- 
gation for  1836,  Thou  art  the  man  ;  —  had  the  Boston  delegation  voted 
unanimously  with  the  democrats,  not  a  dollar  could  have  been  added  to 
the  bank  capital  since  1834.  In  that  case,  how  many  of  the  ruinous 
speculations  of  1835  and  1836  would  have  been  prevented;  how  many 
families  would  have  been  enjoying  a  competence  that  are  now  prostrated 
and  overwhelmed  !  If  the  democrats  had  voted  with  the  Boston  delega- 
tion, or  had  not  voted  at  all,  the  bank  capital  last  year  would  have  ex- 
ceeded sixty  millions,  and  no  one  can  estimate  the  wide  spread  destruction 
of  its  faU.  Boston,  therefore,  owes  to  herself  her  misery  ;  and  she  may 
thank  the  democratic  representatives  in  the  last  three  legislatures,  that 
she  has  not  been  crushed,  instead  of  pressed  ;  broken  to  the  level  of 
universal  bankruptcy,  instead  of  sorely  embarrassed. 

Sir,  I  wash  my  hands  of  all  these  banking  iniquities.  I  never  voted 
to  increase  the  bank  capital  of  the  State  a  single  dollar.  I  have  always 
voted  for  every  measure  which  would  have  made  our  banking  more  se- 
cure. Early  in  1835,  I  moved  for  returns  of  the  loans  to  bank  direct- 
ors, with  a  view  to  put  some  check  upon  a  practice  which  I  then  saw 
must  lead  to  disastrous  consequences.  You  will  find  the  order  in  your 
printed  documents.  It  was  scoffed  at  on  'change,  and,  therefore,  voted 
down  by  the  whig  majority  in  the  house.  Had  my  views  upon  that 
point  been  adopted,  the  State  would  have  been  spared  the  mortification 
of  the  recent  developments  ;  we  should  have  had  no  bank  failures  in 
Massachusetts. 

In  1835,  I  exhorted  the  house,  for  more  than  three  hours,  not  to  in- 
crease the  banking  capital.  I  described  the  very  state  of  things  that  has 
ensued,  and  demonstrated  that  such  must  be  the  termination  of  our  career 
of  over-banking.  I  showed  that  it  was  mathematically  certain,  as  certain 
as  the  motion  of  the  planets  in  their  revolutions,  that  our  course  must 
lead  to  an  explosion.  The  majority  of  that  house  grinned  their  incre- 
dulity, and  though  I  showed  them  that  our  legislation  must  produce  a 
suspension  of  specie  payments  as  necessarily  as  gravitation  compels 
water  to  run  down  hill,  they  no  more  expeeted  the  event,  than  that  the 
fixed  stars  would  fall. 

In  1836,  I  opposed  the  increase  of  banking  capital  with  the  same 
zeal,  and  on  the  same  grounds.  I  addressed  the  house  four  times  upon 
the  subject,  occupying  in  the  aggregate  more  than  nine  hours.     I  de- 


670 

scribed  witli  great  minuteness  the  nature  of  the  revulsion  which  was  to 
come,  —  "the  impending  calamity,"  "  the  imminent  crash,"  as  I  then 
called  it.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  printed  copy  of  that  description,  dated 
March  22d,  I80G,  and  if  gentlemen  will  look  it  over  they  will  see  that 
it  is  accurate  to  the  letter,  as  much  so  as  if  it  had  been  dated  yesterday. 
I  undertook  to  fix  the  time  at  which  the  crisis  would  arrive  ;  I  fixed  it 
at  three  years  from  the  panic  pressure  which  began  in  September,  1833, 
and  ended  in  June,  1834.  Not  a  single  member  of  the  Boston  delega- 
tion but  regarded  this  prediction  as  chimerical.  I  ask  those  gentlemen 
to  look  back  at  the  period  between  September,  183G,  and  June,  1837, 
and  say  who  was  riglit  and  who  wrong  in  their  anticipations.  Did  not 
"  the  terrible  crisis,"  "  the  impending  calamity,"  "  the  imminent  crash," 
visit  you  before  June  ?  Indeed,  early  in  May  it  fell  upon  you.  Yet 
when  I  told  you  of  its  near  approach,  and  named  the  very  time  when  it 
would  fall  upon  you,  you  met  the  warning  only  with  a  sneer.  My  reply 
to  that  sneer,  I  will  read  from  the  printed  copy,  and  I  see  by  the  coun- 
tenances of  some  gentlemen  around  me,  that  they  recollect  very  well 
when  it  was  originally  delivered. 

"  The  general  law  of  fluctuations  seems  to  be  well  ascertained  and 
established.  It  occupies  periods  of  about  three  years  each,  rising  and 
falling  within  that  space,  with  as  much  regularity  as  the  billows  of  the 
ocean,  and  from  causes  as  infallible  in  their  operation.  I  have  enume- 
rated six  of  these  fluctuations  ;  nobody  denies  that  we  have  passed 
through  them,  through  every  one  of  them ;  yet,  Sir,  men  are  found  to 
deny  that  the  seventh  will  ever  come.  Proudly  arrogating  to  them- 
selves the  title  of  practical  men,  they  sneer  at  this  statement  of  facts, 
and  call  it  theory.  Confident  in  their  own  instinctive  sagacity,  they  de- 
cline to  render  a  reason  for  their  opinions,  delivered  with  dogmatical 
authority,  but  would  have  it  quite  sufficient  that  they,  practical  men, 
guess  that  it  will  be  so.  And  if.  Sir,  I  should  show  these  gentlemen,  as 
I  might  do  so  easily,  hov/  regularly  and  infallibly  they  have  been  mistaken 
in  all  their  conjectures  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  that  the  surest 
guaranty  of  any  event  has  been,  during  all  that  time,  their  prediction 
that  it  would  not  happen,  this  would  not  for  a  moment  shake  their  con- 
fidence in  that  judgment  which  rests  on  no  foundation,  in  those  conjec- 
tures that  oppose  themselves  to  all  experience.  O  no !  Being  practical 
men,  they  have  a  riglit  to  sneer  at  all  observation  and  its  results.  Be- 
cause they  are  matter-of-fact  men,  they  scorn  to  look  at  facts  before 
their  eyes,  lest  they  should  be  led  to  draw  an  inference,  —  an  operation 
unbecoming  matter-of-fact  men.  Shakspeare  considered  it  the  preroga- 
tive of  man  to  look  before  and  after,  but  these  gentlemen,  in  their 
hatred  of  all  theory,  Avill  neither  regard  the  experience  of  the  past,  nor 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  671 

heed  the  plainest  indications  of  the  future.  They  see  that  the  pendu- 
lum, which  has  vibrated  so  long,  is  raised  above  its  resting-place,  but 
they  deny  that  it  will  ever  swing  back  again.  They  have  marked  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  tides,  and  they 'believe  the  tradition  of  their  uniform 
ebb  and  flow  from  time  immemorial,  yet  they  say  because  it  is  rising 
now  it  will  never  fall  again.  They  stand  on  the  shore  and  count  the 
waves  as  they  break  in  perpetual  succession  ;  and  as  each  rolls  back  dis- 
comfited, they  exclaim,  their  motion  has  ceased ;  another  will  never 
come." 

While  predicting  this  "  imminent  crash,"  I  declared  it  would  be  the 
result  of  overtrading  stimulated  by  over-banking,  and  that  those  who 
were  then  stimulating  the  excessive  overaction,  must  hold  themselves 
answerable  for  the  consequences.     I  then  said  :  — 

"Allow  me,  Sir,  to  recapitulate  the  signs  of  overaction  in  our  busi- 
ness, and  see  whether  there  is  room  to  doubt  the  fact.  Setting  out  from 
the  year  1830  as  a  point  of  depression,  —  for  the  last  pressure  w^as  not 
severe  enough  or  long  enough  to  afford  a  starting  point,  —  we  find  that 
the  value  of  our  cotton  crop  has  more  than  doubled,  and  yet  w^e  are  ex- 
porting specie.  Our  imports  have  more  than  doubled,  yet  the  prices  of 
imports  are  higher  from  twenty  to  more  than  fifty  per  cent.,  though  we 
have  been  relieved  from  the  payment  on  them  of  eighty-five  millions  of 
dollars  in  duties.  Manufiictured  goods  have  also  risen,  in  spite  of  the 
great  increase  of  the  business,  and  the  diminished  protection,  to  say 
nothing  of  improved  machinery  and  maturer  skill.  Agricultural  pro- 
ducts have  risen,  some  fifty,  some  a  hundred  per  cent.,  and  we  buy 
bread  cheaper  abroad  than  at  home.  Corporations,  for  various  specula- 
tions, have  been  increased  to  five  times,  or  perhaps  ten  times,  their  ag- 
gregate amount  five  years  ago.  The  public  lands  are  selling  wdth  ten 
times  the  rapidity  with  which  tliey.had  sold  at  any  time  for  ten  years 
previous  to  1830.  Speculations  in  other  lands  have  been  scarcely  less 
excessive. 

"  We  look  for  the  immediate  stimulus  of  all  this  amazing  overaction, 
and  we  find  it  in  the  diseased  state  of  the  currency  and  in  over-banking. 
The  specie  in  the  country  having  been  doubled  since  1830,  the  banking 
capital  has  been  more  than  doubled,  bank  facilities  have  been  more  than 
doubled,  the  bank  note  circulation  has  been  more  than  doubled,  and  the 
whole  currency  has  been  more  than  doubled. 

"  Population  may  have  increased  eighteen  per  cent.- in  the  meantime, 
but  if  wealth  had  increased  twice  as  fast,  say  thirty-six  per  cent.,  this 
would  afford  no  justification  for  such  an  immense  expansion. 

"  A  community  drunk  with  this  factitious  prosperity,  calls  aloud  for 
more  stimulus,  as  naturally  as  a  man  exhilarated  with  brandy  demands 


672  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

another  glass.  "We  are  suffering  under  a  scarcity  of  money,  cry  1,736 
petitioners,  just  as  the  man  intoxicated  to  insanity  will  swear  he  prac- 
tices total  abstinence.  The  check  just  now  experienced  is  a  wholesome 
preventive.  Let  it  have  its  perfect  work,  and  it  may  save  us  from  a 
terrible  catastrophe.  But  if  we  give  way  to  the  entreaties  of  the  patient, 
and  feed  his  fever  with  superadded  excitement,  we  shall  be  answerable 
to  our  country,  to  our  consciences,  and  before  God,  for  the  melancholy 
consequences  that  must  ensue  from  such  mad  and  wicked  folly." 

The  melancholy  consequences  of  that  mad  and  wicked  folly  are  be- 
fore us,  and  around  us.  Are  they  to  be  imputed  to  those  who  sought  in 
vain  to  avert  them  ;  who  in  defiance  of  ridicule  and  reproach,  persisted 
faithfully  in  forewarning  you  of  the  evil  to  come,  though  they  spoke  un- 
happily to  deaf  ears? 

Sir,  if  you  had  only  provided,  in  1805,  the  safeguards  which  I  then 
proposed,  and  cured  the  defects  which  I  then  pointed  out,  especially  the 
want  of  a  specie  basis,  none  of  the  late  calamities  would  have  befallen 
us.  Can  I  be  mistaken,  then,  when  I  affirm  that  these  calamities  are 
not  to  be  attributed  to  the  democratic  party,  but  to  the  whigs,  who  fos- 
tered the  causes  which  originated  them?  W^hen,  in  1835,  you  strained 
every  nerve  to  heighten  and  promote  the  speculating  mania  of  the  times, 
by  lavishing  special  privileges,  and  especially  exemption  from  personal 
liability,  on  corporations  of  every  conceivable  description,  were  you  sup- 
porting the  national  administration  ?  Was  it  their  influence,  or  their 
acts,  that  tempted  you  to  that  course?  When  I  assailed  that  whole  vile 
system,  fraught  with  fatal  tendencies,  whose  effects  I  then  portrayed  as 
you  now  witness  them,  in  the  three  weeks'  hot  debate  on  the  malleable 
iron  companies,  and  the  India  rubber  companies,  was  I  opposing  the 
principles  of  the  administration  ?  And  were  the  fifteen  gentlemen  from 
Boston,  and  the  seven  from  the  country  who  replied  to  my  speech  on  the 
Malleable  Iron  Company,  twenty-two  good  democrats,  sustaining  Andrew 
Jackson  ?  You  told  a  very  different  story  at  the  time.  Sir.  I  called 
that  class  of  corporations,  bubbles ;  time  has  shown  that  I  was  right. 
Little  did  I  think  that  the  parentage  of  the  banks  created  to  inflate  such 
bubbles,  would  be  charged  upon  the  national  administration.  This  ac- 
cusation is  the  acme  of  whig  impudence. 

ISo  stain  was  ever  cast  upon  our  banks  until  government  tempted 
them  !  Did  government  tempt  the  Kilby,  and  Oriental,  and  American, 
and  Chelsea  ?  Had  the  Commercial  ever  any  deposits  belonging  to 
government,  except  the  figure-head  ?  But  the  stain  was  the  suspension, 
and  they  did  not  suspend  in  the  last  war.  Why  not  ?  Because  they 
had  something  to  pay.  And  among  all  the  ingenious  theories  to  account 
for  the  non-payment  of  specie  last  May,  one  has  been  strangely  over- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  673 

looked.  My  theory  is  that  it  was  because  they  had  not  the  specie  to 
pay. 

The  old  suspension  lasted  from  August,  1814,  to  February,  1817,  two 
years  and  a  half.  In  January,  1817,  the  United  States  Bank  went  into 
operation ;  in  a  year  and  a  half  it  had  produced  a  tremendous  inflation 
and  overaction,  and  soon  after  it  regulated  the  western  banks,  just  as 
one  might  regulate  a  powder  magazine  by  hurling  into  it  a  burning  fire- 
brand ;  it  blew  them  all  up. 

Our  banks  did  not  stop.  They  went  through  it  all.  Let  us  see,  then, 
how  they  were  prepared  to  stand  the  war,  and  the  suspension,  and  what 
was  worse  than  war  or  suspension,  the  regulation :  — 

Years,  1812.  1813.  1814. 

CircuUvfion,         $2,162,358  82,180,837  $2,922,611 

Specie,  3,681,696  5,780,798  6,946,542 

So  much  for  the  war  ;  now  for  the  southern  and  western  suspension :  — 

Years,  1815.  1816. 

Circulation,         $2,740,511  $2,134,690 

Specie,  3,464,241  1,260,210 

Now  for  the  regulation  :  — 

Years,  1817.  1818.  1819. 

Circulation,       $2,495,260  $2,680,477  $2,464,057 

Specie,  1,577,453  1,129,598  1,198,889 

The  bank  seemed  to  abdicate  her  power  to  regulate,  for  two  years 
after  the  collapse  of  1819.  She  resumed  it  in  time  to  stimulate  our  in- 
flation in  1825,  which  changed  the  character  of  our  banking.  For  two 
years  at  least,  the  banks  did  not  feel  the  rod  of  the  mighty  mother,  who 
had  enough  to  do  to  keep  herself  alive.  Let  us  see  how  they  worked 
without  her  control.  In  1822,  Mr.  Cheves  got  her  in  order,  and  she 
made  herself  felt  a^rain. 


Years, 

1820. 

1821. 

1822. 

Circulation, 

s$2,614,7.34 

$3,010,762 

$3,132,552 

Specie, 

1,280,852 

3,048,829 

946,266 

During  the  war  the  specie  exceeded  the  circulation,  and  at  the  time 
of  the  suspension  south  and  west,  the  excess  was  foui^  millions  of  dol- 
lars. This  was  the  reason  our  banks  did  not  suspend.  In  1836,  their 
circulation  was  nine  and  a  half  millions  more  than  their  specie,  a  very 
different  state  of  affairs,  which  might  have  been  worse,  however,  if  the 
policy  of  the  government  had  not  been  favoring  the  introduction  of 
specie,  so  that  there  was  then  eight  millions  and  is  now  nearly  ninety 
millions  in  the  country,  instead  of  less  than  a  third  of  that  sum,  as  there 
had  been  a  few  years  before. 

57 


674  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

During  the  soutliern  and  western  suspension,  the  specie  of  our  banks 
was  diminished  in  two  years,  five  millions  and  seven  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  about  four  times  its  whole  amount  in  1836 ;  but  they  still  had 
enough  left  to  hold  on  by.  While  the  regulator  was  in  powerful  action, 
in  1817,  1818,  and  1819,  they  were  kept  very  low,  but  while  the  regu- 
lator was  paralyzed  in  1820  and  ]821,  they  recovered  again,  but  as  soon 
as  the  regulator  was  repaired  and  wound  up,  in  1822,  they  dropped 
again  into  a  weakly  condition,  and  finally  in  1825,  and  1831,  the  periods 
of  the  regulator's  greatest  power,  they  underwent  two  great  organic 
changes,  each  of  which  left  them,  as  a  practical  system,  something  very 
different  from  what  they  had  been  before. 

I  have  shown  that  the  derangement  of  the  currency  and  exchanges  is 
not  to  be  attributed  to  the  well-meant,  and  well-directed  efforts  of  the 
general  government  to  counteract  the  gambling  propensities  of  the  times. 
Nor  is  the  explosion  of  our  Massachusetts  system  of  banking  to  be  laid 
to  the  charge  of  a  democratic  administration.  The  causes  of  the  catas- 
trophe were  partly  in  acts  of  the  general  government  long  previous  to 
the  bank  veto,  but  much  more  in  our  own  bad  legislation,  and  in  the  dis- 
turbing effect  of  the  great  regulator,  falsely  so  called.  The  charges  of 
this  report  are,  therefore,  wholly  groundless.  Before  a  strict  examina- 
tion, they  vanish  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,  leaving  not  a  wreck 
behind. 


suspejs^siois^  of  specie  payments.* 

For  a  bank  to  decline  to  pay  its  notes,  merely  because  it  is  more  con- 
venient not  to  pay  them,  is  a  more  high-handed  and  impudent  fraud,  than 
for  an  individual  to  do  the  same  thing.  The  man  may  be  tempted  by 
extreme  want,  by  the  fear  of  the  total  sacrifice  he  must  make  to  fulfil  all 
his  obligations,  and  the  dreaded  misery  of  his  wife  and  children.  Bank 
directors  are  merely  agents  for  stockholders,  and  in  this  case  cannot 
plead  even  the  orders  of  their  stockholders  to  be  dishonest. 

Oh !  cry  the  bank  directors  with  one  voice,  it  is  more  convenient  for 
us  not  to  pay  our  debts.  With  this  wretched  plea,  they  set  at  defiance 
the  law  of  the  land,  the  power  of  public  opinion,  and  the  universally 
admitted  principles  of  the  most  ordinary  morality.     It  would  be  incon- 


=^  Extract  from  the  Gloucester  Democrat,  July  25,  183/ 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  675 

venlent,  forsooth,  for  them  to  pay  their  debts ;  they  must  contract  their 
business  to  do  it,  and  this  would  be  very  distressing. 

Suppose  a  debtor,  having  a  note  falling  due  at  a  bank,  adopt  the 
bank  morality.  He  calls  upon  the  president  and  directors,  and  informs 
them  that  it  is  more  convenient  not  to  pay  his  note.  "  I  have,"  says  he, 
"a  great  many  such  notes  coming  due  about  this  time,  and  if  I  should 
pay  them  all,  I  should  be  obliged  to  reduce  my  business  very  much. 
Nobody  else  can  supply  my  customers  so  well  as  I  can,  so  that  it  would 
be  very  distressing  to  them  if  I  should  stop  selling.  The  wholesale 
dealers  who  supply  me  say  that  it  would  be  very  distressing  to  them  if 
I  should  stop  buying.  So,  from  the  most  disinterested  regard  for  the 
public  good,  I  have  determined  never  to  pay  a  single  note  to  a  bank 
until  it  is  more  convenient  for  me  to  pay  than  to  heep  the  money.  With 
the  funds  I  shall  save  by  this  operation  I  shall  do  a  large  business, 
highly  beneficial  to  the  public,  who  can  never  too  highly  applaud  this 
judicious  and  virtuous  decision,  and  the  firmness  with  which  I  shall 
adhere  to  it  in  spite  of  the  prejudices  of  the  ignorant.  I  beg,  gentlemen, 
that  you  will  not  be  alarmed  on  account  of  my  solvency.  I  have  prop- 
erty enough  in  my  hands  to  pay  my  debts  twice  over.  My  notes  are 
perfectly  good,  therefore,  although  I  never  mean  to  pay  them.  I  am 
sure,  gentlemen,  you  have  nothing  to  complain  of;  you  have  my  notes 
in  your  hands,  which  are  as  good  as  specie.  I  consider  them  so  myself, 
and  hope  you  will  feel  no  foolish  scruples  about  it ;  for  nothing  is  want- 
ing to  make  them  better  than  specie,  but  that  mutual  confidence  which 
should  always  exist,  at  such  a  crisis  as  this,  between  those  who  depend 
on  each  other,  as  you  and  I  do.  We  now  understand  each  other.  I 
know  that  you  never  mean  to  pay  your  notes,  and  you  know  that  I  never 
mean  to  pay  mine." 

Would  not  the  directors  pronounce  this  man  to  be  a  swindler  ?  But 
if  so,  then  how  do  they  justify  their  own  conduct? 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

HIS  OPINIONS  ON  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE,  BOTH  FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC, 
ALWAYS  DEMANDED  FOR  THOSE  INTERESTS  THE  LARGEST  FREEDOM. 

Without  adverting  again  to  his  earnest  support  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  free  trade,  in  the  intellectual  contests  of  his  early  youth, 
it  is  but  just  to  remark,  that  in  1827,  1828,  1829,  that  is,  in  his 
22d,  23d,  and  24th  year,  he  wrote  many  articles,  of  which  a 
considerable  number  were  published  in  the  Salem  Gazette,  in 
illustration  and  defence  of  principles  he  deemed  so  important. 
These  essays,  evincing  an  extent  of  information,  and  a  maturity 
of  intellect,  unlooked  for  in  one  so  young,  were  ascribed  to  Mr. 
Pickering,  in  whose  office  Mr.  Rantoul  was  then  a  student  of 
law.  They  were,  it  is  believed,  the  earliest  of  his  political 
writings  that  were  given  to  the  press.  To  republish  them  here 
seems  unnecessary,  as  the  principles  they  involved  were  more  per- 
fectly developed  and  sustained  in  his  subsequent  works.  They 
prove,  at  least,  that  the  principles  which  his  early  studies  justified 
to  his  understanding,  grew  with  his  growth,  and  strengthened  with 
his  strength.  It  is  believed  that  no  man  in  the  Union  has  been 
a  more  earnest,  consistent,  and  able  advocate  of  free  trade. 
His  knowledge  of  the  great  economical  principles  \vhich  con- 
stitute the  basis  of  all  just  laws  relative  to  the  industrial  pur- 
suits of  the  world,  was  gathered  from  every  source  of  informa- 
tion, and  was  accurate  and  profound.  More  than  one  Secretary 
of  the  U.  S.  Treasury  has  been  indebted,  largely  and  directly 
to  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  for  statistical  information  of  the  first 
importance,  and  which  was  the  systematized  result  of  his  wide 
research  and  indefatigable  labor. 


MEMOIRS  OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL  JR.  677 

He  was  always  ready  to  meet  the  ablest  champions  of  the 
restrictive  system,  and  answer  their  arguments,  overthrow 
their  positions,  expose  the  sophistry  and  clumsy  reasoning  of 
their  attempts  to  sustain,  either  the  justice  or  policy,  of  a  high 
rate  of  duties  on  imports.  He  has,  again  and  again,  proved 
by  irrefragable  statistical  facts,  the  inherent  and  essential  injus- 
tice of  this  mode  of  taxation  ;  its  burdens  falling,  practically, 
the  heaviest,  upon  those  classes  of  the  public  the  least  able  to 
bear  them,  and  tending  in  results,  like  the  modern  manufacture 
of  paper  money,  to  enrich  a  few  at  the  expense  of  "  the  many." 
This  advocacy  of  freedom  of  trade  sprung  from  broad  and 
generous  principles.  As  he  held  that  the  best  interests  of 
humanity  are  advanced  by  increasing  the  facilities  of  intercourse 
between  communities  and  nations,  and  that,  as  subservient  to 
this  end,  it  is  the  glory  of  modern  science  and  skill  to  surmount 
mountain  barriers,  and  annul  ocean  distances,  so  he  believed  that 
governmental  restrictions  on  commerce  and  trade,  would  have 
to  yield  to  the  force  of  truth,  and  the  progressive  knowledge 
and  civilization  of  mankind.  The  same  great  principles  which 
impelled  him,  against  the  remonstrance  of  his  party,  to  advocate 
granting  State  aid  to  the  Western  Railroad,  made  him  an  in- 
flexible and  faithful  supporter  of  free  trade  through  the  whole 
of  his  political  life. 

But  his  own  words  best  illustrate  and  sustain  his  principles. 
It  happens,  however,  that  upon  this  great  theme,  which  had 
for  years  engaged  him  in  the  most  laborious  and  profound 
investigations,  and  in  relation  to  which  his  knowledge  was, 
beyond  all  question,  as  various  and  accurate  as  ever  was 
attained  by  an  American  statesman,  he  has  left  fewer  speeches 
and  writings  than  upon  some  topics  of  vastly  inferior  interest 
to  himself  and  the  public.  This  fact  his  friends  will  never 
cease  to  regret.  They  will  account  for  it,  however,  not  on  the 
ground  of  the  paucity  of  ideas,  the  want  of  matter,  with  which 
to  employ  the  press,  and  enlighten  public  opinion,  but  on  the  very 
opposite,  and  the  real  ground  of  this  scarcity  of  his  printed 
speeches  upon  free  trade,  namely,  his  perfect  familiarity  with  every 
historical  detail,  every  statistical  fact,  and  every  philosophical 
opinion  bearing  upon  the  subject.  It  was  this  very  fulness  and 
completeness  of  knowledge,  and  his  marvellous  readiness  to 

57* 


678 

command,  on  the  spur  of  any  occasion,  his  immense  resources, 
that  prevented  his  writing  out  his  numerous  speeches  on  this 
subject, — speeches  which,  while  the  hearers  of  them  live,  will  be 
remembered  as  some  of  the  most  instructive,  logical,  and 
eloquent,  ever  listened  to  by  popular  assemblies.  Those 
speeches  were  not  only  full  of  sound  reasoning,  glowing  thought, 
and  varied  information,  but  were  also  of  great  length  and 
thorough  elaboration.  This  w^as  true  of  one  which  he  de- 
livered in  Fanueil  Hall,  on  the  evening  of  the  29th  October, 
1844.  On  this  occasion  he  continued  a  strain  of  rapid,  logical, 
and  convincing  oratory  for  nearly  four  hours. 

The  hall  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity.  He  took  for 
his  text  the  free  trade  resolutions  passed  in  the  same  place  in 
1820,  through  the  influence  of  Daniel  Webster,  William 
Appleton,  Abbot  Lawrence,  and  other  distinguished  whig  lead- 
ers, then  professing  to  be  satisfied  with  a  tariff  for  revenue 
with  incidental  protection ;  now  dissatisfied  with  a  tariff  three 
times  as  high,  and  denouncing  the  democracy  as  demagogues,  and 
as  setting  the  poor  against  the  rich,  for  advocating  the  former. 
"  We  now,"  said  he,  "  see  Daniel  Webster  going  wTong  by  the 
light  he  then  kindled  in  Fanueil  Hall."  Mr.  Rantoul  commented 
with  severe  and  well  deserved  sarcasm  on  the  rapid  and 
extreme  changes  of  opinion,  through  which  Mr.  Clay  had 
passed  in  a  few  preceding  months,  and  Mr.  Webster's  inability 
in  1844,  to  answ^er  his  own  arguments  of  1820.  Mr.  Rantoul 
exposed  the  fallacies  in  the  then  recent  report  by  Mr.  Hudson, 
of  the  U.  S.  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  sophistries 
which  ran  through  it.  Mr.  Rantoul  went  into  a  masterly 
review  of  the  occupations  of  different  classes  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  and  showed  that  only  about  one  fortieth  are 
engaged  in  producing  articles  protected  by  the  tariff.  By 
analyzing  the  provisions  of  the  tariff  of  1842,  he  gave  positive 
proof,  from  mathematical  demonstration,  that  the  revenue  is 
raised,  almost  exclusively,  on  articles  consumed  by  the  w^orking 
people.  On  this  point  he  w^as  very  able  and  elaborate.  This 
speech,  so  full  of  unanswerable  argument  and  true  eloquence,  if 
ever  published  entire,  has  eluded  the  pursuit  of  the  editor. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  679 


SPEECH  AT  SALEM.* 

The  familiar  faces  which  I  see  around  me,  persuade  me  that  we  have 
come  back  again  to  the  old  times;  that  the  power  of  the  democratic 
party,  which  some  have  fondly  hoped  was  gone,  is  in  fact  as  fresh,  as 
lively,  and  likely  to  be  as  eiFective  as  in  any  of  those  old  contests  when 
we  all  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  when  every  conflict  showed  an 
accession  of  strength.  We  have  come  together  to-night  to  take  our  part 
in  that  grand  consultation  which  is  now  going  on  among  the  free  people 
of  the  whole  North  American  Union,  a  consultation  upon  one  of  the 
most  important  temporal  concerns  that  man  can  advise  upon  the  govern- 
ment of  a  great  nation.  We  are  proposing  to  take  our  part  in  deciding, 
not  merely  to  whom  that  government  shall  be  committed,  but  what  shall 
be  the  nature  of  that  government ;  upon  what  principles,  for  what  mea- 
sures, with  what  views  and  end  it  shall  be  conducted.  I  know  nothing 
upon  the  face  of  this  globe,  of  a  mere  temporal  nature,  that  deserves  to 
be  so  carefully  pondered  upon,  so  judiciously  settled,  and  so  energetically 
carried  out,  as  the  political  views  which  a  man  entertains. 

Now,  my  friends,  we  have  all  of  us  lived  long  enough  to  see  the  ope- 
rations of  two  great  political  systems  which  have  been  contrasted  with 
each  other  in  this  country.  One  system  has  been  tried ;  and  tried  long 
enough,  one  would  think,  to  decide  whether  it  be  or  not  the  true  system 
on  which  the  government  of  this  country  should  be  conducted;  I  mean 
that  system  of  which  the  greatest  political  philosopher  of  this  age,  I 
refer  to  De  Tocqueville,  but  a  few  weeks  since,  speaks  of  in  the  Nation- 
al Assembly  of  France,  when  he  refers  to  democracy  ;  and  points  to  that 
great  nation,  "  where  alone  it  had  been  freely  and  fully  exhibited,  and 
where  it  had  wrought  out  its  natural  results,  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica." When  the  eyes  of  the  old  world  are  turned  to  us,  they  are  turned 
here  for  an  answer  to  the  great  question,  whether  man  is,  or  is  not,  ca- 
pable of  self-government ;  they  look  to  us  and  say,  the  experiment  we 
are  trying  is  the  experiment  of  democracy.  They  know  our  govern- 
ment has  been  a  democratic  government,  carried  on  upon  democratic 
principles,  and  they  overlook  all  smaller,  minor  matters  of  detail,  and 
look  to  the  grand  results,  and  say,  —  if  democracy  be  founded  in  truth,  if 
man  be  capable  of  self-government,  then  we  shall  expect  to  see  the 
North  American  experiment  successful ;  and  if  he  be  not,  if  democracy 
be  false,  if  man  is  forever  doomed  to  be  governed  by  those  in  whose 

*  Delivered  October  6,  1848. 


680  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

selection  lie  has  no  voice  or  choice,  we  shall  expect  to  see  the  North 
American  experiment  fail.  They  look  to  us  for  a  decision  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  not  for  us  only,  but  for  the  world ;  for  all  mankind,  and  for  all 
time. 

Now  I  say,  and  I  ask  any  man  that  can  do  so  to  gainsay  it,  I  say,  that 
we  have  decided  the  question.  I  say  that  the  onward  march  of  our  re- 
public in  greatness,  glory,  and  prosperity,  in  improvement  of  every  sort, 
is  of  itself  a  decisive  answer  to  the  question,  what  is  the  best  form  of 
government,  and  what  the  best  principles  for  a  government  ?  We  have 
answered,  "  democracy."  This  is  a  nation  that  has  doubled  itself  every 
quarter  of  a  century  since  it  came  into  existence.  It  is  a  nation  that 
has  grown  wealthier,  stronger,  and  more  intelligent,  and  has  improved 
its  moral  and  social  position  in  every  respect.  It  has  done  this  while 
other  nations  have  been,  some  stationary,  and  some  retrograding ;  it  has 
done  it  because  of  and  by  means  of  its  peculiar  form  of  government, 
and  its  peculiar  principles ;  and  they  are  democratic  principles. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  the  government  of  the  United  States,  having 
been  governed  upon  democratic  principles  by  the  democratic  party,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition,  and  in  defiance  of  the  continual  and  unremitted 
remonstrance  of  the  party  out  of  power,  and  this  having  been  the  case 
for  almost  the  whole  period  of  about  sixty  years  since  our  government 
was  established,  —  I  say  that  he  who  proposes  to  change  this  straight- 
forward course  of  policy,  takes  upon  himself  the  burden  of  proof.  That 
is  a  position  in  which  no  sound  lawyer,  no  man  of  common  sense  would 
dare  to  differ  from  me.  Let  him  who  proposes  to  alter  our  policy,  tell 
us  why.  We  "  let  well  enough  alone."  When  we  have  seen  that  our 
form  of  government  is  successful,  and  that  our  principles  are  successful, 
if  any  man  comes  to  us  and  says,  "  this  is  all  wrong,"  we  ask  why,  and 
how  it  is  wrong?  To  what  useful  purpose  do  you  call"  upon  us  to 
change  ?  If  the  government  has  managed  badly,  if  it  be  what  some 
have  called  it,  "  the  worst  government  upon  the  face  of  God's  earth," 
then  let  us  change  it ;  aye,  but  if  that  be  true,  it  is  a  radical  and  an  es- 
sential change  which  is  to  be  gone  through.  We  should  fly  back  to  the 
monarchy  of  the  Old  World,  if,  indeed,  democracy  be  the  worst  form  of 
government  upon  the  face  of  God's  earth.  But  we  are  told  that  our 
government  has  "  degenerated ; "  that  we  have  seen  our  Constitution 
desecrated  by  transforming  it  "  into  a  Greek  democracy ;  the  most  un- 
stable and  corrupt  term  of  government  God  ever  suffered  to  exist  one 
hundred  years  in  this  world  ; "  and  this,  because  it  is  democratic ! 
This  is  a  statement  of  fact,  and  it  is  to  be  tried  by  appeal  to  the 
evidence. 

What,  then,  are  the  measures,  and  what  is  the  course  of  policy  which 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  681 

our  government  has  thus  far  pursued,  successfullj  and  in  a  career  of  un- 
paralleled prosperity?  And  what  principles  would  they  substitute? 
What  is  it  that  is  wrong;  what  is  it  that  is  complained  of?  The  burden 
of  the  proof  in  this  case  is  upon  the  plaintiff;  upon  him  who  brings  the 
complaint.  And  what  does  he  complain  of?  You  are  told  that  "  the 
labor  of  America  should  have  the  market  of  America."  You  are  told 
that  the  labor  of  the  country  deserves  and  should  have  "  protection." 
You  are  told  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  "American  system,"  and 
that  that  system  should  be  followed  out,  in  order  to  protect  American 
interests.  Very  well,  all  these  are  fine-sounding  phrases,  and  I  could 
give  such  a  meaning  to  each  one  of  these  phrases,  that  I  should  give  it 
my  cordial  assent.  It  is  not  the  words  to  which  I  object,  it  is  the  idea 
cloaked  under  these  words,  and  which  is  not  the  natural  meaning  of  the 
expressions.  That  labor  should  have  the  market  of  America,  —  my 
creed  goes  further  than  that ;  I  say  that  American  labor  should  not  be 
confined  and  restricted  to  the  market  of  America.  The  man  who  talks 
of  giving  and  securing  to  American  labor  the  market  of  America  gener- 
ally means  something  which  he  does  not  say ;  and  it  is  the  separation  of 
the  American  market  from  the  foreign  market;  it  is  the  adoption  of  a 
system  of  restriction  which  ties  down  American  labor,  instead  of  extend- 
ing its  sphere. 

How  is  this  ?  Let  us  examine  into  it  a  little.  Suppose  restrictions 
to  be  set  up  between  the  commerce  of  two  great  nations.  The  effect  is 
just  the  same  as  that  of  restrictions  set  up  against  the  free  exchange  of 
products  between  individuals.  Suppose  John,  having  a  small  farm,  can- 
not raise  provisions  enough  conveniently,  to  feed  his  family ;  and  he  is 
obliged  to  pinch  the  members  of  his  family  in  their  food ;  to  make  them 
work  very  hard,  with  scanty  supplies.  On  the  other  hand,  Jonathan 
has  a  large  farm,  and  is  able  to  raise  food  very  well,  but  cannot  manu- 
facture cloth  so  cheap  as  John.  Suppose  John  raises  a  thousand  bushels 
of  wheat,  and  can  make  a  thousand  yards  of  cloth  ;  suppose  that  Jona- 
than might  do  the  same.  We  will  then  suppose  that  John,  taking  off 
some  of  the  labor  from  his  farm,  which  is  too  small  to  raise  a  crop  suffi- 
cient to  support  them  in  affluence,  should  go  to  work  and  make  three 
thousand  yards  of  cloth ;  and  suppose  that  Jonathan  taking  off  the  labor 
from  his  manufacture,  should  raise  three  thousand  bushels  of  wheat ;  and 
that  then  they  should  exchange.  The  consequence  would  be,  that  each 
one  would  get  more  wheat  and  more  cloth  than  if  he  had  spent  half  his 
labor  upon  one,  and  half  upon  the  other.  By  allowing  each  party  to  do 
that  which  he  can  do  best  and  cheapest,  the  general  product  is  greater. 
If  this  is  true  of  two  men,  it  is  true  of  two  thousand  men.  It  is  true  of 
two  nations  ;  and  there  ends  the  whole  question  of  free  trade. 


682 

Why  has  Providence  made  different  dimes  and  different  soils,  except- 
ing that  we  should  take  advantage  of  this  diversity.  In  one  climate, 
bread  is  raised  more  cheaply ;  let  them  raise  it.  In  another  cotton  grows 
to  better  advantage ;  let  them  raise  it.  In  that  way  all  the  children  of 
the  earth,  all  the  members  of  God's  family,  are  producing  that  which 
will  add  most  to  our  mutual  means  of  comfort  and  happiness.  Is  not 
that  sound  doctrine  ?  Why,  it  is  a  most  despicable  and  contemptible 
doctrine,  that  says,  every  thing  that  benefits  my  neighbor  injures  me,  and 
every  thing  that  injures  my  neighbor  benefits  me  ;  and  yet  that  doctrine 
would  seem  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  political  economy  of  a  great  party 
of  this  nation.  Do  you  want  to  send  bread  cheaper  to  England  than 
she  can  raise  it?  "  Oh,  that  benefits  the  English."  Do  you  want  to 
buy  your  cloth  cheaper  than  you  can  make  it  yourself?  "  That  benefits 
the  English."  But  if,  at  the  same  time,  it  benefits  us,  if  both  parties  are 
benefited,  let  us  first  rejoice  in  our  own  benefit,  and  then  let  us  rejoice  in 
the  benefit  conferred  upon  our  brethren  upon  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

You  all  remember  who  it  was  that  defined  the  term  "  neighbor." 
"  Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  "  they  asked ;  and  it  was  the  Samaritan  who 
■was  the  neighbor  of  the  Jew,  a  man  of  a  different  religion,  of  a  different 
nation,  of  a  nation  against  which  the  Jews  had  strong,  deep-rooted,  and 
hereditary  antipathies.  They  had  been  brought  up  to  hate  each  other ; 
just  as  the  English  and  French  were  a  few  years  ago,  when  Lord  Nel- 
son taught  the  midshipmen  that  it  was  their  duty  to  "  fear  God,  honor 
the  king,  and  hate  the  Frenchmen  as  you  do  the  devil."  That  is  good 
sound  whig  doctrine,  that  a  man  should  confine  his  affections  to  the  peo- 
ple of  his  own  nation.  But  the  American  policy,  the  policy  of  Ameri- 
can patriotism  looks  first  to  American  objects,  and  if  in  securing  these 
objects,  good  is  reflected  abroad,  so  much  the  better.  I  hold  to  no  nar- 
row bigoted  definition  of  patriotism  which  would  make  me  lament  that 
while  I  am  buying  goods  cheaper  abroad,  I  am  paying  for  them  the  corn 
and  flour  and  pork  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  or  Illinois,  which  keeps  millions 
upon  millions  of  poor  Irishmen  out  of  the  grave. 

All  this  notion  which  is  attempted  to  be  made  popular  by  giving  it  a 
fine-sounding  name,  and  calling  it  "protection,"  but  which  ought  to  be 
called  "  restriction,"  has  been  tried  out  and  out  by  the  British  govern- 
ment. They  have  "  protected  "  their  labor  by  high  duties,  against  being 
overwhelmed  by  cheap  goods,  which  our  whig  friends  tell  us  are  terrible 
things.  If  they  bring  them  to  my  house,  T  thank  them  for  it,  for  I  like 
cheap  goods  better  than  dear  goods.  The  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain, 
wdio  invented  this  doctrine  which  our  aristocracy  have  copied,  (because 
the  British  aristocracy  have  made  the  people  for  many  years  believe 
that  they  really  were  protected  by  the  system  of  restriction,  by  shutting 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  683 

out  the  cheap  products  of  other  nations,  cheap  bread  as  well  as  other 
things,)  have  "  protected "  them  until  they  have  "  protected "  them  to 
the  very  brink  of  starvation,  and  to  the  very  grave.  They  have  protect- 
ed their  labor,  by  compelling  them  to  labor  very  hard  for  a  very  small 
amount.  That  is  the  way,  and  it  is  the  only  way  the  system  of  restric- 
tion ever  protected  any  man. 

Now,  what  is  the  tariff,  against  which  our  whig  friends  are  talking 
again  ?  I  say  "  again,"  because  a  little  while  ago  it  seemed  that  that 
issue  was  abandoned.  The  whig  party  boast  that  it  is  the  same  to-day 
that  it  always  was  ;  that  it  has  undergone  no  change.  In  August,  ISoi, 
there  was  an  assembly  in  this  very  city  of  Salem,  constituted  of  the 
whole  force  of  the  whig  party.  They  came  from  other  quarters  as  well 
as  this  city ;  and  in  various  ways,  by  speeches,  resolutions,  and  songs, 
they  manifested  the  principles  of  the  whig  party  at  that  moment.  I 
say,  "  at  that  moment,"  because  sometimes  the  whig  party  makes  very 
sudden  changes.  Then,  on  that  day  of  August,  1834,  the  predominant 
idea  was  expressed  in  these  words  :  "  fill  up  your  bumpers,  then  ;  drink 
to  those  noblemen.  Clay,  Calhoun,  Preston,  Poindexter,  the  friends  of 
good  order."  That  was  the  chorus  of  one  of  the  good  whig  songs,  sung 
by  the  whole  whig  audience  on  that  occasion. 

Now,  I  ask  you  for  a  moment  to  see  what  could  have  been  the  designs 
of  the  whig  party  at  that  precise  period  of  time,  in  August,  1834.  Do 
they  then  profess  to  go  for  the  "  American  system,"  a  high  "  protective 
tariff?  "  Clay  had  just  plunged  a  dagger  into  the  heart  of  the  Ameri- 
can system.  He  had  just  carried  through  Congress  his  horizontal  tariff 
bill,  cutting  down  all  duties  to  20  per  cent.  The  high  tariff  then  was 
not  that  which  caused  their  grateful  recollections  of  Henry  Clay.  Pres- 
ton was  one  of  the  men,  in  their  flowing  cups,  gratefully  remembered, 
and  Preston  had  just  before  said,  "  South  Carolina  will  be  laid  waste 
with  blood  and  fire  before  she  will  submit  to  that  accursed  bill,"  meaning 
the  tariff  bill.  "  The  corps  of  many  a  traitor  shall  blacken  unburied 
upon  her  soil,  before  she  will  submit."  Was  it  that  they  were  desirous 
to  reestablish  the  United  States  Bank,  to  restore  the  paper  system,  and 
prevent  the  passage  of  the  sub-treasury  bill  ?  Mr.  Calhoun  was  just  as 
much  a  hard  money  man  then  as  now.  The  Hon.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
the  leader  of  the  delegation  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  Congress, 
and  the  Hon.  Stephen  C.  Phillips,  then  representing  this  district  in  Con- 
gress, had  just  voted  for  the  sub-treasury  system,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Gor- 
don of  Virginia.  Poindexter  the  nuUifier,  Calhoun  the  nullifier,  and 
Clay,  who  had  just  abandoned  the  American  system  to  its  fate,  and  who 
never  touched  it  for  seven  years  from  that  day,  had  formed  a  coahtion ; 
and  that  was  the  whig  policy  of  Salem  in  1834. 


684  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WHITINGS 

And  now,  gentlemen  sometimes  run  their  recollections  back,  and  for- 
getting all  this,  (for  one  of  the  first  qualifications  of  a  whig,  is  shortness 
of  political  memory,)  imagine,  and  please  themselves  with  the  imagina- 
tion, that  the  whig  party  now  stands  where  it  did  in  1834,  and  where 
it  has  stood  ever  since.  As  those  gentlemen  in  1834  did  not  intend  to 
carry  out  any  of  their  old  principles  ;  what  was  the  bond  of  union  then, 
and  what  was  their  war  cry  ?  It  was,  "  down  with  the  military  chief- 
tain ; "  it  was  a  general  attack  upon  the  administration  of  Andrew 
Jackson  ;  and  the  rallying  cry  was,  "  danger  to  liberty  from  the  power  of  a 
military  man."  Why,  you  see,  gentlemen,  there  was  nothing  else  left. 
I  have  gone  over  the  whole  list  of  whig  principles,  and  there  was  not 
one  of  them  left,  excepting  that  one  rallying  cry ;  and  what  has  become 
of  that  ? 

That  was  the  state  of  things  in  1834;  but  very  soon  the  whig  party 
returned  to  the  principles  it  had  formerly  avowed,  and  again  attempted 
to  carry  them  out.  Its  situation  now  is  something  like  its  situation  in 
1834.  It  has  again  abandoned  its  principles  at  Pliiladelphia ;  but  now, 
instead  of  crying  out  against  a  military  chieftain,  as  they  then  did 
against  a  man,  not  bred  in  camps,  but  in  civil  life,  not  by  trade  a  warrior, 
but  a  warrior  when  the  necessities  of  his  country  called  him  to  the  field, 
brought  forward  for  his  civil  talents  and  services,  and  because  he  had 
done  great  military  services  also.  That  cry  is  dumb,  and  now,  instead 
of  that,  they  bring  forward,  without  a  precedent  in  your  history  or  the 
history  of  any  other  nation,  a  man  "not  known  in  civil  life,"  but  known 
merely  for  his  military  services  —  a  man  who  never  threw  a  vote  in  an 
election  of  the  United  States,  although  old  enough  to  have  voted  for 
some  thirty  or  forty  years.  Strong  as  is  the  contrast  with  their  profes- 
sions then,  this  is  their  conduct  now. 

Mr.  Webster  has  justly  said,  that  it  is  "without  precedent  and  without 
justification  from  any  thing  in  our  previous  history."  Harrison  had  seen 
some  civil  service  ;  he  had  filled  ofRces  of  a  civil  nature,  as  governor  of 
a  territory,  member  of  congress,  and  minister  abroad.  His  case,  then, 
was  not  such  a  case  as  that  now  proposed  to  us.  Washington  was  a 
member  of  congress,  when  he  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  in 
the  army  of  the  United  States.  Washington  was  as  distinguished  for  his 
civil  services  as  for  his  military  renown.  Washington  was  not  elected 
president  of  the  United  States  when  commander-in-chief,  but  long  after 
he  had  resigned  his  military  station  and  retired  to  the  shade  of  private 
life.  Jackson  was  known  to  civil  life,  from  his  boyhood  up.  There  is, 
then,  as  Mr.  Webster  has  said,  no  example  in  the  history  of  our  country, 
of  such  a  selection  of  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  by  a  great  political 
party. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  685 

But  there  is  brought  forward  the  Nestor  of  the  old  federal  party, 
Harrison  Gray  Otis,  to  enlighten  us  upon  this  subject.  He  does  not 
ryin  a  tilt  against  his  friend  Mr.  Webster,  by  pretending  that  there  is  a 
parallel  case  to  be  found  in  American  history;  but  he  refers  us,  for  pre- 
cedents, to  Julius  Caesar,  Napoleon,  Marlborough,  and  Wellington,  and 
I  believe  these  are  the  only  instances  from  foreign  history  which  any 
one  has  yet  supposed  to  be  at  all  parallel  to  that  of  Gen.  Taylor. 

We  have  been  told  by  a  distinguished  orator,  that  Gen.  Taylor  has 
learned  our  great  national  interests,  "  as  Julius  Caesar  learned  astronomy, 
in  the  camp."  Now  I  am  not  going  very  largely  into  the  history  of 
Julius  Ciesar ;  but  this  I  will  say,  that  that  remarkable  man  became 
known  first  as  a  statesman,  before  he  was  known  as  a  soldier ;  that  he 
was  a  leading  legislator,  an  orator;  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  great 
political  party  at  Rome  before  he  took  up  the  military  command,  and 
brought  down  the  wliole  weight  of  Gaul  to  crush  the  miserable  aris- 
tocracy of  the  city  of  Rome.  Ciesar  began  his  public  life  as  a  politician,  a 
statesman,  an  orator.  He  was  well  known  in  their  public  assemblies  as  the 
best  orator  in  the  republic  excepting  Cicero,  and  a  greater  statesman  than 
Cicero  before  he  gained  his  military  renown.  So  much  for  that  examj)le, 
which,  instead  of  being  a  parallel  case,  is  as  opposite  to  this,  as  that  of 
Washington  or  Jackson. 

Napoleon  is  cited  as  a  parallel  case.  But  did  Napoleon  never  vote  ? 
All  his  life  long,  he  was  a  politician,  and  well  known  as  a  politician. 
He  had  written  upon  political  subjects  pam.phlets  which  are  now  in  ex- 
istence, and  had  expressed  decided  opinions  upon  political  questions. 
When  he  went  into  Italy,  he  wt»s  in  fact  the  manager  of  all  the  French 
relations  in  that  quarter  long  before  any  man  dreamed  of  him  as  the 
executive  head  of  the  government.  And  when  he  took  his  seat  at  the 
council  table  which  drew  up  that  immortal  code  which  bears  his  name, 
he  exhibited  as  profound  a  knowledge  of  civil  law  as  any  man  wlio  held 
a  seat  at  that  board.  His  case,  then,  was  not  precisely  parallel  to  that 
of  Gen.  Taylor,  who,  when  asked  his  opinion  upon  certain  measures, 
replies  that  he  has  not  had  time  enough  yet  to  examine  the  Constitution 
of  his  country. 

Marlborough  is  another  instance,  I  believe.  But  ]Marlborough  was  a 
statesman  in  his  youth.  Col.  Churchill  was  a  politician  before  he  went 
abroad  as  a  soldier,  aye,  all  his  life  he  was  connected  with  politics. 
When  a  soldier,  he  was  in  constant  correspondence  with  the  Minister,  so 
that  his  letters  would  make  a  large  volume  of  political  correspondence 
carried  on  by  him  from  the  army.  He  was  a  leading  statesman  in  the 
country,  a  diiferent  and  opposite  case  from  that  now  presented  to  us. 

So  of  Wellington.     Take  the  correspondence  of  Wellington  in  India, 

58 


686  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WEITINGS 

and  in  the  Spanish  Peninsula,  &c.,  and  see  how  he  is  continually  in- 
volved in  politics  ;  so  that  he  is  quite  as  much  a  statesman  and  politi- 
cian as  a  soldier.  Is  General  Taylor  all  this?  Did  it  ever  enter  into 
the  dream  of  the  craziest  whig,  (and  that  is  as  strong  an  expression  as  I 
can  use,)  did  it  ever  enter  into  his  distempered  imagination,  that  Gen- 
eneral  Taylor  had  been  all  his  lifetime  a  politician  and  statesman,  and 
yet  nobody  ever  heard  of  it  till  this  day  ? 

So  much,  then,  for  the  instances  of  great  statesmen  of  our  own  and 
other  countries,  who,  possessing  civil  talents,  have  been  devoted  also 
to  military  services.  In  1812,  Mr.  Madison  entertained  the  idea  of 
conferring  a  high  military  command  upon  Henry  Clay.  Had  he  done 
this,  no  doubt  Mr.  Clay  would  have  distinguished  himself  in  the  army, 
but  people  would  not  have  forgotten  that  he  had  been  a  statesman  and 
an  orator ;  and  that  would  have  been  his  earliest  claim  to  their  regard. 
Here,  then,  is  brought  forward,  "  without  precedent  or  justification,"  a 
mere  military  man,  for  mere  military  services  ;  and  for  what  military 
services  ?  Good  God  !  that  a  party  professing  to  look  upon  the  war  in 
Mexico,  as  murder,  as  inexcusable  murder,  which  had  passed  resolutions 
in  the  State  House  in  Boston,  in  which  they  treated  it  as  murder,  and 
implicated  every  man  who  takes  up  arms  in  it  in  the  guilt  of  that  mur- 
der, should  then  take  up  the  leader  in  that  war,  which  they  call  "  unholy, 
brutal,  and  murderous,"  and  say  to  him,  —  We  know  you  have  no  other 
claims  excepting  those  acquired  in  this  war,  we  know  that  you  have 
been  the  chief  man  in  this  "  unholy,  brutal,  and  murderous  war,"  and 
therefore  we  select  you  to  lead  us  on  to  political  victory  ! 

AVhat,  then,  I  was  inquiring,  when  I  turned  aside  to  consider  this 
strange  and  anomalous  nomination,  —  what,  then,  would  the  whig  party 
do  to  change  the  course  of  government,  if  they  could  by  any  possibility 
get  into  power  ?  They  say,  "  We  would  protect  labor."  I  think  the 
democratic  party,  the  party  of  laborers,  would  reply,  "  We  will  protect 
ourselves."  Why,  what  is  the  democratic  party  in  the  United  States  ? 
It  is  the  mass  of  the  laboring  people  of  the  United  States.  And  what 
is  the  whig  party  ?  It  is  the  mass  of  the  capital  of  the  United  States. 
Now,  here  come  forward  those  patronizing  select  few,  and  say  to  the 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  —  the  facts  bear  me  out  in 
saying  the  "  majority,"  since  the  democracy  have  ruled  the  country,  with 
scarcely  an  intermission,  since  the  Revolution, — they  say  to  the  majority, 
"  Oh,  don't  go  on  as  you  have  been  going.  Give  up  the  government  to 
us,  and  we  will  protect  labor."  And  how  will  they  protect  labor? 
Several  things  they  propose  to  do. 

The  democratic  party  is  the  party  of  expansion,  the  party  of  progress, 
the  party  of  freedom.     The  whig  party  is  the  party  of  restriction,  the 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  687 

party  of  conservatism,  the  party  —  give  it  what  name  you  please  —  that 
curtails  freedom  on  all  occasions  and  in  every  direction.  Nov/  let  us  see, 
for  I  say  these  things  to  bring  them  to  a  practical  result,  how  this  char- 
acter of  the  two  parties  bears  on  the  question  of  the  protection  of  Amer- 
ican labor.  IIow  do  the  whigs  propose  to  protect  American  labor  ? 
First,  they  object  to  our  extension  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 
Is  that  the  interest  of  labor,  or  of  capital  ?  A  very  little  examination 
will  show  us  where  it  leads.  If  I  mistake  not,  we  shall  find  that  this 
same  party  will  do  what  it  has  done  in  England,  France,  and  every- 
where else.  It  is  contriving  a  great  system  to  reduce  the  price  of  labor. 
If  the  territory  of  the  United  States  is  freely  expanded  by  the  annexa- 
tion of  Florida,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Oregon,  and  California,  then  cheap 
land  is  abundant ;  and  so  long  as  cheap  land  continues  to  be  abundant,  so 
long  you  cannot  grind  down  the  wages  jDf- labor  to  the  starvation  point 
in  America,  as  it  has  been  done  in  England,  Ireland,  and  some  other 
parts  of  Europe.  There  was  a  great  outcry  tl\t  the  people  of  the 
X^nited  States  ought  not  to  go  beyond  the  Alleghany  mountains  ;  then 
it  was  against  going  beyond  the  Mississippi ;  having  too  much  land 
would  be  ruinous  to  our  interests,  because  the  laboring  classes  cannot  be 
confined  like  rats  in  a  cage,  until  they  starve  or  eat  each  other,  when 
they  have  plenty  of  elbow  room. 

Here,  then,  is  the  way  in  which  a  cdtaprehensive  democratic  states- 
manship would  begin  to  protect  labor  :  by  affording  it  ample  room,  scope 
sufficient  to  work  out  its  will  upon  the  whole  unoccupied  North  Ameri- 
can continent.  What  interest  is  really  injured  by  such  a  course  ?  Is 
your  commerce  curtailed  because  you  have  Louisiana  ?  Ask  those  who 
build  the  ships  and  own  them,  what  has  spread  our  commerce  over  every 
sea,  more  than  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  ?  Why,  if  we  had  not  had 
Louisiana,  wages  would  have  been  lower,  and  the  owners  of  cotton  fac- 
tories and  woollen  factories  could  have  hired  men,  women,  and  children, 
for  less  money  than  they  now  can. 

But  let  us  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  question.  Suppose  that  the 
manufacturing  interest,  instead  of  their  miserable  starveling  policy,  con- 
ceived by  avarice,  engendered  by  stupidity,  of  shutting  up  men  to  keep 
their  wages  down,  that  policy  which  defeats  itself,  as  all  selfish  policies 
defeat  themselves,  —  should  adopt  our  policy.  We  substitute  a  wealthy 
laboring  class  ;  to  be  sure  the  manufacturer  does  not  get  labor  so  cheap, 
but  he  has  ten  thousand  customers  he  never  would  have  had  under  his 
own  system.  Instead  of  shutting  up  men  and  starving  them,  we  spread 
them  out,  where  their  labor  shall  be  productive  to  their  own  benefit ;  and 
a  part  of  that  benefit  comes  back  to  the  manufacturer  ;  because  the 
laborer,  instead  of  being  poor,  becomes  comfortable,  and  buys  more  cloth 


688  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

of  the  manufacturer.  So  then  a  free  diffusion  of  the  population  finds  a 
market  for  the  products  of  manufacture,  and  finds  products  for  naviga- 
tion to  transport ;  it  buikls  up  commerce  and  manufactures,  and  gives 
birth  to  that  glorious  agricultural  community,  which,  after  all,  makes  the 
backbone  of  the  American  nation.  If  those  millions  which  fill  the  valley 
of  the  Mississippi  could  have  been  confined  on  this  side  of  the  Alle- 
ghany mountains,  true,  wages  would  have  been  lower,  but  men  would 
have  been  less  comfortable,  less  intelligent,  less  deserving  to  take  part  in 
the  management  of  their  own  concerns,  and  less  an  object  of  admiration 
and  envy  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  builds  up  a  great  manufacturing 
interest ;  it  builds  up  a  great  agricultural  interest ;  it  builds  up  a  great 
commercial  interest ;  and  the  narrow,  short-sighted,  selfish  policy  of 
restriction  which  says,  compel  the  laborer  to  buy  his  shirt  and  jacket 
of  me,  and  do  not  let  him  go  to  England  for  them ;  wdiich  says,  do  not 
send  corn  to  England,  because  you  must  bring  back  in  payment  cotton 
and  woollen  cloth,  —  destroys  itself,  and  diminishes  every  one  of  the 
great  interests  of  the  country. 

Let  us  see  how  it  directly  bears  upon  the  agricultural  interests.  If, 
by  a  tariff,  you  shut  out  goods,  you  also  throw  out  of  employment  the 
ship-carpenters  and  sailors  who  would  have  transported  those  goods ; 
and  you  not  only  do  this,  but  you  at  once  put  a  stop  to  an  immense 
amount  of  profitable  agricultural  labor ;  because  the  English  and  Ger- 
mans do  not  give  us  broadcloths,  and  the  French  do  not  give  us  silks 
and  other  articles  ;  but  they  are  all  to  be  paid  for  ;  and  how  ?  In  the 
agricultural  products  of  the  United  States  ;  there  is  no  other  way.  They 
are  not  paid  for  in  specie  ;  one  year's  importations  could  not  be  paid  for 
by  all  the  specie  in  the  United  States.  They  are  paid  for  by  agricultural 
products  ;  and  not  a  yard  of  cloth  comes  into  the  country  but  what  en- 
courages American  labor ;  because  somebody  has  raised  flour  and  corn 
which  has  gone  abroad  to  pay  for  that  cloth. 

I  was  talking  about  this  the  other  day  with  a  very  intelligent  gentle- 
man, and  I  offered  to  quote  the  facts,  and  to  show  exactly  how  the  agri- 
cultural interests  would  be  aflTected  by  a  tariff,  but  he  did  not  believe  in 
statistics ;  he  did  not  believe  they  were  ever  correct ;  and  when  I  ofiered 
to  argue  the  matter,  — "  0,  I  never  care  any  thing  about  theory;  that 
is  nothing  but  theory."  In  order,  then,  to  get  along  with  the  other  side 
of  the  question,  it  is  necessary,  first  to  reject  facts,  and  then  to  rt^ject 
theory ;  and  having  rejected  both,  I  should  imagine  a  man  w^ould  be 
pretty  sure  to  go  wrong. 

First,  let  me  allude  to  two  great  facts ;  and  you  must  pardon  me,  if  I 
allude  to  such  facts  as  I  do  not  see  mentioned  in  the  speeches  upon  the 
subject,  by  my  great  whig  friends.     Whenever  a  tarilSf  is  made  more  re- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  689 

strictive,  which  the  whigs  call  protection,  the  prices  of  agricultural  pro- 
ducts, as  a  general  thing,  fall ;  and  Avhenever  you  lower  your  tariff,  as  a 
general  thing,  the  prices  of  agricultural  products  rise.  This  is  true,  not 
merely  of  corn,  wheat,  tobacco,  and  sugar,  but  as  a  general  thing  of  every 
article  in  the  whole  list  of  agricultural  products  ;  and  this  is  the  fact  not 
of  one  year  and  one  tariff,  but  of  all  the  tariffs  and  of  every  year. 

And  now,  do  you  want  to  see  whether  this  fact  is  a  trifling  one  ? 
Take  the  products  under  the  compromise  tariff,  under  Mr.  CLny's  sys- 
tem. The  products  begun  to  be  reduced  ;  take  the  average  of  the  years 
1839  to  1842,  the  four  last  years  when  the  tariff  Avas  reasonably  low, 
and  you  find  us  selling  larger  quantities  of  agricultural  products  at 
higher  prices.  From  1843  to  1846,  agricultural  goods  were  lower. 
Then  the  tariff  was  repealed  and  altered,  and  in  1847  they  rose  again. 
This  is  the  general  fact,  and  I  will  show  you  how  far  that  fact  reaches. 
If  the  products  exported  from  this  country,  in  the  fouryears,  from  1843  to 
1846  inclusive,  had  been  sold  at  the  average  prices  of  the  four  preced- 
ing years,  the  gain  would  have  been  one  hundred  and  thirty  odd  millions 
of  dollars.  That  is  the  difference.  Tiie  products  under  the  high  tariff 
sold  one  hundred  and  thirty  odd  millions  of  dollars  lower  than  they  had 
sold  during  the  four  years  preceding.  Is  this  nothing  to  the  west  and 
south  ?  "  Oh,  those  southern  men  are  very  unreasonable  ;  does  not  every- 
body buy  cotton  and  flour  that  wants  them  ?  "  But  look  at  the  facts,  and 
see  the  difference.  I  have  carefully  looked  them  over,  and  taken  the 
official  figures,  and  this  is  the  result.  We  should  have  gained  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  odd  millions  of  dollars  during  those  four  years,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  tariff;  and  I  say  this  because  the  fall  takes  place  in 
1843,  and  continues  to  1846.  It  was  eighty -nine  millions  on  the  single 
article  of  cotton ;  sixteen  millions  more  on  tobacco ;  sixteen  millions 
more  on  bread  stuffs  and  provisions,  and  the  rest  on  other  articles. 

Now  you  are  told,  when  you  say  that  the  prices  of  products  were 
higher  in  1847  than  in  all  the  previous  four  years,  that  it  is  on  account 
of  the  famine  in  Europe.  Was  there  a  famine  in  Europe  in  1841 
and  1842?  Why,  the  v/higs  were  crying  out  that  "  this  low  tariff  was 
ruining  us."  How  ?  By  giving  the  farmers  of  the  west  30  per  cent, 
better  prices  for  their  products  than  they  were  able  to  get  under  the 
high  tariff.  From  1843  to  1846,  the  prices  were  low\  Then  in  1843 
the  prices  rose  again,  and  this  was  owing  to  the  "  famine  in  Europe." 
A  famine  may  cause  bread  to  rise,  and  pork  to  rise ;  but  pray  tell  me  if 
a  famine  in  Europe  makes  cotton  rise.  If  a  man  in  England  finds  that 
it  is  all  he  can  do  to  get  bread  for  his  family,  does  he  go  to  buying  cot- 
ton for  his  wife  ?  Why,  it  is  plain  as  preaching,  and  much  plainer  than 
a  good  deal  of  the  preaching  it  has  been  my  misfortune  to  listen  to,  that 

58* 


690  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

a  famine  raises  the  price  of  tlie  staple  articles  of  food,  while  the  price 
of  cotton  and  other  less  important  articles  diminishes.  Well,  does  the 
famine  raise  the  price  of  tobacco  ?  A  man  who  must  go  without  his 
bread  or  tobacco,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  would  at  least  shorten  his 
allowance  of  tobacco.  Nor  do  I  see  how  a  famine  would  raise  the  price 
of  sugar.  A  man  at  the  point  of  starvation  would  not  buy  sugar;  he 
would  buy  bread  or  potatoes  for  his  family ;  and  sugar  would  be  less  in 
demand  on  account  of  the  famine. 

I  shall  be  told  that  there  was  a  small  crop  in  1847.  There  was  a 
small  crop  of  sugar,  but  not  very  small.  Now  this  is  my  answer.  In 
1818,  there  is  an  uncommonly  large  crop,  both  of  cotton  and  sugar. 
There  have  been,  generally,  from  one  hundred  and  seventy  to  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand  hogsheads  of  sugar ;  but  this  year,  there 
are  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  hogsheads,  an  immense  crop,  the 
largest  crop  ever  raised  in  the  country.  And  so  of  cotton ;  the  crop  is 
the  largest  but  one,  ever  grown  in  the  United  States.  Therefore,  we 
have  not  only  the  famine,  but  an  immense  and  extraordinary  crop  of 
cotton  and  sugar;  and  yet,  taking  the  years  1847  and  1848  together, 
which  give  a  larger  average  than  former  years,  the  prices  are  higher. 
They  are  higher  in  spite  of  the  famine,  which  ought  to  have  made  them 
lower ;  and  higher  in  spite  of  the  larger  average  crops,  which  ought  to 
have  made  them  lower.  I  say  then,  that  if  the  tariff  has  not  something 
to  do  with  this  change,  will  anybody  tell  me  what  has  ?  It  is  not  the 
size  of  the  crop,  it  is  not  the  famine  in  England,  it  is  not  any  other 
cause  that  I  can  conceive  of.  It  is  simply  this.  When  we  buy  of  other 
people,  they  can  buy  of  us.  If  you  say  to  your  neighbor  in  one  of  your 
small  towns,  "  I  will  not  buy  my  boots  and  shoes  of  you,"  "  very  well, 
then,"  says  he,  ""I  must  go  somewhere  else  for  my  hat;  if  you  will  not 
buy  of  me,  I  cannot  buy  of  you."  And  so  of  foreign  nations ;  if  we 
buy  of  them,  they  will  buy  of  us ;  but  if  we  will  not  buy  any  thing  of 
them,  they  cannot  buy  of  us.  It  is  not  a  question  of  friendship,  it  is  a 
question  of  necessity. 

We  were  told  in  1840,  only  build  up  the  manufacturing  system,  and 
you  will  make  a  home  market  to  consume  all  the  bread  and  pork  of  the 
country.  Now  I  am  going  to  measure  that.  There  is  nothing  so  fatal 
to  whig  doctrines  in  this  country,  as  a  slate  and  pencil ;  and  the  man 
who  desires  that  his  boys  should  grow  up  democrats,  should  take  care 
that  they  learn  to  cypher.  In  Buffalo,  in  1844,  I  happened  to  take  up 
a  whig  speech  by  one  of  my  Massachusetts  friends,  and  there  I  read 
facts  which  perfectly  astonished  me.  It  stated  that  the  manufacturers  of 
a  certain  portion  of  the  United  States,  consumed  a  certain  amount  of 
provisions  in  a  certain  time.     Now,  in  making  the  calculation,  I  found 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  691 

that  there  were  six  hundred  and  forty  pounds  a  day  which  each  man 
had  to  eat !  That  all  passed  off  for  good,  sound  whig  political  economy ! 
It  was  like  the  crusade  of  Mr.  George  Evans  through  the  State  of 
Maine.  The  honorable  senator  went  through  the  State,  and  the  burden 
of  his  song  was  the  distress  that  would  fall  upon  the  State  of  Maine,  if 
the  duty  was  taken  off  of  potatoes.  I  followed  him  through  the  State, 
and  made  the  calculation  as  well  as  I  could,  and  I  found  that  the  quan- 
tity of  potatoes  which  would  be  brought  in  by  the  alteration  of  the  tariff, 
would  amount  to  one  eighth  part  of  one  potatoe  for  each  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  State.  I  believe  the  people  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
if  they  could  be  ruined  as  easily  as  that,  by  the  introduction  of  one 
eighth  part  of  a  potatoe  apiece,  it  was  not  at  all  worth  struggling  for. 
They  miglit  as  well  be  ruined  at  once,  and  "  done  with  it." 

It  was  the  great  uproar  in  1810,  that  the  home  market  would  be  given 
to  the  labor  of  the  'west,  if  Harrison  was  elected,  by  protecting  home 
manufactures,  and  especially  cotton  manufactures.  Now  in  that  identi- 
cal year,  (1840,)  according  to  the  census,  we  manufactured  at  home, 
forty-six  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  cotton  goods.  Some  of  those  which 
were  imported,  were  again  sent  abroad,  and  we  also  shipped  some  of  our 
own  cotton  ;  but  the  excess  of  our  imports  above  our  exports  amounted 
to  one  million  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  and  that  was  all.  Now 
suppose  that  the  tariff  had  been  passed  that  year,  to  prohibit  all  cotton 
cloth  from  coming  into  the  country,  how  many  laborers  would  have  been 
called  into  action  to  manufacture  this  cloth  ?  It  would  have  employed 
a  little  less  than  three  thousand  persons  in  a  nation  of  twenty  millions. 
How  much  agricultural  labor  of  the  west  would  that  have  put  into  ac- 
tion ?  Each  one  of  these  three  thousand  laborers,  to  make  the  state- 
ment perfectly  fair,  should  be  supposed  to  have  a  wife  and  family  to 
support ;  and  allowing  five  persons  to  each  family,  we  have  fifteen  thou- 
sand persons  who  would  be  employed,  or  dependent  upon  our  agricul- 
tural labor  on  account  of  this  manufacture ;  and  they  would  eat,  of 
course,  bread  and  other  products. 

Now  the  west  is  a  country  of  considerable  extent.  You  may  sail 
down  the  Ohio  and  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  a  vvcek  or  ten  days, 
and  yet  find  you  are  not  very  near  the  end  of  your  voyage.  One  county 
in  Ohio,  tw^enty-five  miles  square,  will  contain  six  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  square  miles ;  each  square  mile  will  contain  six  hundred  and  forty 
acres,  making  four  hundred  thousand  square  acres  in  one  county.  Sup- 
pose one  half  to  be  planted  with  wheat,  and  the  other  half  to  be  planted 
with  corn,  supposing  the  wheat  to  be  fifteen  bushels  to  the  acre,  and  the 
corn  only  thirty-five  bushels  to  the  acre,  which  is  a  low  estimate,  and 
you  have  ten  millions  of  bushels  of  bread  stuffs  in  one  county.     Now 


692  MEMOIRS,  SrEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

there  are  between  eighty  and  ninety  counties  in  each  of  the  western 
States,  hut  will  your  fifteen  thousand  cotton  manufacturers  eat  the  whole 
ten  millions  of  bushels  ?  or  nearly  two  bushels  each  per  day  !  You  see 
that  a  very  small  fraction  of  one  county  in  Ohio  w^ould  feed  all  these 
additional  manufacturers.  If  you  suppose  them  brought  into  action  by 
this  tariff,  why,  they  may  eat  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  bushels, 
and  that  would  be  allowing  them  to  eat  pretty  fast,  but  not  ten  millions; 
that  will  feed  hard  upon  a  million  of  persons.  You  have  got  enough, 
then,  to  feed  all  your  manufacturers  out  of  a  small  part  of  one  county, 
and  what  will  you  do  with  the  other  counties  of  Ohio  ?  Then  there  is 
Iowa,  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  the  other  western  States ; 
what  will  they  do  with  their  wheat  ?  "  Oh,  let  it  rot ;  because  theory 
is  every  thing,  and  we  go  for  the  grand  American  system  of  protecting 
American  labor  I  " 

I  go  one  step  further.  They  passed  their  tariff,  but  did  they  shut  out 
the  foreign  produce  from  the  country  ?  It  so  happens  that  they  did  not. 
In  the  years  1844,  1845,  184G,  the  three  last  years  under  the  high  tariff 
of  1842,  the  imports  of  cotton  goods  exceeded  the  exports  by  more  than 
nine  millions ;  because  the  amount  w^as  so  trifling,  that  in  fact  it  was  not 
regulated  by  the  tariff  wdiich  they  passed  on  purpose  to  regulate  it. 
They  tell  you,  you  are  ruined  by  the  low  tariff.  In  1848  the  average 
is  ten  and  one  half  millions,  and  for  three  years  before,  but  nine  and  one 
third  millions  of  imports.  You  perceive  at  once,  that  the  number  of 
men  called  into  action  by  this  change  is  as  nothing  compared  to  the  rise  of 
one  cent  upon  a  pound  of  cotton  or  of  half  a  dollar  upon  a  barrel  of  flour. 

But  let  me  go  one  step  further.  We  have  supposed  all  the  cotton  to 
be  consumed  in  this  country  under  the  high  tariff,  wdiich  was  consumed 
before ;  but  there  is  not  so  much  cotton  consumed  when  you  have  a  high 
tariff,  because  the  people  of  the  west,  not  being  able  to  sell  their  pro- 
ducts at  a  profit,  are  not  able  to  buy  so  much  cotton.  Immediately  after 
the  low  tariff  the  cotton  manufacture  of  this  country  increased  faster 
than  it  had  since  the  first  cotton  mill  was  built  in  Beverly,  about  the 
beginning  of  George  Washington's  administration.  It  was  four  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  thousand  bales  in  1847  ;  and  five  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  thousand  in  1848.  It  increased  nearly  25  per  cent,  in  the  second 
year  of  this  horrible  tariff,  which  was  to  destroy  the  whole  American 
manufacture. 

Now  they  tell  us  that  they  are  ruined,  ruined  by  the  great  quantity  of  cot- 
ton goods  thrown  upon  the  market.  Who  throws  them  there  ?  They 
are  not  the  goods  of  England  ;  they  have  not  increased  25  per  cent. 
They  have  produced  these  goods  themselves,  in  spite  of  their  pretence 
that  they  were  to  be  ruined.     It  is  putting  up  so  many  new  factories 


OF  ROBERT  IIANTOUL,  JR.  693 

which  has  brought  upon  them  this  depressed  state  of  their  market. 
The  increase  has  been  a  hundred  thousand  bales  of  cotton ;  vastly  more 
than  ever  before  had  been  consumed  in  the  southern  and  western  States. 
Kow,  why  has  the  cotton  manufacture  increased  so  rapidly  as  it  has 
since  the  tariff  was  lower?  I  will  tell  you  why.  It  was  because  the 
people  out  west,  having  a  command  for  their  goods,  were  becoming  rich 
and  comfortable,  and  of  course  bought  more  cotton.  The  manufacturers 
have  done  right  in  putting  up  new  factories  to  supply  this  increased  de- 
mand ;  only  they  have  gone  a  little  too  fast,  and  they  should  not  charge 
that  error  upon  the  government.  The  increase  of  American  cotton 
goods  from  forty-six  millions  in  1840,  to  sixty-five  millions  in  18-18,  is 
an  immense  per  centage,  and  too  great  for  the  demand. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  effect  of  liberal  policy  upon  the  agricultural 
and  manufacturing  interests.  Before  I  go  further,  I  want  to  notice  one 
little  fact  connected  with  this  subject.  When  they  tell  you  the  number 
of  persons  engaged  in  manufactures,  they  always  take  from  the  census 
the  total  number  of  persons  there  said  to  be  engaged  in  manufacturing 
and  mechanic  industry  ;  the  stone-cutters,  masons,  ship-carpenters,  house- 
carpenters,  etc.,  are  included  in  the  total  given.  I  don't  think  it  is  neces- 
sary to  protect  these  by  a  tariff,  lest  they  should  import  cellars  already 
dug,  and  chimneys  already  built.  Nor  need  we  fear  that  foreign  labor 
will  compete  with  our  saw-mills,  or  our  flour-mills ;  many  centuries  I 
think  it  will  be  before  that  will  happen.  AYill  you  build  fewer  ships 
because  you  have  lower  goods  to  carry  ?  Yet  they  reckon  all  these 
classes  of  laborers  ;  and  they  include  also  the  manufacturers  of  boots  and 
shoes,  which  we  can  send  to  the  British  provinces  ;  of  hats,  which  we 
can  send  to  Buenos  Ayres  ;  and  of  coarse  cottons,  which  we  can  send 
anywhere  in  the  world,  cheaper  than  England  can  send  them.  They 
have  to  bring  these  all  in  to  swell  up  the  aggregate  number,  and  then 
imagine  them  to  eat  twice  or  three  times  as  much  corn  as  they  really 
will ;  and  even  then  this  industry  to  be  protected,  is  as  nothing  compared 
to  the  vast  products  of  the  great  West. 

I  perceive  that  this  is  a  dry  discussion,  and  I  will  therefore  pass  over 
one  topic  more,  and  then  I  have  done.  How  are  commerce  and  the 
interests  of  navigation  affected  by  a  high  or  low  tariff?  Why  encourage 
manuf\ictures,  cause  the  teeming  West  to  produce  millions  upon  millions 
of  bushels  of  grain  for  the  starving  millions  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  you  have  at  once  employment,  and  profitable  employment, 
for  a  vast  mercantile  marine.  Since  1830,  when  the  tonnage  of  the 
United  States  was  a  million,  it  has  grown  up  to  three  millions,  or  more 
than  trebled  in  eighteen  years.    Is  not  that  a  growth  worth  encouraging  ? 


694  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Do  not  discourage  the  commerce  of  this  country  ;  do  not  hang  a  mill- 
stone about  its  neck,  but  give  it  free  scope,  and  that  is  all  the  protection 
that  it  asks.  This  congressional  district  has  about  sixty  thousand  tons 
of  shipping,  and  every  ton  of  that  shipping  has  cost  at  least  $o  more  on 
account  of  duties  on  materials  of  construction  and  outfit,  making  an 
aggregate  of  $300,000  levied  by  the  tariff;  and  yet  it  survives  and 
prospers ;  but  prosper  it  would  more  vigorously  if  you  would  remove  all 
restrictions. 

Great  Britain,  in  olden  times,  was  the  "  mistress  of  the  ocean."  Iler 
flag  for  a  thousand  years  had  braved  the  battle  and  the  breeze,  so  long 
as  she  had  only  the  old  world  to  contend  with.  She  is  "mistress  of  the 
seas  "  no  longer.  What  is  it  that  constitutes  naval  strength  ?  It  is  not 
the  oaken  ribs.  It  is  not  the  ships.  They  can  be  built  out  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  your  forests  in  a  very  sliort  time.  That  which  makes  our  naval 
strength  is  hardy  tars,  bold  and  fearless,  who  dare  to  beard  the  British 
lion  in  his  own  home.  We  are  for  protecting  labor.  Give  your  labor 
the  markets  of  the  world.  Give  to  the  labor  of  the  hardy  Yankee  tar, 
the  scope  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  !  It  is  your  tars  that  make 
your  naval  strength,  and  what  shall  decide  the  number  of  your  seamen  ? 
The  amount  of  employment  your  country  gives  to  them.  And  who  gives 
employment  to  the  seamen,  —  he  that  passes  a  high  restrictive  tariff,  or 
he  that  encourages  Free  Trade  with  all  the  world  ? 

Great  Britain  had  a  mercantile  marine  vastly  greater  than  ours. 
W^hat  was  the  consequence  ?  W^hen  she  went  to  war,  she  could  take 
from  her  merchant  ships  any  number  of  seamen  she  might  require  in  her 
navy.  She  impressed  them  ;  a  thing  which  never  has  been  done,  and 
which  I  hope  never  will  be  done  in  this  country.  That  was  the  secret 
of  her  power.  We  are  going  on  in  a  career  of  prosperity.  Never  has 
our  navigation  increased  so  much  in  any  four  years,  as  it  has  in  the 
present  and  the  last  year.  We  are  increasing  the  amount  of  our  ship- 
ping seven  per  cent,  a  year,  more  than  three  times  as  fast  as  our  popula- 
tion increases.  We  are  increasing  so  fast,  that  within'  less  than  four 
years  from  that  day,  the  mercantile  marine  of  the  United  States,  the 
tonnage  of  the  United  States,  and  the  number  of  the  seamen  of  the 
United  States,  will  be  far  beyond  that  of  the  British  empire,  including 
all  her  islands  and  all  her  colonies. 

Tlien  if  there  shall  be  a  war,  and  no  other  nation  is  pretended  to  be 
liable  to  a  war  with  us  excepting  Great  Britain  ;  if  there  shall  be  a  war, 
the  bloody  cross  of  Saint  George  must  veil  and  bow  before  us,  upon 
whatever  sea  we  shall  meet  her,  and  we  shall  be  ready  to  meet  her  upon 
all  seas.     So  much  for  the  war  side  of  the  picture.     If  it  be  necessary 


OF    ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  695 

to  fight,  —  and  I  hold  that  it  is  best  to  avoid  fighting  as  long  as  you  can, 
and  when  you  must  fight  to  do  it  effectually,  —  if  it  be  necessary  to  fight, 
that  is  the  position  in  which  free  trade  places  the  American  nation. 

"VYe  can  have  no  wars  upon  the  land.  The  serpent  of  Mexico  will 
never  lift  up  her  head  in  defiance  again.  Canada  would  be  glad  to  sail 
under  our  stars  and  stripes  this  blessed  day,  if  we  would  receive  her. 
We  have  no  enemies  upon  the  American  continent.  If  we  have  any 
w^ar,  it  must  be  upon  the  ocean,  and  such  a  war  would  be  trivial,  if  with 
any  power  excepting  Great  Britain.  Over  her  power  w^e  shall  pre- 
dominate within  four  years  from  the  present  day. 

Now  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  question.  Our  whig  friends  say, 
that  General  Cass  is  an  able  and  excellent  man  ;  they  have  nothing  to  say 
against  his  private  life  or  public  career  as  a  statesman,  with  one  single 
exception,  —  he  is  too  much  inclined  to  ^Yar.  We  are  told,  that  the 
democratic  party  is  the  party  of  war,  and  that  w^e  shall  be  involved  in  a 
war  with  Great  Britain.  A  liberal  policy  in  commercial  aflfairs  increases 
our  navigation  and  strengthens  our  naval  powder,  and  Great  Britain  is 
not  quite  as  ready  to  go  to  war  with  us  since  1812  as  she  might  have 
been  ;  because  some  of  my  friends  from  Gloucester  and  Marblehead, 
happened  to  meet  some  of  her  children,  and  they  gave  Great  Britain 
then  a  touch  of  their  quality  which  she  is  not  likely  to  forget.  And  now 
you  have  trebled  your  tonnage  since  1830,  so  that  it  is  close  upon  the 
heels  of  the  English  mercantile  marine,  and  increasing  every  day. 
When  our  ships  and  sailors  are  more  numerous  than  those  of  Great 
Britain,  will  Great  Britain  be  any  more  disposed  to  go  to  war  with  us 
than  in  1812  ?  The  party,  then,  that  pursues  a  liberal  commercial  policy, 
that  builds  up  navigation,  and  causes  your  sails  to  whiten  every  sea,  and 
your  stars  and  stripes  to  float  in  every  port,  pursues  the  policy  which 
makes  peace  certain,  because  nobody  will  desire  an  enemy  so  strong  as 
the  United  States  w-ill  make  herself 

On  another  ground  we  have  less  cause  to  fear.  With  wdiom  do  people 
go  to  war  ?  With  their  enemies ;  with  those  who  they  imagine  have 
given  them  cause  of  w^ar.  Now,  take  the  war  policy  of  restriction.  It 
shuts  every  man  up  w^ithin  himself,  and  every  nation  within  itself.  We 
do  not  want  to  sell  you  any  thing,  or  buy  any  thing  of  you,  is  its  spirit. 
Keep  yourselves  to  yourselves,  and  we  will  keep  ourselves  to  ourselves. 
That  makes  enemies.  Mountains  interposed  made  enemies  once;  but 
the  railroad  that  crosses  the  Alps,  and  the  railroad  that  crosses  the  Py- 
renees, will  take  away  that  cause  of  war.  Now,  restrictions  make  enemies ; 
take  away  those,  and  w^e  are  friends  to  the  world,  and  have  no  enemies. 
If  we  take  the  starving  Irish  population  and  feed  them  ;  if  w^e  take 
the  operatives  of  Manchester  and  other  English  manufacturing  cities, 


696  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  strengthen  their  arms  for  labor  by  filHng  the  bellies  of  those  unfor- 
tunate men,  do  you  think  they  will  go  to  war  with  us  who  furnish  the 
raw  material  for  their  labor,  who  furnish  the  clothing  for  their  backs, 
and  the  food  for  their  stomachs,  and  stop  their  own  supplies  ?  When 
they  find  us  every  day  a  better  customer,  will  they  go  to  war  with  their 
benefactors  ?  ("  Marblehead  will  keep  them  off.")  "  Free  trade  and 
sailors'  rights,"  was  what  old  Marblehead  fought  for  in  the  last  war. 
Great  Britain  then  denied  us  free  trade.  Great  Britain  has  come  to  her 
senses  since.  She  tried  the  "  protection  "  of  labor,  until  it  had  starved 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  She  now  proposes  fair  and  free  ex- 
changes of  our  products  with  hers.  And  I  say  that  liberal  and  free  ex- 
change makes  friends  of  all  nations,  and  makes  a  war  impossible. 

General  Cass,  then,  is  the  man  of  peace  ;  and  not  such  a  man  of  peace 
as  my  whig  friends  have  conjured  up,  who  has  spent  all  his  life  in  the 
camp,  whose  trade  is  war,  and  who  has  been  so  devoted  to  that  trade  that 
he  has  not  had  time  to  examine  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to 
see  whether  a  United  States  bank  or  a  high  tariif  is  constitutional  or 
not,  so  that  he  has  no  opinions  on  the  subject !  A  man  who  has  confined 
himself  so  closely  to  the  trade  of  killing  men,  is  not  quite  so  likely  to  be 
a  peace  man  as  General  Cass,  who  has  been  all  his  life  a  civilian,  and 
wdio  adopts  and  supports  that  policy  which  makes  all  nations  friends, 
because  it  makes  them  mutual  benefactors. 

I  will  take  up  no  more  time  with  this  discussion.  Let  me  say  to  you, 
that  the  democracy  of  the  country  is  to  decide  these  great  questions. 
The  democracy  of  the  United  States  is  to  determine  whether  hereafter 
the  policy  of  our  nation  in  the  world,  shall  be  to  m.ake  an  enemy  of  every 
other  nation ;  to  keep  at  home  its  own  food,  and  to  shut  out  its  neigh- 
bor's clothing  ;  to  provoke  and  irritate,  instead  of  conciliating  and  mak- 
ing friends.  There  never  has  been,  and  there  never  will  be,  excepting 
in  this  manner,  such  a  scene  of  universal  brotherhood  in  this  world  as 
will  follow  the  general  adoption  of  a  liberal  commercial  policy.  "  Liberty, 
Equality,  Fraternity,"  and  the  fraternity  of  all  men.  That  is  the  doctrine 
which  thirty-four  millions  of  Frenchmen  now  hoist  at  their  masthead, 
and  that  is  the  doctrine  that  is  to  circumnavigate  the  globe  with  our 
ships,  and  their  ships,  and  the  ships  of  every  nation,  as  they  float  upon 
the  sea.  Shall  we  join  in  this  policy  ?  Shall  w^e  say,  let  labor  have 
free  scope  ;  let  the  untilled  lands  be  brought  into  the  market  at  the 
cheapest  rates,  so  that  agriculture  shall  have  free  i)lay  ?  Let  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  West  be  sold,  in  God's  name,  in  Ireland,  in  England,  or 
anywhere  else  where  there  is  an  opportunity  to  sell  them.  IMay  our 
commercial  greatness,  vast  and  tow^ering  as  it  now  is,  go  on  increasing 
as  it  has  done  ;  and  let  our  onward  march  in  greatness,  in  wealth,  and  in 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  697 

prosperity,  be  accelerated,  as  it  will  be  when  we  adopt  tliat  policy  w'liich 
makes  a  Christian  brotherhood  of  all  nations,  and  unites  their  before  dis- 
cordant interests  into  one. 


SPEECH  01  THE  INTERESTS  OF  THE  OLD  STATES  IX  WESTERI 
AVENUES  OF  LXTERCOUPtSE.* 

The  House  having  taken  up  for  consideration  the  bill  granting  to  the 
State  of  Missouri  the  right  of  way  and  a  portion  of  the  public  do- 
main, to  aid  in  the  construction  of  certain  railroads  therein,  the  Speaker 
said  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  [Mr.  Rantoul,]  was  entitled  to 
the  floor. 

Mr.  Rantoul  said  :  The  question  before  the  house  seems  to  me  to  be 
very  far  indeed  from  a  question  of  mere  sectional  and  local  interest. 
The  disposition  to  be  made  of  the  public  domain  is  certainly  a  great 
national  concern,  and  ought  to  be  argued  with  a  view  to  its  bearing  upon 
the  great  national  interests  of  the  country,  which  are  common  to  all 
sections.  I  do  not  see  clearly  —  I  cannot  be  certain,  and  I  think  no  other 
man  can  be  certain  —  that  the  national  domain  will  continue  to  belong 
to  the  United  States  as  common  property,  to  be  applied  as  it  is  now  ap- 
plied ;  for  probably  —  without  looking  very  far  into  the  future  —  it  is 
probable,  that  some  means  will  be  found  to  withdraw  the  public  lands 
from  their  present  position,  and  to  put  an  end  to  the  long  series  of  con- 
troversies somewhat  sectional  in  their  nature,  —  to  make  a  final  adjust- 
ment, u^^on  general,  just,  and  national  principles,  of  the  whole  subject. 
But  into  the  question  whether  such  an  adjustment  be  possible,  and  if  it  be 
possible,  how  it  ought  to  be  made,  I  do  not  now  propose  to  enter.  I  intend 
to  confine  my  remarks  to  the  question,  whether  appropriations,  such  as  are 
proposed  to  be  made  in  this  bill,  ought  to  be  made  for  the  opening  of 
great  avenues  of  internal  trade.  The  old  thirteen  States  have  certainly 
great  interest  in  determining  what  shall  be  done  with  the  public  lands, — 
and  interest  as  great,  in  some  views,  as  that  of  the  States  in  which  the 
public  lands  are  situated,  —  and  I  wish  to  inquire,  what  use  can  be  made 
of  the  public  lands,  at  the  present,  and  until  some  final  adjustment  is 
agreed  upon,  and  of  the  proceeds  thereof,  which  shall  be  equal  in  its 
advantages  to  the  old  States,  as  well  as  to  the  new  !     The  proposition 

^  Delivered  in  the  United  States  House  of  Representatives,  Eeb.  18,  1852. 
59 


698  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

now  before  the  house,  is  for  a  grant  of  alternate  sections  of  land  to 
aid  in  the  construction  of  roads  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  It  stands 
upon  the  same  principles  as  other  similar  propositions  which  must  soon 
come  before  us.  What  can  be  done  with  the  public  lands  that  will  so 
conduce  to  the  benefit  of  the  whole  country,  as  to  use  them  so  as  to 
bring  about  —  especially  if  it  can  be  done  without  cost  to  the  national 
treasury  —  to  bring  about,  I  say,  the  opening  of  all  the  great  channels 
of  internal  commerce  ?  I  cannot  conceive  of  any  other  use  to  be  made 
of  them  so  beneficial.  A  general  plan  of  roads  has  already  been  com- 
menced,—  a  plan,  not  the  product  of  any  one  mind  or  any  one  set  of 
minds,  'and  yet  well  combined,  and  mutually  harmonizing,  from  the 
natural  tendencies  of  the  trade  and  intercourse  v/hich  occasioned  their 
construction,  and  so,  without  pre-concert,  forming  a  portion,  so  far  as 
they  are  completed,  of  a  great  and  well-contrived  system.  Your  roads, 
from  Boston,  by  the  way  of  BuiFalo,  to  the  west ;  from  New  York,  by 
the  way  of  Dunkirk,  to  the  west ;  from  Philadelphia,  by  the  way  of 
Pittsburg,  to  the  west  ;  from  Baltimore  by  the  Ohio  river,  to  the 
west  ;  from  Alexandria,  Norfolk,  and  Portsmouth,  through  Virginia 
—  awake  at  last  to  her  commercial  capacities  —  to  the  west;  from  Charles- 
ton and  Savannah,  promising  also  to  rise  from  their  long  depression  by 
their  connection  with  the  west,  —  I  say  all  these  roads  furnish  the  begin- 
nings of  chains  of  intercourse  which  must  be  carried  forward  further 
than  they  now  are,  in  order  to  derive  from  them  their  full  benefits  to 
those  sections  of  the  Atlantic  slope  through  which  they  pass.  The  At- 
lantic slope  can  have  no  valuable  commerce,  I  might  almost  say,  except 
what  she  derives  from  the  west ;  that  slope  being  barren,  as  compared 
with  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  and  the  old  States  being  unproduc- 
tive, as  compared  with  the  new  States.  That  western  commerce,  and 
that  western  delivery  of  agricultural  products,  which  already  employs 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  navigation,  will,  at  no  very  distant  period, 
employ,  comparatively,  almost  the  whole  of  your  navigation.  The  2)ro- 
ducts  of  the  Atlantic  slope  to  be  carried  to  foreign  countries,  and  the 
products  of  foreign  countries  to  be  brought  here  for  delivery  and  distribu- 
tion to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Atlantic  slope,  will  be  as  nothing  compared 
with  those  products  which  are  to  be  delivered  from,  and  the  merchandise 
and  manufactures  to  be  forwarded  to,  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi. 

This  being  the  case,  then,  and  the  commerce  of  the  nation  being,  in 
fact,  destined  to  be  an  interchange  between  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi 
and  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  becomes  extremely  important  to  all  who 
are  interested  in  the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  old  States,  that  these 
channels  should  be  opened,  and  should  be  made  cheap,  speedy,  and  con- 
venient.    Now,  so  far  as  this  bill  proposes  to  continue  and  aid  in  the 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  699 

construction  of  these  channels  of  communication,  it  proposes  to  do  so 
without  loss  to  the  general  government ;  without  loss,  I  say,  of  a  single 
dollar  to  the  general  treasury.  You  take  one  thousand  two  hundred 
and  eighty  vacres  of  land  lying  along-side  of  each  other,  and  you  say  to 
the  State  of  Missouri,  Take  one  half  of  this  ;  take  six  hundred  and  forty 
acres,  and  apply  the  proceeds  thereof  to  the  construction  of  railroads,  and 
pay  the  same  price  for  the  remaining  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  v/hicli 
you  formerly  paid  for  the  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty  acres. 
You  say  it  is  the  settlers  in  those  States  who  are  to  pay  the  additional  prices, 
for  the  sections  taken  together  pay  as  much  as  they  did  before,  and  the 
sale  is  much  more  likely  to  take  place  within  a  limited  period  of  time,  — 
much  more  likely  to  take  place  in  a  year,  or  a  few  years,  —  than  it  would 
be  at  the  old  prices,  and  if  the  access  to  those  lands  had  not  been  fticili- 
tated.  What  makes  lands  within  five  miles  of  a  great  city  more  valu- 
able than  those  a  hundred  or  five  hundred  miles  distant  ?  It  is  simply 
because  the  produce  of  that  land  has  a  market,  and  because  the  time 
and  expense  of  getting  to  that  market  is  comparatively  small.  Diminish 
the  time  and  expense  of  reaching  a  market  from  a  section  of  land  in 
the  State  of  Missouri,  and  you  raise  the  price  of  that  land  instantly  and 
largely  the  moment  you  do  so.  Now,  sir,  of  all  the  inventions  that 
science  has  struck  out,  a  good  railroad  is  the  machine  that  shortens  the 
time,  and  lessens  the  expense,  and  puts  a  market  at  your  door  most 
effectually  and  most  surely.  That,  this  bill  proposes  to  do  for  the  in- 
habitants of  Missouri  along  the  line  of  this  road,  and  proposes  to  do  it 
in  a  manner  which  will  not  draw  from  the  national  treasury  one  dollar, 
and  which  will  not  prevent  from  passing  into  the  treasury  one  single 
dollar;  for  you  will  not  in  Missouri,  you  will  not  in  any  State  where  a 
a  railroad  is  needed  —  and  if  it  is  not  needed  it  ought  not  to  be  con- 
structed—  I  say,  you  will  not  fear,  but  may  be  certain  that  the  demand 
for  land,  at  double  prices,  will  be  much  more  rapid  than  at  the  ordinary 
prices  elsewhere. 

You  propose  to  give  lands,  at  the  present  value,  at  $1  25  an  acre, 
amounting  to  six  sections,  worth  $4,800,  for  each  mile  of  railroad  to  be 
constructed,  which  mile  will  cost  something  like  $20,000.  Of  this  sum 
$15,200  are  to  be  contributed  by  the  State  of  Missouri,  or  by  individuals, 
who,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  will  not  throw  away  this  amount  of  capital 
without  some  examination  into  the  question,  whether  the  business  of  the 
route  is  sufficient  to  yield-  an  adequate  return.  And,  indeed,  through 
the  fertile  regions  of  the  west,  if  the  business  is  not  there,  let  your  ave- 
nue point  towards  a  great  market,  and  the  road  will  bring  it  there. 
Ultimately,  routes  running  towards  natural  centres  of  commerce  will 
pay.    The  title  does  not  pass  from  the  United  States,  unless  the  road  be 


700  ME^IOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

actually  constructed  ;  and  if  the  road  be  not  built,  the  land  reverts. 
"The  work,  then,  must  be  done,  and  the  State  or  individuals  must  contri- 
bute the  sura  of  $15,200,  or  thereabouts  —  I  do  not  profess  to  be  accu- 
rate in  this  estimate  of  the  cost  —  for  every  mile  of  the  road,  or  else  no 
land  will  be  taken  from  the  United  States.  If  the  road  be  so  eligible 
or  desirable  to  be  built,  that  the  State  or  individuals  will  contribute  this 
amount,  then  the  probability  is  quite  strong  enough  that  the  road  is  re- 
quired by  the  interests  of  the  country,  and  will  be  built. 

Well,  I  said  that  the  products  of  these  States,  the  products  of  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  mainly,  —  the  agricultural  products,  I  might 
say,  —  are  those  which  do  now  support  the  navigation  of  the  United 
States.  They  constitute  already  almost  the  whole.  Of  your  cotton, 
you  send  to  market  from  four  hundred  thousand  to  four  hundred  and 
-fifty  thousand  tons  weight,  of  j^our  Indian  corn  two  hundred  thousand  to 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  tons  weight,  and  of  your  flour  two  hun- 
dred thousand  tons.  These  immense  productions  support  and  require 
navigation.  Our  ships  would  be  useless,  if  you  take  away  these  articles, 
which  are  produced  at  a  great  distance  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and 
which  must  be  brought  to  the  seaboard,  and  which  require  these  chan- 
nels to  bring  them.  Surely,  then,  it  is  important  that  the  old  States, 
which  have  great  navigating  interests,  and  great  commercial  interests, 
should  look  well  to  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  west ;  because  it  is 
that  which  keeps  alive  their  commercial  and  navigating  interests.  We 
are  their  carriers  ;  and  without  the  freights  they  bring  to  us,  our  ships 
would  rot  in  the  docks.  I  am  treating  of  a  great  national  interest,  for 
the  benefits  of  a  free  commerce  are  diffused  among  the  agricultural 
population  of  the  country  as  universally  and  as  certainly  as  among 
those  who  carry  it  on.  But  because  the  west  is  already  everywhere 
alive  to  these  great  interests,  I  address  myself  more  particularly  to  the 
commercial  interests  of  the  old  States.  Take  the  line  of  railroads  that 
stretches  from  Boston  to  Bufililo,  the  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
canals,  the  Erie  railroad,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad,  and  you  will 
find  that  these  works  alone,  without  including  any  others,  receive  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  millions  of  dollars  every  year,  for  tolls  from  the  pro- 
duce which  passes  over  them  from  the  west  to  the  east,  and  for  the 
returns,  with  the  travel  which  this  business  causes.  Fifteen  or  twenty 
millions  of  dollars  a  year  is  a  tax  that  is  levied  upon  that  transportation 
inland.  And  when  you  come  to  estimate  the  cost  and  profit,  as  the 
transportation  continues  across  the  ocean,  it  swells  up  to  an  amount 
vastly  greater  than  the  profits  made  upon  the  internal  transportation. 
Is  not  this,  then,  a  matter  to  which  the  old  States,  —  for  I  address  my 
remarks  particularly  to  that  section  to  which  I  belong,  —  is  not  this  a 


OF   EGBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  701 

matter  to  which  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland, 
ought  to  look  ?  The  tolls  they  receive  amount  to  fifteen  or  twenty  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  which  is  levied  upon  these  articles  of  produce.  Their 
freights  abroad,  and  for  returns,  amount  to  vast  sums,  which  I  cannot 
pause  to  measure  now. 

There  is  another  great  interest,  —  the  manufacturing  interest.  Let  me 
say  a  few  words  upon  this  subject,  and  I  propose  to  say  but  a  few.  The 
great  manufacturing  interest  thrives  as  its  customers  thrive,  and  it  can- 
not thrive  without  them,  nor  without  their  prosperity.  The  manufac- 
turing interest  in  New  England,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania  perishes 
if  the  west  ceases  to  be  a  good  purchaser.  The  danger  to  that  interest 
is  not  from  importations  from  abroad.  The  hopes  of  the  manufacturing 
interest  should  not  be  in  excluding  importations  from  abroad.  That  in- 
terest in  the  north-east  should  cease  to  look  with  fear  to  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic  ;  but  it  should  begin  to  look  with  hope  towards  the  west. 
That  is  the  true  doctrine  for  the  people  of  my  section  of  the  country. 
May  they  learn  it,  and  act  upon  it  in  season.  Why,  Sir,  the  manufac- 
turing interest  has  every  thing  to  hope  from  the  people  of  the  west,  who 
are  its  best  customers.  Look  at  the  change  that  has  taken  place  within 
a  few  years  past.  The  president,  in  his  message,  has  told  us  that  agri- 
cultural products  have  not  risen  in  price,  and  experienced  an  increased 
demand,  as  was  expected  under  the  present  tariiF,  as  compared  with  the 
former.  Sir,  I  do  not  know  what  gentlemen  expected,  but  their  expec- 
tations must  have  been  extravagant  indeed,  if  they  have  not  been  more 
than  satisfied.  If  you  take  the  agricultural  products  of  this  country, 
take  the  whole  amount  of  articles  exported  from  this  country,  —  and 
they  are  almost  all  agricultural,  —  from  the  year  1842  to  184G,  during 
the  operation  of  the  last  tariff,  and  compare  their  export  value  as  stated 
by  the  shippers,  with  the  value  of  the  same  quantities  of  the  same  ar- 
ticles at  the  prices  which  prevailed  before  1842,  and  you  will  find  the 
difference  to  be  about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars. 
You  will  find  that  your  exports  of  products  of  all  sorts  brought,  under 
the  tariff  of  1842,  about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  of  dollars 
less  than  the  same  articles  would  have  amounted  to  if  sold  at  the  prices 
which  prevailed  for  four  years  previous  to  1842.  There  is  a  state  of 
things  which  agricultural  interests  would  not  desire  during  those  four 
years.  How  has  it  been  since  184G  ?  There  has  been  a  general  rise 
of  about  the  same  amount ;  that  is  to  say,  about  thirty  millions  of  dollars 
a  year.  The  articles  exported  since  3846  down  to  the  present  time,  if 
they  had  been  sold  at  the  average  prices  that  prevailed  from  1842  to 
184G,  v»'ould  have  brought  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars less  than  they  have  brought  —  a  difir'erence  of  thirty  millions  a  year 

59* 


702  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

as  before.  Under  the  tariff  of  1842,  our  exports  sold  for  thirty  millions 
of  dollars  a  year  less  than  the  same  qualities  had  sold  for  before  ;  and 
under  the  tariff  of  1846,  and  since  that  time,  they  have  brought  thirty 
millions  of  dollars  a  year  more  than  the  same  quantities  had  brought 
before. 

Cotton  exported,  with  its  value,  during  three  periods,  from  1839  to 
1842  inclusive,  from  1843  to  1846  inclusive,  and  from  1847  to  1851  in- 
clusive :  — 

A. 

Four  years  ending  icith  1842.  Four  years  ending  ivith  1846. 

Quantity,  2,272,486,390  lbs.       '  Quantity,  2,876,394,612  lbs. 

Value,  $227,018,094.  Value,  $197,690,291. 

Price  per  lb.,     9  99-100  cts.  Pi-ice  per  lb.  6  873-1000  cts. 

The  quantity  of  cotton  for  the  latter  four  years,  at  the  price  of  the 
former  four  years,  9  99-100  cents. 

Would  have  sold  for $287,351,822 

Official  return  of  its  value, 197,690,291 

Loss  on  cotton  by  fall  of  prices,  ....  $89,661,531 

Five  years  ending  with  1851. 

Quantity,  (pounds,) 3,930,715,351 

Value, $366,111,042 

Price,  (per  pound,) 9  314-1000  cts. 

The  quantity  of  cotton  for  the  latter  five  years  was 

valued  at $366,111,042 

At  the  price  of  former  four  years,  6  873-1000  cents, 

it  would  have  brought  only        ....        270,158,066 

Gain  on  cotton  by  rise  of  prices,       .         .         .         .         .     $95,952,976 

B. 

Loss  on  fall  of  prices  under  the  tariff  of  1842,  and  gain  by  rise  of 
.prices  under  the  tariff  of  1846  :  — 

Under  tariff  of  1842. 

Loss  on  cotton,  (as  per  table  A,) $89,661,531 

Loss  on  tobacco,  ........  16,786,197 

Loss  on  vegetable  food,    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         8,519,803 

Loss  on  provisions  and  animal  products,      ....     4,373,108 

Loss  on  other  exports,  (estimated  in  part,)       .         .         .         7,000,000 

$126,340,639 
Under  tariff  of  1846. 

Gain  on  cotton,  (as  per  table  A,) $95,952,976 

Gain  on  tobacco, 7,482,289 

Gain  on  vegetable  food, 25,173,392 

Gain  on  provisions  and  animal  products,      ....    8,662,264 

Gain  on  fisheries, 978,572 

Gain  on  ashes, .         .    1,136,781 

Gain  on  other  exports,  (estimated  in  part,)       .        .         .        9,000,000 

$148,486,274 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  703 

Not  only  have  the  prices  risen,  but  the  quantities  also  have  vastly  in- 
creased. The  enlargement  of  the  aggregate  of  a  single  year's  business 
to  the  extent  of  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  five  years'  time,  is 
enough  to  satisfy  reasonable  expectations.  Yet  this  amount  is  the  sub- 
ject of  complaint  in  the  message. 

1S46.  1851. 

Imports,      .         .         .         $121,091,797  §215,725,995 

Exports,  .         .         .       113,488,516  217,517,130 


Aggregate,.         .         .         $235,180,313  $-433,243,125 

The  year  184G,  which  I  have  chosen  for  this  comparison,  is  the 
year  of  the  largest  trade  under  the  tariff  of  1812,  though  it  is  not  so 
large  by  several  millions  as  the  average  of  the  ten  years  preceding  that 
tariff. 

But  it  is  said  the  farmers  have  been  disappointed.  Let  us  see  with 
what  reason:  — 

C. 
Showing  the  exports  of  vegetable  food  and  animcd  products,  from  1843  to  1850,  inclusive. 
Animal.  Vegetable.  Aggregate. 

1843  $3,963,694         $6,955,908         $10,919,602 

1844  6,149,379         11,239,437  17,388,816 

1845  6,206,394  9,810,.508  16,016,902 

1846  7,833,864         19,329,585  27,163,449 


$24,153,331 

$47, 

,335^ 

,438 

$71,488 

,669 

1847 

$11,113,074 

$57 

,070,356 

$68,183,4-30 

1848 

12,-538,896 

25 

,185 

,647 

37,724 

,543 

1849 

13,153,-302 

25 

,642 

,362 

38,795 

,664 

1850 

10,549,383 

15 

,822 

,373 

26,371 

,756 

$47,3.54,655  $123,720,738  $171,075,393 

Agriculture  is  not  suffering  when  we  open  the  door  to  allow  her  pro- 
ducts to  pass  to  her  customers  ;  and  manufactures  do  not  suffer  when 
the  agriculturists,  receiving  a  high  price  for  their  surplus,  have  some- 
thing left  to  expend.  The  interest  of  the  agriculture  of  the  west  is  an 
open  door  to  the  largest  markets  ;  a  free  passage  back  and  forth  to  sell 
what  may  be  disposable,  and  to  purchase  what  may  be  desired.  That 
is  the  only  sound  doctrine  for  sensible  men.  That  being  the  interest  of 
agriculture,  and  the  difference  between  the  present  state  of  trade  and 
that  five  years  ago,  amounting  to  the  vast  sum  which  I  have  named,  —  is 
the  enjoyment  of  this  field  for  his  sales  all  the  interest  which  the  manu- 
facturer north-east  has  in  the  keeping  up  of  the  prices  of  agricultural 
products,  which  is  best  done  by  opening  the  avenues  to  market  ?  Not 
at  all.     It  is  not  merely  that  you  enrich  your  customer,  and,  therefore, 


704  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

can  sell  to  him.  That  is  not  all.  I  am  speaking  to  north-eastern  men. 
By  what  tenure  does  New  England,  does  New  York,  does  Pennsylvania, 
hold  the  manufactures  which  they  now  monopolize?  Why  do  they 
manufacture  for  the  west,  and  how  long  will  they  do  so  ?  Not  forever. 
My  friends  must  be  aware  of  that  fact.  It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things, 
if  we  look  at  them  as  they  really  are,  and  do  not  try  to  impose  upon 
ourselves  by  any  fimcies  in  the  matter.  New  England  will  not  forever 
make  cotton  goods,  and  Pennsylvania  iron,  for  the  valley  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. Not  at  all,  — it  cannot  be  so.  The  man  who  thinks  that  it  is  to 
endure  for  centuries,  expects  to  war  against  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
overcome  them,  —  a  result  that  never  happens.  Why,  Sir,  can  any  one 
tell  me  why  cotton  goods  should  be  made  in  Lowell,  or  in  Massachusetts 
anywhere,  for  the  valley  of  the  south-west,  when  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee  are  close  upon  the  region  that  produces  the 
raw  material  ?  Why  should  not  cotton  goods,  at  least  for  their  ov/n  con- 
sumption, be  made  there  ?  Why  should  they  not  be  made  in  Alabama, 
or  in  Georgia  ?  For  my  part,  I  can  see  no  reason ;  and,  therefore,  I  be- 
lieve ultimately  they  will  be  made  there.  Well,  can  any  man  tell  me 
why  woollen  goods,  to  supply  the  west,  are  to  be  made  in  New  England 
forever,  when  Wisconsin  can  raise  wool  at  half  the  price  that  we  can,  — 
when  Iowa  and  Michigan  are  increasing  their  production  of  wool  as 
rapidly  as  the  returns  in  the  newspapers  tell  us  they  are  ?  Where  wool 
grows  cheaply,  in  a  good  climate  for  manufacture,  —  where  there  is  good 
water-power,  and  an  active  and  thrifty  population,  —  there  ultimately 
will  be  the  seat  of  the  woollen  manufactory.  Will  Pennsylvania  always 
furnish  the  iron  for  all  of  the  United  States  ?  I  think  that  Pennsylva- 
nia has  something  else  to  apprehend  than  importations  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  region  around  Lake  Superior  has  better  iron  ore  than  most  of 
that  of  Pennsylvania,  and  a  great  abundance  of  it.  I  have  here  before 
me  the  calculation  of  a  single  deposit  of  iron  ore  there,  —  a  mountain  of 
iron  ore,  three  quarters  of  a  mile  in  length,  and  half  a  mile  wide,  and 
from  fifty  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  deep,  —  to  be  within  bounds,  I 
choose  to  take  seventy -five  feet  only,  as  the  average  depth.  Take  those 
dimensions,  and  you  have  145,000,000  of  tons  of  ore,  reckoning  five 
tons  to  the  cubic  yard.  That  single  spur  of  iron,  —  70  per  cent,  iron 
to  the  ore,  of  145,000,000  of  tons  of  ore,  is  less  than  one  thirtieth  part 
of  the  deposit  upon  the  shore  of  Lake  Superior,  —  you  have  there 
2,200,000,000  of  tons  of  iron  in  a  single  deposit,  reckoning  two  tons  of 
ore  to  one  ton  of  blooms.  Well,  at  a  million  of  tons  a  year,  it  will  last 
you  two  thousand  two  hundred  j^ears.  And  that  is  what  Lake  Superior 
alone  has  of  the  finest  iron  in  the  world.     You  can  manufacture  it  al- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  705 

ready  cheaper  tlian  you  can  make  it  anywhere  in  Pennsylvania.  Will 
the  north-west  be  supplied  from  Pennsylvania,  Avhen  she  has  the  iron 
there  within  her  own  limits  ? 

Mr.  Robbins.     Has  she  coal  in  the  same  proportion  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  Not  precisely.  If  it  were  worth  the  -while,  I  would 
argue  the  question  out,  and  I  think  I  could  give  my  friend  an  answer  to 
his  very  pertinent  question,  which  would  be  satisfactory.  But,  wathin 
the  limits  now  left  to  me,  I  have  not  the  time  to  go  into  the  details  of 
the  question.  Is  St.  Louis  to  be  the  seat  of  the  great  iron  manufacture 
of  the  centre  of  the  Mississippi  valley,  or  is  it  not  ?  Is  Missouri  to 
bring  iron  from  Pennsylvania?  Has  not  she  better  ore  than  Pennsyl- 
vania? Has  not  she  ore  enough  to  supply  the  whole  civihzed  world, 
thousands  of  years,  and  coal,  too,  not  very  far  off?  A  very  short 
railroad  runs  down  to  a  bed  of  coal  that  is  suitable  for  the  purpose  of 
working  her  metals. 

In  East  Tennessee  there  is  a  quantity,  inexhaustible,  which  makes 
good,  strong,  malleable,  tenacious  iron,  very  different  from  the  largest 
part  of  the  iron  manufactured  upon  the  Atlantic  slope.  But  is  the 
west  to  look  forever  east  for  its  suppty?  Most  assuredly  it  will  not.  It 
seems  to  me  the  man  is  mad  wdio  imagines  it  can  be  so.  Here,  then, 
for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  my  idea,  I  have  taken  three  branches  of 
manufacture,  —  the  iron,  the  w^oollen,  and  cotton.  Sooner  or  later  the 
three,  each  of  them,  will  depart  from  their  present  locations  in  New 
England,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania.  And  when  it  is  for  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people  of  the  United  States  for  them  so  to  do,  in  God's  name 
let  them  go.  You  cannot  expect,  against  the  interests  of  a  great  peo- 
ple, to  hold  any  branch  of  industry  in  any  particular  location.  It  must 
follow  its  own  laws.  It  must  go  where  it  can  thrive  best.  It  must  go 
where  it  is  best  suited,  and  leave  others  to  whom  it  is  not  suited  by  na- 
ture, to  seek  out  new  modes  of  industry,  and  to  exert  their  enterprise 
in  other  ways.  For  my  own  part,  I  believe  that  the  people  of  New 
England  and  New  York  will  find  out  other  ways  in  which  they  can  exert 
their  enterprise  and  industry  to  quite  as  great  advantage ;  and  I  say  to 
the  people  of  the  north-east,  cotton,  woollen,  and  iron,  must  some  day  or 
other  be  generally  manufactured  a  great  many  hundred  miles  west  of 
w^here  they  are  now.  When  will  that  happen  ?  The  answer  is  an  easy 
one.  You  cannot  give  the  precise  year,  but  the  west  will  cease  to  buy 
these  things  from  the  north-east,  and  they  will  produce  these  articles 
themselves,  just  when  it  ceases  to  be  more  profitable  to  the  west  to  pro- 
duce agricultural  products. 

The  only  safety  for  the  manufacturing  States  to  continue  such,  is  to  do 
all  they  can,  —  nature  has  done  the  greater  part,  but  they  can  help  a 


706  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

little,  —  to  make  agriculture  liiglily  profitable  in  the  west  and  the  south- 
west. If  a  man  can  make  better  wages  by  raising  corn  or  pork,  he  will 
not  set  himself  to  work  to  manufacture  woollen  or  cotton  cloth ;  when 
he  cannot  make  so  much  by  raising  corn  or  pork,  he  will  make  iron,  and 
you  cannot  prevent  him.  All  the  legislation  in  the  world  cannot  say  to 
the  west,  you  shall  not  manufacture  ;  but  legislation  may  do  a  great  deal 
to  say  to  the  west,  here  is  something  more  profitable  for  you  than  manu- 
facturing ;  and  the  seats  of  manufacturing  may  remain  for  a  great  many 
years  longer  than  they  otherwise  would,  in  the  north-east.  What,  then, 
can  the  north-east  do  ?  Favor  in  all  ways  possible  the  development  of 
the  western  agriculture.  First  by  opening  the  roads  to  the  north-east, 
to  the  east,  and  to  the  south-east,  and  to  the  whole  Atlantic  slope,  by 
connecting  them  with  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  in  the  cheapest  and 
most  practicable  manner.  And  next,  by  developing,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  foreign  commerce  ;  for  that,  by  taking  off  the  surplus  of  agricultural 
products,  tends  to  keep  up  the  prices.  See  how  the  prices  of  cotton,  to- 
bacco, rice,  flour,  and  corn,  have  kept  up,  notwithstanding  what  is  said 
in  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  in  the  president's 
message.  See  how  they  have  kept  up  for  the  last  five  years,  compared 
with  the  previous  four. 

I  do  not  mean  to  trouble  the  house  at  the  present  time  with  columns 
of  statistics.  I  will  give  the  total  here  of  a  few  great  articles,  as  I  have 
them  before  me.  Take  wheat.  The  wheat  exported  from  this  country 
for  the  four  years  previous  to  the  adoption  of  the  tariff  of  184G,  averaged 
ninety-six  and  three  quarter  cents  per  bushel.  For  the  last  five  years, 
it  has  averaged  one  dollar  twenty-six  and  a  half  cents,  —  thirty  cents 
higher.  Well,  now,  is  the  secretary  of  the  treasury-  and  the  president 
to  come  to  this  congress,  and  say  to  us,  Wheat  is  low  this  year,  and  the 
tariff  does  not  work  well  ?  Do  they  imagine  congress  cannot  look  back 
five  years,  and  then  over  the  four  years  preceding  ?  Very  short-sighted, 
it  seems  to  me,  the  executive  must  imagine  the  congress  of  the  United 
States  to  be,  if  he  supposed  they  could  not  make  the  comparison  that  I 
have  made.  The  comparison  I  have  made  with  regard  to  wheat,  I  could 
make  with  respect  to  flour  ;  $4.79  was  the  average  price  of  flour  ;  $5.59 
is  the  average  for  the  last  five  years.  So  with  corn  ;  so  with  meal ;  so 
with  oats;  and  so  with  cotton.  Six  cents  and  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  thousandths  was  the  price  of  cotton  for  the  four  years  previous  to 
the  tariff  of  1846  ;  nine  cents  and  three  hundred  and  fourteen  thousandths 
for  the  five  years  since  that  time,  —  an  increase  of  almost  fifty  per  cent., 
—  and  yet  it  is  said  that  agricultural  products  have  not  risen.  Tobacco 
was  $52.10,  and  now,  for  the  last  five  years,  it  averages  $64.18, — ■ 
twelve  dollars  a  hogshead  higher  than  before.     Taking  this  period  of 


OF  ROBEUT  RANTOUL,  JR.  707 

nine  years,  and  tlie  same  observation  would  apply  to  almost  all  the  ex- 
ports. Almost  all  have  risen  under  the  last  tariff,  just  as  all  fell  under 
the  tariff  of  1842.  And  the  reason  is  very  plain.  You  cannot  carry  on 
a  trade  but  shall  have  two  parts.  Every  exchange  must  consist  of  a  sale 
and  a  purchase.  Stop  your  purchases,  and  you  stop  your  sales  ;  so  if 
you  will  buy  nothing  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  you  cannot  sell 
any  thing.  Let  commerce  move  freely,  and  you  increase  it  vastly,  and 
increase  the  price  of  whatever  you  have  to  sell,  because  you  increase  the 
power  of  the  other  party  to  buy  of  you. 

Xow,  because  I  desire  to  see  the  commerce  of  this  Union  flourish,  — 
its  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  commerce,  —  I  wish  to  see  every  possible 
avenue  open  that  will  bring  down  the  wealth  of  the  west  to  freight  the 
shipping  of  the  east.  I  say  there  is  a  common  interest  between  them, 
and  he  is  an  enemy  to  his  country  who  seeks  to  divide  that  common  in- 
terest. The  only  way  in  which  the  cast  can  prosper,  is  by  the  prosperity 
of  the  west ;  for  it  is  that  which  has  swelled  our  navigation  at  a  rate 
beyond  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  human  race.  There  is  nothing  like 
it.  Talk  of  the  progress  of  that  of  England,  —  it  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  ours.  In  1830,  you  had  1,191,770  tons  of  shipping;  in  1851,  you 
had  3,772,439.  You  have  trebled  your  tonnage  and  navigation  in  twenty- 
one  years.  Has  England  done  any  thing  like  that  ?  Not  at  all.  In 
184G,  the  tonnage  of  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  exceeded  ours  by 
about  1,200,000  tons.  How  much  does  it  exceed  ours  now  ?  '  Not  quite 
500,000  tons,  according  to  the  last  returns  ;  not  much  more  than  400,000 
certainly ;  probably  less  than  that,  if  we  can  make  the  calculation  for 
the  present  moment.  Their  tonnage,  on  the  31st  of  December,  1850, 
was  4,232,962  tons,  and  it  had  increased  about  180,000  in  two  years.  It 
is  now,  February,  1852,  about  4,330,000.  Ours  is  at  least  3,930,000,  it 
would  seem  probable.  Theirs  is  a  very  different  mode  of  reckonin<>-, 
and  by  which  her  tonnage  appears  larger  ;  and  in  point  of  fact,  you  have 
at  this  moment  a  tonnage  equal  in  its  carrying  capacity  to  that  of  Great 
Britain,  with  all  her  colonies.  We  find  ourselves  already  the  greatest 
carrying  nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  "\Ye  have  the  greatest  naviga- 
tion. Shall  Ave  furnish  that  navigation  with  the  means  of  existence,  — 
with  the  means  of  flourishing,  and  bringing  back  the  blessings  which  are 
countless  and  incalculable  to  this  country  ;  or  shall  we  pursue  a  short- 
sighted, narrow,  and  restricted  policy,  which  shall  cut  up  by  the  roots 
our  own  commerce,  and  not  our  own  commerce  only,  but  our  own  manu- 
factures ;  for  so  sure  as  we  take  the  course  or  policy  that  shall  depress 
western  industry,  so  sure  will  manufacturing  industry  among  us  be 
doomed  also  ?  When  the  west  cannot  farm  with  profit,  she  will  manu- 
fjxcture  ;  but  that  will  be  an  evil  day  for  the  west,  in  my  opinion.     I 


708  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

think  that  better  things  can  be  done  in  this  world  than  the  manufacture 
of  cotton  or  woollen  goods,  or  even  of  iron. 

I  have  thrown  out  these  ideas,  and  I  do  not  know  but  that  the  house 
may  think  T  am  going  too  far  in  arguing  this  question  ;  but  it  seems  to 
me  the  great  reason  why  the  north-east  is  interested  in  opening  avenues 
to  the  west,  is  her  own  prosperity,  which  is  to  grow  out  of  increased 
intercourse.  We  have  the  means  now  of  a  foreign  and  domestic  com- 
merce capable  not  only  of  employing  over  three  and  three  fourths  millions 
of  tonnage,  but  a  foreign  and  domestic  commerce  capable  of  developing 
itself  much  beyond  its  present  limits.  What  is  the  limit  of  our  exports, 
and  what  has  it  always  been  ?  We  shall  have  $100,000,000  of  gold 
produced  in  California  per  year,  as  much  a  legitimate  article  of  export 
as  cotton,  flour,  pork,  or  tobacco. 

And  here  I  must  be  allowed  to  express  my  astonishment  that  gentle- 
men, well  informed  upon  other  subjects,  —  gentlemen  who  seem  saga- 
cious from  the  manner  in  which  they  argue  other  questions,  should  some- 
times throw  out  the  idea  that  the  country  is  really  suffering  some  great 
injury  because  gold  is  exported.  What  ought  to  be  done  with  it  ?  If 
the  country  produces  $100,000,000  worth  of  gold  in  a  year,  is  it  desir- 
able that  it  shall  remain  here  ?  It  would  be  the  greatest  of  calamities 
if  it  should  remain  here.  What  will  be  the  effect  upon  your  currency  ? 
If  you  add  fifty  per  cent,  to  your  currency  per  year,  —  and  you  would 
add  more  than  that,  if  you  kept  your  gold,  and  issued  paper  in  the  usual 
proportion,  —  what  would  be  the  effect  upon  property,  upon  taxes,  upon 
the  relations  of  debtor  and  creditor,  upon  the  whole  framework  and  busi- 
ness of  society  ?  All  your  business  relations  will  be  thrown  into  a  state 
of  perfect  anarchy.  If  you  could  succeed  in  keeping  at  home  $100,000,000 
per  year,  in  addition  to  your  already  redundant  currency,  there  would 
be  a  state  of  uncertainty  produced  in  all  business  relations  which  would 
be  as  fatal  to  the  prosperity  of  the  country  as  the  commercial  crisis  of 
1837.  The  country  would  see  a  crisis  upon  a  tremendous  scale,  alto- 
gether beyond  the  case  of  1837.  Fortunately  you  cannot  succeed  in 
keeping  the  gold  at  home,  and  deranging  every  thing  here.  No  tariff, 
no  restrictive  laws,  nothing  conceivable  upon  the  subject,  could  produce 
such  an  effect.  When  Spain  adopted  laws  by  which  she  punished  with 
death  the  exportation  of  gold  and  silver,  yet,  inasmuch  as  it  was  worth 
more  abroad  than  at  home,  and  it  could  not  be  exported  regularly,  it  was 
smuggled  out  of  the  country.  And  such  would  be  the  state  of  things 
here,  if  you  were  to  make  a  law  to-morrow  intended  to  confine  your 
specie  here.  If  you  passed  your  tariff  to  keep  the  specie  in  the  country, 
punishing  with  death  the  man  who  exported  it,  the  specie  would  go  out 
of  the  country,  because  it  would  be  extremely  easy  to  get  it  out,  and 


OF  ROBEET  EANTOUL,  JR.  709 

because  the  temptation  to  do  so  would  soon  become  so  very  strong.  I 
say,  then,  without  stopping  to  argue  this  question  of  political  economy  at 
length,  there  is  added  to  our  former  exports  this  vast  sum  of  gold  ;  and 
our  imports  ought  to  increase  in  proportion.  Whoever  sees  cause  for 
alarm,  because  we  have  imported  $215,000,000  worth  of  goods  within 
the  last  year,  instead  of  the  average  amount  which  we  used  to  import 
formerly,  takes  a  very  narrow  view  indeed  of  the  position  of  this  coun- 
try, as  compared  with  other  countries  with  whom  she  carries  on  her 
commerce.  It  is  cause  for  congratulation,  and  not  alarm,  and  we  should 
rejoice  that  our  trade  is  extended,  provided  it  is  a  legitimate  extension, 
founded  upon  the  means  of  purchase  we  actually  have  in  our  power.  I 
see  no  evidence  as  yet  that  it  has  gone  beyond  that.  I  think  the  aggre- 
gate of  imports  and  exports  over  $400,000,000  is  entirely  suited  to  the 
commercial  means  and  wants  of  the  country  at  the  present  day,  consider- 
ing the  great  accession  of  gold  from  California,  and  considering  the  great 
accession  of  available  produce,  from  the  opening  of  channels  of  communi- 
cation with  the  west.  If  you  can  carry  from  Chicago  to  the  Atlantic  a 
barrel  of  flour  for  half  of  what  it  cost  you  a  few  years  ago,  of  course  it 
will  be  afforded  cheaper  at  the  seaboard,  and  there  can  be  more  exported. 
The  means  of  transporting  to  the  seaboard  cotton,  tobacco,  and  every 
article  of  agricultural  production,  have  been  so  much  cheapened  in  the  last 
four  or  fis^e  years,  that  our  commerce  has  baen  largely  increased  ;  and 
carrying  this  progress  still  further,  and  cheapening  the  means  of  trans- 
portation, will  still  further  increase  our  commerce,  in  a  still  greater  ratio 
than  the  commerce  of  the  present  day  as  contrasted  with  the  business  of 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago.  I  can  see  no  good  reason  why  it  should  not 
go  on  increasing  in  a  very  great  ratio,  and  yet  be  a  healthy  and  legiti- 
mate business ;  though,  of  course,  too  rapid  a  progress  is  possible. 

I  had  prepared  myself  with  figures  and  statements  by  which  to  confirm 
the  views  I  have  taken,  but  I  will  not  trouble  the  house  with  them.  I 
know  details  are  always  less  interesting  here  than  general  views.  The 
state  of  things  being  such  as  I  have  indicated,  it  seems  to  me  the  north- 
east, as  a  section,  should  look  carefully  at  the  prospects  of  its  manufac- 
turing and  commercial  interests,  and  should  inquire  whether  it  is  not  the 
best  thing  that  can  happen  for  them,  that  men  should  be  prosperous  in 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  that  they  should  raise  a  great  deal  of 
corn,  flour,  and  pork,  and  other  products,  and  sell  these  articles  at  high 
prices.  It  is  not  their  question  alone.  It  is  our  question  as  much  as 
theirs.  They  cannot  raise  at  great  profit,  productions  which  they  have 
no  means  of  getting  to  market.  Open  the  means  for  them  to  reach  the 
market,  and  you  open  the  means  to  return  that  which  you  purchase  for 
them,  or  manufacture  for  them,  through  the  same  channel.     What  is  the 

60 


710  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   A^B  WRITINGS 

reason  that  has  caused  these  manufactures  of  which  I  have  spoken  to 
increase  as  they  have  ?  What  is  the  reason  you  have  consumed  some 
seventy  or  eighty  milUons  of  pounds  of  wool  in  a  year  ?  It  is  because 
the  mass  of  the  agricultural  population  of  the  country  are  so  much  better 
off,  and  they  can  and  do  purchase  more  of  woollen  goods,  both  imported 
and  domestic.  I  do  not  hold,  as  some  people  do,  that  there  is  a  direct 
antagonism  between  commerce  and  manufactures,  but  I  hold  that  the 
true  policy  for  the  north-east,  as  well  as  every  other  section  of  the  coun- 
try, is  that  which  considers  commerce  and  manufactures  as  friends  and 
allies,  and  which  looks  to  the  one  to  aid  in  developing  the  other.  I  be- 
lieve that  view  is  the  one  which  ere  long  will  be  taken  by  the  whole 
country  without  distinction  of  party.  Why,  the  rapid  progress  in  those 
branches  of  industry  in  the  country,  which  sometimes  come  to  congress 
and  tell  us  how  distressed  they  are,  is  beyond  all  parallel.  Take  your 
cotton  manufactures.  The  census  tells  us  that  641,000  bales  of  cotton 
were  consumed  in  1850.  How  many  in  1840  ?  Two  hundred  and  ninety- 
five  thousand.  In  1830,  it  was  12G,000.  Here  is  a  business  which  has 
grown  up  from  126,000  bales  in  1830,  —  a  small  addition  should  be 
made  for  parts  of  the  country  not  returned  in  the  shipping  list, — 
call  it  24,000,  and  you  have  150,000  bales  in  1830.  Take  the  progress 
for  twenty  years,  from  150,000  bales  up  to  641,000  bales,  and  your 
cotton  manufacture  has  more  than  quadrupled  in  twenty  years.  Ter- 
ribly losing  business  to  all  those  engaged  in  it  during  most  of  the  time, 
if  we  can  believe  the  perpetual  outcry,  although  that  branch  of  industry 
was  increasing  faster  than  almost  any  thing  else  in  the  country.  Just  so 
w^ith  other  distressed  branches  of  industry.  They  have  always  happened 
to  be  those  branches  which  have  increased  most  rapidly.  What  made 
people  take  capital  out  of  branches  of  business  that  gentlemen  contend 
are  profitable,  and  put  it  into  these  losing  concerns  ?  It  is  a  problem  which 
would  require  a  great  deal  of  mathematical  ingenuity  to  solve.  The  case 
of  my  iron  friends  —  I  mean  the  gentlemen  from  Pennsylvania,  into 
whose  souls  the  iron  has  entered  of  late  years  so  cruelly  —  seems  to  be 
much  of  the  same  kind. 

In  1810,  the  iron  produced  in  the  United  States  was  53,900  tons.  In 
1830,  165,000  tons.  In  1850,  627,643  tons.  I  take  the  document  upon 
which  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  founds  his  estimates,  but  not  his 
estimate,  for  I  am  inclined  to  think  there  is  a  little  omission,  which  I 
prefer  to  supply.  564,755  tons  of  pig  iron  are  set  down  in  the  census 
returns.  33,344  tons  of  blooms  are  used  in  making  wrought  iron.  Then 
you  had  78,787  tons  of  ore  used  in  making  wrought  iron,  and  9,850 
tons  of  ore  was  used  in  castings,  making  88,637  tons  of  iron  ore,  the 
product  of  which  does  not  appear  in  the  shape  of  pig  iron.     Suppose 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  711 

three  tons  of  this  ore  to  yield  only  one  ton  of  iron,  and  you  get 
29,544  tons  of  iron  from  this  source,  to  which  the  secretary  has  no 
reference;  making  a  total  of  627, G43  tons,  against  105,000  tons  in 
1830,  —  a  branch  of  industry  which  has  nearly  quadrupled  itself  in  the 
last  twenty  years.  Take  it  from  ISoO,  reckoning  down  to  the  extreme 
point  of  depression  in  1850,  as  I  admit  it  is,  and  you  still  find  it  is  quad- 
rupled. I  say,  the  only  question  for  iron  gentlemen  to  consider  is,  how 
can  they  continue  this  long  career  of  prosperity,  and  not  how  they  shall 
get  something  still  greater,  —  not  how  they  shall  induce  men  to  rush  into 
the  iron  business  again,  as  they  did  in  1846  and  1847,  but  how  they 
shall  enable  the  iron  business  to  go  on  increasing  as  f\ist  as  it  has  in- 
creased upon  an  average  for  the  last  fifty  years.  If  they  can  do  that, 
they  ought  to  be  satisfied,  and  more  than  satisfied.  So  of  the  coal,  too, 
which  is  spoken  of  sometimes  as  one  of  these  distressed  interests,  which 
must  be  protected.  In  1840,  865,414  tons  were  produced  by  Pennsyl- 
vania. In  1851,  4,091,682  tons  w^ere  sent  to  market.  It  is  these  two 
interests  of  coal  and  iron  which  have  made  the  most  rapid  progress,  — 
which  have  always  cried  out  the  most  lustily  that  they  are  terribly  dis- 
tressed. These  great  interests  are  to  look  now  to  an  increased  number 
and  wealth  of  their  customers.  Our  manufacturing  interests,  which  are 
closely  connected  wdth  the  western  interests,  must  sell  to  the  west,  and 
must  buy  of  the  west  that  on  which  they  feed,  and  that  which  they  ex- 
port. Oar  great  manufacturing  interests  have  but  one  thing  to  ask  of 
this  nation  ;  they  ought  to  ask  it,  and  in  my  opinion  the  nation  ought  to 
grant  it.  Instead  of  restrictions,  instead  of  keeping  out  that  which  ought 
to  go  in  ;  instead  of  taxing  every  man  who  wears  a  coat,  a  large  sum  of 
money,  in  order  that  the  man  who  makes  the  coat  may  gain  a  very  small 
sum  of  money ;  instead  of  doing  that,  the  manufacturing  interests  should 
ask,  that  the  restrictions  which  weigh  heavily  upon  the  manufacturing 
interests  should  be  removed.  We  should  say,  let  our  raw  materials  come 
in  free  of  duty.  The  effect  upon  the  national  treasury  is  as  nothing. 
When  the  manufacturer  of  cotton  prints  in  New  England  meets  in 
Buenos  Ayres,  Halifax,  or  anywhere  else,  a  manufacturer  of  English 
cotton  prints,  is  it  right  that  the  English  cotton  printer  should  have  his 
dye-stuffs,  his  alkalies,  his  acids,  all  his  raw  material  free  of  duty,  and 
ours  be  burdened  upon  all  of  them?  It  cannot  be  for  the  interests 
of  revenue.  In  that  view,  it  is  but  insignificant ;  but  it  tends  to  the 
destruction  of  great  interests  to  do  it.  Instead  of  asking  to  shut  out 
woollens,  we  should  let  in  that  out  of  which  we  make  cottons  and 
v/oollens. 

Now,  I  take  the  single  article  of  coarse  wool.     Why  should  there  be 
a  duty  on  coarse  wool  ?     Coarse  wool  cannot  be  produced  in  this  coun- 


7J2  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

try,  so  as  to  enter  into  our  cheap  manufactures,  but  it  can  be  imported. 
Owing  to  the  ingenuity  of  a^i  American  mechanic,  you  can  make  carpets 
of  coarse  wool.  You  can  send  Turkey  carpets  to  Turkey  and  undersell 
the  Turk  ;  you  can  send  Brussels  carpets  to  Brussels,  and  carpeting  of 
-certain  qualities  to  England,  and  undersell  them  all,  if  your  own  nation 
■does  not  shut  out  the  materials  you  have  to  use.  Let  coarse  wool  and 
dye-stuifs  come  in  free,  and  there  will  not  be  a  pacha  or  bey  in  all 
Asia  Minor  or  Egypt,  that  will  not  have  on  his  floor  a  carpet  manufac- 
tured in  the  United  States.  I  give  that  only  as  one  instance.  The 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  silk.  Under  the  ridiculous  notion  that  some 
'day  or  other  we  may  be  able  to  manufacture  silk  from  silk-worms,  you 
shut  out  raw  silk  by  exorbitant  duties.  Let  raw  silk  come  in  free,  and 
place  your  manufacturers  on  the  same  footing  as  English  and  French 
and  Italian  manufacturers.  All  our  manufacturer  wants,  is  open  mar- 
kets, —  open  markets  at  the  west,  open  markets  at  the  east,  open  markets 
to  buy  the  raw  material  which  he  has  to  consume.  But  in  vain  will  any 
of  our  friends  in  New  England  go  on  upon  the  old  idea  of  restriction, 
and  imposing  taxes  upon  the  nation  to  keep  them  alive.  The  nation 
revolts  against  any  such  impositions.  They  are  henceforth  impossible. 
But  if  they  were  possible,  they  would  be  found  self-destructive,  because 
they  compel  men  to  cease  to  raise  agricultural  products  to  export,  and 
to  do  their  own  manufacturing  at  home.  That  is  what  it  would  end  in, 
If  we  carried  out  the  high  tariff  system  to  the  extent  that  many  men 
have  desired.  I  thank  the  House  for  the  attention  with  which  they 
have  listened  to  these  remarks. 

On  February  26,  1851,  in  support  of  the  bill  to  limit  the 
liabilities  of  ship-owners  in  conformity  with  his  wish  to  divest 
commerce  of  unjust  hindrances,  Mr.  Rantoul  said:  — 

I  hope  this  bill  will  pass.  The  rule  of  common  law  applying  to  com- 
mon carriers,  which  is  very  old  in  England,  and  which  has  been  applied 
to  ships,  and  applied  so  far  as  to  cover  the  case  now  provided  for  by  this 
clause,  has  been  found  to  be  intolerable  in  Great  Britain.  If  there  ever 
was  a  government  on  the  face  of  the  globe  that  adhered  with  pertinacity 
to  her  ancient  laws,  it  is  the  British  nation  ;  and  no  change  is  made 
there  without  its  being  argued  over  and  over  again,  and  it  takes  years  to 
force  reasons  into  the  mind  of  the  British  nation,  for  any  change  or 
improvement  of  the  principles  of  common  law.  But  this  change  is  upon 
the  face  of  it  so  required  by  the  principles  of  justice,  so  required  by  not 
only  the  shipping  interest,  but  the  interests  of  all  those  whose  goods  are 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  713 

transported,  that  it  has  been  brouglit  about  in  Great  Britain.  They 
have  made  the  aheration  which  we  arc  now  asked  to  make,  and  they 
have  carried  it  further  than  this  section  of  the  bill  carries  it. 

Well,  Sir,  the  honorable  senator  from  South  Carolina  (Mr.  Butler) 
has  told  us  truly  that  the  British  nation  were  a  nation  of  ship-owners. 
That  is  true  ;  but  it  is  truer  of  us,  for  if  the  British  are  a  nation  of  ship- 
owners and  shipping  interests,  the  United  States  are  much  more  a  nation 
of  ship-owners.  The  tonnage  of  Great  Britain,  excluding  the  provinces, 
and  taking  the  islands  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  —  the  tonnage  of 
the  united  kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, —  is  a  little  over  three 
and  a  half  millions  of  tons.  Our  tonnage  is  considerably  over  that 
amount.  The  carrying  capacity  of  our  mercantile  marine  is  vastly 
greater  at  this  moment  than  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Our 
tonnage  is  larger,  and  under  a  different  rule.  A  ship  that  measured  one 
thousand  tons  under  the  old  rule  would  under  the  new  rule  measure  one 
thousand  tv/o  hundred  tons.  You  will  fmd  that  our  navigation  employs 
a  much  larger  marine  carrying  power  than  the  navigation  of  Great 
Britain, — much  larger;  and  they  have  their  thirty  milhons  of  popula- 
tion, while  we  have  but  twenty-three  millions ;  and  yet  we,  with  that 
twenty-three  millions,  own  more  shipping  than  they  own.  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  islands  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Now,  if  they  are  jus- 
tified in  looking  keenly  and  constantly  to  their  mercantile  interest,  we 
are  not  only  justified,  but  required  to  look  much  more  attentively  to  ours; 
for  it  includes  a  greater  proportion  of  our  population  and  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  our  wealth  than  is  the  case  with  Great  Britain.  In  some  of 
the  States  of  this  Union  the  proportion  of  the  shipping  to  the  population 
is  six  times, —  ay,  in  its  actual  carrying  capacity  pretty  nearly  seven 
times,  —  as  great  a  proportion  as  that  in  Great  Britain.  This  being  the 
case,  the  shipping  interest  is  an  interest  which  this  government  is  bound 
to  look  to. 

But  I  am  not  going  to  rest  my  support  of  this  bill  upon  that  ground 
at  all.  I  say  wc  are  bound  to  pass  the  first  section  —  I  intend  to  confine 
my  remarks  to  that  section  —  w^c  are  bound  to  enact  this  provision  into 
a  law,  because  every  act  that  is  done  to  benefit  the  navigation  of  this 
country  benefits  all  the  interests  of  the  country  in  its  ultimate  effects, 
by  its  effects  upon  freights  that  are  transported  betv\'een  this  and  other 
countries.  How  is  the  rate  of  freights  determined  ?  The  senator  from 
Kentucky  (Mr.  Underwood)  has  asked,  and  fairly  asked,  what  is  the 
effect  upon  his  constituency?  What  is  the  interest  of  the  grower  of 
tobacco,  corn,  pork,  and  other  agricultural  products,  in  this  action  in 
regard  to  the  shipping  interests  of  this  country?  Now,  if  I  were  not 
satisfied  that  the  interests  of  the  great  agricultural  portion  of  the  nation 

GO* 


714  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AXD  WRITINGS 

are  concerned  in  tlie  passage  of  this  bill,  I  should  care  comparatively 
but  little  whether  it  passed  or  not,  and  if  it  could  operate  adversely  to 
that  interest  I  would  oppose  it ;  for  although  I  consider  the  shipping  in- 
terest a  vast  interest,  still  I  consider  that  the  agricultural  interest  is 
much  vaster,  and  its  welfare  must  be  consulted  by  us  in  endeavoring  to 
make  the  change  that  we  are  now  proposing  to  make.  The  first  mode 
in  which  we  are  to  determine  how  this  bill  is  to  affect  the  rate  of  freight 
is,  first  to  find  out  what  supports,  what  determines  the  rates  of  freight. 
It  is  the  proportion  between  the  quantity  of  shipping  to  carry  the  freight 
and  the  quantity  of  freight  to  be  carried.  And  how  is  that  affected  ? 
Every  thing  that  benefits  your  navigating  interests,  every  thing  that 
makes  the  freight  of  your  merchants  easier,  cheaper,  and  safer  in  its 
carriage,  will  produce  its  beneficial  effect.  You  cannot  add  a  thousand 
tons  to  your  shipping  without  bringing  down  the  rates  of  your  freight. 
You  cannot  impose  upon  your  ship-owner,  or  allow  to  remain  upon  him, 
any  liability  without  raising  your  rates  of  freight,  or,  at  all  events,  pre- 
venting their  redaction.  The  proportion  may  be  very  small ;  but  so  far 
as  the  effect  goes  it  is  an  effect  upon  him  whose  freight  is  carried,  but 
not  ultimately  upon  the  ship-owner.  He  first  feels  the  benefit  of  this 
change  ;  but  how  long  does  he  feel  it?  Just  so  long  as  it  takes  to  build 
more  ships  and  restore  the  proportion  between  the  profit  made  out  of 
that  trade,  and  the  profit  of  other  branches  of  industry  and  business. 
Capital  seeks  investment  in  the  shape  or  shapes  that  are  supposed  to  be 
the  most  profitable ;  and  vv'hen  you  build  more  ships  then  down  go  the 
rates  of  freight,  and  tobacco,  and  pork,  and  corn  are  carried  cheaper 
than  before.  Is  there  any  escape  from  that  reasoning  ?  I  am  really 
unable  to  discover  any. 

Now,  Sir,  the  senator  from  Kentucky  has  made  one  remark  which  I 
consider  perfectly  fair,  and  which  I  propose  to  apply  to  this  question 
now  before  us.  He  says,  how  do  we  know  this  competition  between  our 
shipping  and  the  shipping  of  other  nations  is  going  on  disadvantageously 
to  our  shipping  ?  —  how  do  we  know  that  they  are  enabled  to  underwork 
us,  and  how  do  we  know  that  our  shipping  interests  require  this  relief? 
When  Great  Britain  discovered  that  her  shipping  required  this  relief,  it 
was  because  she  was  afraid  that  other  nations  were  underworking  her ; 
and  what  did  she  intend  to  do  ?  She  intended  to  increase  the  balance, 
and  cause  it  to  preponderate  in  her  favor ;  and  she  intended  to  keep  the 
advantage  —  and  I  do  not  complain  of  her  ;  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  do 
so  —  she  intended  to  enjoy  the  advantages  which  her  shipping  had  over 
our  shipping  ;  and  her  acts,  so  far  as  they  go,  tended  to  give  her  shipping 
the  advantage  of  ours.  Now,  are  we  to  allow  our  ship-owners  to  be 
.subject  to  this  old  and  onerous  rule,  when  another  is  found  to  work  more 


715 

fairly  there  ?  and  are  we  to  send  our  ships  in  competition  with  Great 
Britain  under  this  disparagement  ?  The  competition  now  is  a  serious 
one,  and  your  returns  show  it.  Here  is  before  me  the  table  of  clear- 
ances from  our  ports  last  year.  The  tonnage  of  American  vessels  is 
2,G32,000  tons,  while  the  tonnage  of  foreign  vessels  is  1,728,000  tons, 
showing  that  there  was  about  three  fourths  as  much  foreign  tonnage  as 
there  is  of  domestic.  They  wish  to  underwork  us.  Why  do  these  ves- 
sels enter  our  ports,  bringing  that  which  our  American  vessels  might 
bring  as  well  ?  Why  do  they  carry  away  products  that  American  ves- 
sels might  carry  away  just  as  well,  unless  it  is  they  can  ship  cheaper 
than  we  can  ?  If  they  do  not  carry  freight  to  precisely  the  same  extent 
that  we  do,  yet  they  employ  three  fourths  as  much,  and  I  think  that  that 
three  fourths  is  and  should  be  a  warning  to  us.  It  shows  that  there  is  a 
competition  against  which  we  ought  carefully  to  guard  ;  and  in  removing 
this  burden  from  the  American  shipping,  I  think  we  do  but  an  act  of 
justice  which  is  called  for  by  the  previous  steps  which  Great  Britain  has 
taken,  and  called  for,  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  the  ship-owner,  but  for 
the  benefit  of  all  those  who  v/ill  ultimately  reap  the  benefit,  —  that  is, 
all  who  are  benefited  directly  or  indirectly,  by  the  importation  of  the 
freight,  as  well  as  the  owner  of  the  goods  that  are  to  be  carried. 

Well,  Sir,  it  is  said  that  the  old  rule  of  the  common  law  is  an  old  and 
venerable  rule,  and  ought  not  to  be  broken  in  upon.  Why,  Sir,  the 
reasons  that  led  to  the  adoption  of  that  rule  were  not  commercial  rea- 
sons. It  was  adopted  and  applied  to  common  carriers  upon  land.  Xow, 
whether  it  is  a  just  rule  with  regard  to  the  common  carriers  upon  land, 
I  do  not  propose  to  consider.  It  is  sufficient  for  this  occasion  to  settle 
this  question.  The  reason  why  this  rule  should  be  applied  rather  to 
carriers  upon  land,  than  the  common  carriers  upon  the  water  is,  that  the 
danger  of  breaking  the  rule  is  not  the  same  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other.  How  is  a  ship-owner  to  endanger  and  risk  the  property  of  others, 
that  he  may  have  to  carry  without  endangering  his  own  property  by  the 
same  negligence  or  want  of  integrity  ?  How  is  he  to  do  it  without  a 
risk  of  the  destruction  of  his  own  property?  How  are  his  agents  that 
are  upon  the  ships,  the  master  and  crew,  to  risk  the  2:)roperty  of  others 
that  the  ship-owner  may  have  placed  under  their  care,  without  great 
danger  to  their  own  lives  ?  That  is  not  the  case  with  the  common  car- 
rier upon  the  land.  He  can  risk  the  property  of  others  without  there 
being  any  risk  to  his  own  person.  No  so  with  the  ship-owner  ;  for  then 
his  ships  would  be  in  danger.  There  is  the  ship  Typhoon,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, that  was  launched  last  week  in  Portsmouth,  your  own  State,  (New 
Hampshire  —  Mr.  Norris  being  in  the  chair,)  which  is  worth  $120,000. 
AVill  the  owner  of  that  ship  put  negligent  persons,  or  fraudulent  persons, 


716  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

upon  board  of  her,  who  will  allow  her  to  be  cast  ashore,  to  be  destroyed 
intentionally  by  fire,  or  in  any  other  way  to  be  exposed  to  danger  ?  Is 
it  an  easy  matter  to  allow  a  ship  to  be  destroyed  by  fire  on  a  foreign 
voyage,  without  risking  the  lives  of  those  who,  by  their  negligence  or 
intentions,  permit  that  destruction  to  take  place  ?  Now,  here  are  so 
many  reasons  why  it  is  quite  safe  to  relax  this  rule  in  the  case  of  ship- 
owners, when  it  may  not  be  safe  and  advisable  to  do  it  in  the  case  of 
common  carriers  upon  the  land. 

There  are  other  reasons  which  occur  to  me  that  would  control  my 
mind,  if  these  were  not  sufficient  to  control  it.  But  these  few  ideas  I 
deem  sufficient  to  give  the  reasons  for  my  vote,  and  I  have  thrown  them 
out  —  perhaps  in  doing  so  taking  up  as  much  of  the  time  of  the  senate 
as  I  am  justified  in  consuming,  considering  the  short  time  that  remains 
to  us. 

On  the  1st  of  March,  the  same  session,  being  called  on  to 
vote  on  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill,  in  support  of  the  principles 
involved,  Mr.  Rantoul  said :  — 

I  will  trouble  the  senate  but  a  very  few  moments.  The  progress  of 
time  and  the  accumulation  of  precedents  certainly  ought,  sooner  or 
later,  to  settle  the  construction  of  the  Constitution ;  and  if  there  be  any 
one  clause  upon  which  there  has  been  a  series  of  precedents  all  tending 
one  way,  it  is  that  of  the  power  to  regulate  commerce.  If  the  construc- 
tion of  that  clause,  from  the  commencement  of  the  government  down  to 
the  present  time,  upon  the  Atlantic  border,  has  been  a  correct  one,  I  have 
never  felt  any  scruples  in  applying  the  same  principles  to  inland  seas 
and  rivers  that  have  been  applied  to  harbors  on  the  sea-coast.  But  I 
agree  that  the  object  for  which  the  appropriation  is  asked  should  be  one 
of  sufficient  national  importance  to  justify  the  interposition  of  the  gen- 
eral government.  It  should  not  be  local.  The  inquiry  I  make  in  re- 
gard to  this  subject  is,  whether  these  two  objects  —  the  Tennessee  and 
Illinois  rivers  —  are  such  objects  as  would  justify  the  general  govern- 
ment in  interfering  to  improve  the  navigation  ?  The  Tennessee  river, 
in  any  country  but  this,  would  be  a  river  of  the  first  class.  It  flows 
through  three  States.  All  has  been  said  upon  it  that  is  necessary  to  be 
said.  The  Illinois  is  on  the  main  channel  of  communication  between 
the  northern  part  of  our  Atlantic  coast  and  the  whole  valley  of  the 
Mississippi.  If  you  wish  to  send  any  merchandise  from  New  York  to 
Missouri  by  way  of  Chicago,  you  would  send  it  down  the  Illinois  river. 
If  that  which  connects  the  basin  of  the  lakes  with  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  be  not  national,  there  is  nothing  national  in  our  territory. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  717 

The  basin  of  the  lakes  is  an  area  of  a  million  of  miles.  You  could  put 
Great  Britain,  and  the  French  republic,  and  Austria  into  it,  and  have 
room  left  for  twenty  of  the  little  principalities  of  Europe.  The  valley 
of  the  Mississippi  has  very  nearly  as  much  more.  If  the  channel  that 
connects  these  two  portions  be  not  national,  what  can  be  ?  The  com- 
merce of  two  sections  of  the  Union  passes  through  this  river.  In  1837 
it  was  surveyed  by  the  officers  of  this  government.  The  report  of  the 
surveys  was  published  ;  so  that  senators  have  the  means  of  informing 
themselves  of  the  character  of  that  river,  and  how  far  it  is  susceptible 
of  improvements,  and  what  improvements  it  requires. 

I  would  go  further  into  this  subject,  but  I  know  that  time  is  a  great 
deal  more  precious  than  any  thing  I  can  say.  Having  given  my  rea- 
sons for  my  vote,  I  will  say  no  more.     I  shall  vote  against  striking  out. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MR.  EANTOUL'S  OPINIONS  IN  RELATION  TO  SLAVERY  AS  IT  EXISTS  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES,  AND  THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  CITIZENS  OF  THE 
FREE   STATES   IN  REFERENCE   THERETO,  ETC. 

Believing  in  the  trustworthiness  of  the  intelligence  and 
virtue  of  the  people  as  the  foundation  of  free  government.  Mr. 
Rantoul  was  accustomed  to  appeal  to  that  intelligence  and  vir- 
tue, as  competent  to  give  a  satisfactory  solution  of  all  great 
political  questions.  He  not  only  had  no  fear  of  discussion,  but 
confidently  relied  upon  it  as  the  best  guardian  of  liberty. 

But  why  discuss  the  subject  of  slavery  ?  is  the  fearful  ques- 
tion of  the  panic-stricken.  Why  not  discuss  it  ?  Was  liberty 
worth  all  the  battles  and  sufferings  and  blood  of  the  revolution, 
and  are  millions  of  human  beings  who  are  denied  the  first  and 
last  of  its  blessings,  entitled  to  no  thought,  to  no  commisera- 
tion ?  In  relation  to  them,  are  the  duties  of  freemen  and  free 
States  never  to  be  considered  ?  or  do  all  those  duties  consist  in 
making  heavier,  tighter,  and  more  galling,  the  chains  of  slavery  ? 
To  the  question,  why  discuss  this  subject? — what  citizen  of 
Massachusetts  will  not  answer:  because  I  am  a  man  and  have 
human  sympathies  and  obligations ;  because  I  am  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  and  answerable  before  God  for  my  use  of 
the  power  conferred  upon  me  by  the  Constitution ;  and  last, 
not  least,  because  the  fugitive  slave  law  unconstitutionally  in- 
vades and  tramples  upon  the  rights  of  my  State  and  the  rights 
of  my  person,  by  requiring  me  to  be  a  slave-catcher,  and  thus 
extends  the  dominion  of  slavery  over  all  the  free  States,  —  en- 
joining a  service  more  despicable,  more  slavish,  more  offensive 


MEMOIRS  OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  719 

to  the  dignity  of  a  freeman  than  any  other,  —  that  of  seizing 
the  fugitive  from  bondage  and  forcing  him  back  to  chains  and 
fetters.  Does  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  rightly 
interpreted,  thus  make  slaves  of  us  all  ?  or  have  two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  slave-holders  the  constitutional  power  to 
make  twenty  millions  of  their  fellow-citizens  their  servants  in 
such  work  as  this  ?  It  is  discussion  alone  that  can  peaceably 
settle  these  questions,  or  any  other  questions  of  human  right 
and  duty.  Free  thought,  uttered  in  free  speech,  is  the  true  and 
only  conservative  power  of  the  Union,  and  of  human  gov- 
ernment. 

The  existence  of  slavery  in  the  United  States,  fostered  and 
established  by  the  avarice  of  Great  Britain  while  they  were 
colonies,  is  the  greatest  reproach  and  misfortune  to  those  sec- 
tions of  the  country  where  it  prevails,  and  is  a  most  shocking 
inconsistency  with  the  republican  institutions  and  the  legalized 
principles  of  freedom,  which,  in  every  other  respect,  constitute 
the  glory  of  the  Union.  That  slavery  was  introduced,  ex- 
tended, and  encouraged  by  the  cupidity  and  injustice  of  the 
mother  country,  cannot  justify  the  laws  which  tend  to  perpetu- 
ate its  evils.  Those  evils  are  inseparable  from  its  nature. 
They  are  a  constant  outrage  upon  the  most  sacred  rights  of 
humanity.  That  which  reduces  man  to  the  condition  of  a 
beast  of  burden,  or  of  a  senseless  and  irresponsible  machine,  is 
a  most  hateful  despotism,  an  intolerable  cruelty.  The  consum- 
mation of  all  the  wrong  which  one  man  can  do  to  another  is  to 
make  him  a  slave. 

In  the  free  States,  these  sentiments  in  relation  to  slavery  are 
almost  universal,  and  in  the  slave-holding  States,  not  uncom- 
mon. Even  Henry  Clay,  but  for  whom  slavery  would  have 
been  confined  to  much  narrower  limits  than  now  mark  its  dark 
domain,  said,  "  standing  as  it  were  on  the  brink  of  eternity," 
"  I  shall  go  to  the  grave  with  the  opinion  that  it  is  an  evil^  a 
social  and  political  evil,  and  that  it  is  a  ivrong-  as  it  respects 
those  who  are  subject  to  the  institution  of  slavery,"  and  that 
"  to  extend  it  where  it  does  not  exist,  is  to  propagate  ivrong-^ 
Happy  for  him,  happy  for  his  country  had  these  sentiments,  so 
solemnly  announced  in  his  last  hours,  had  their  just  influence 


720  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

over  his  former  actions  as  a  public  man.  What  stronger  terms 
could  Mr.  Rantoul  use  to  denounce  the  extension  of  slavery  ? 
The  principal  difference  between  him  and  Mr.  Clay  is,  that  Mr. 
Rantoul,  through  his  whole  political  career,  acted  consistently 
and  fully  up  to  his  convictions  of  duty.  He  never  made  pro- 
fessions which  his  actions  did  not  justify.  From  the  path  of 
political  duty,  which  he  had  marked  out  for  himself,  he  never 
swerved.  His  opinions  on  slavery  were  matured  long  before 
he  was  a  candidate  for  office ;  they  were  the  same  in  1834  and 
1852.  This  position  is  perfectly  demonstrable  from  his  own 
words.     In  September,  1835,  he  said :  — 

The  war  against  fanaticism  still  rages  with  unabated  violence  in  the 
South ;  the  papers  from  that  quarter  are  filled  with  the  bitterest  denun- 
ciations of  the  abolitionists.  The  public  meetings  in  the  southern  cities 
and  also  the  journals  seem  to  unite  in  calling  upon  the  north  to  put  doAvn 
the  abolitionists  by  force,  to  put  down  the  discussion  of  slavery  at  any 
rate ;  but  we  hope  the  North  will  do  no  such  thing.  Upon  no  one  con- 
stitutional question,  we  believe,  are  the  people  of  the  North  so  unani- 
mous, as  upon  the  great  question  that  now  excites  so  much  public  atten- 
tion. A  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  this  section  of  the  country  hold 
it  to  be  a  subject  with  which  they  have  no  right  to  interfere,  but  proper- 
ly, legally,  and  entirely  within  the  control  of  the  slave-holding  States 
themselves ;  and  any  arbitrary  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the  North  as 
subversive  of  liberty,  of  the  Union,  and  of  the  Constitution.  For  evi- 
dence of  the  correctness  of  the  above  opinion,  we  have  only  to  recur  to 
the  i^roceedings  of  the  meetings  that  have  been  held  in  many  of  the  large 
northern  cities  for  the  purpose  of  counteracting  the  movements  of  the 
abolitionists. 

But  while  we  of  the  North  pledge  ourselves  to  abide  by  the  Consti- 
tution, in  regard  to  the  rights  of  the  slave-holder,  we  will  not  violate 
that  sacred  charter  of  liberty  to  comply  with  the  ungenerous  demands 
of  our  southern  brethren,  to  shackle  the  press,  to  prevent  discussion,  by 
any  other  force  than  that  of  the  sound  and  healthy  action  of  the  public 
mind.  The  abolitionists  have  as  much  right  to  properly  express  their 
opinions  as  those  of  a  contrary  opinion  have  to  express  theirs.  Error 
can  be  best  overcome  by  leaving  truth  free  to  combat  it.  The  moment 
persecution  commences,  the  object  of  hatred  will  extend  itself.  The 
only  proper  and  legitimate  means,  which  can  be  employed,  and  which 
would  be  salutary,  is  the  great  moral  influence  of  public  opinion.     Let 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  721 

that  have  time  and  opportunity  to  work,  and  the  clouds  that  now  lower 
about  our  heads  would  soon  be  dispelled,  and  the  Union  would  yet  be 
seen  unshaken,  unbroken,  and  unharmed." 

Would  a  demagogue,  a  disorganize!',  a  destructive,  have  an- 
nounced these  calm,  rational,  and  truly  American  views  of  a 
great  question  which  was  agitating  the  whole  country  ?  Would 
a  man  disposed  to  set  his  sail  to  catch  the  fierce  hot  breath  of 
party,  irrespective  of  consequences,  have  spoken  thus  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  could  any  one  have  appealed  to  what  remained 
of  sober  reason  in  the  community  with  more  earnestness  or 
effect?  He  spoke  calmly,  as  an  American  patriot,  concerned 
for  the  peace  of  the  country,  and  the  observance  of  the 
relations  of  brotherhood  and  common  citizenship,  existing  be- 
tween the  people  of  the  northern  and  southern  States.  He 
reproved  the  rash  proceedings  of  the  abolitionists  at  the  same 
time  that  he  claimed  and  vindicated  for  them,  and  for  all  men, 
the  right  of  free  inquiry  and  discussion,  not  only  of  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery,  but  of  any  other  that  might  arise  as  to  the 
duties  of  freemen.  It  was  for  vindicating  this  right,  which  he 
deemed  so  valuable,  seventeen  years  ago,  and  which  he  never 
relinquished,  this  right,  this  birthright  of  every  American,  it 
was  for  this,  that,  in  a  national  convention  of  pretended  demo- 
crats, he  was  denied  even  a  hearing,  and  was  atrociously  ostra- 
cised, with  more  precipitancy  and  injustice  than  ever  marked 
the  proceedings  of  an  Athenian  mob.  But  of  that  injustice 
more  w^ill  be  said  in  another  place. 

In  1838,  after  having  been  nominated  for  a  seat  in  congress 
by  the  democratic  party  in  Essex  South  District,  a  convention 
of  anti-slavery  citizens  of  the  county  assembled  at  Danvers  in 
October  of  that  year,  and  through  their  committee  submitted 
to  Mr.  Rantoul  the  following  questions,  to  wit :  — 

"  1st.  Are  you  in  favor  of  the  immediate  emancipation  of  the  enslaved,, 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  in  the  Territory  of  Florida  ? 

"  2d.  Do  you  believe  Congress  has  power  to  abolish  the  slave-trade 
between  the  States,  and  are  you  in  favor  of  the  immediate  exercise  of 
that  power  ? 

"  3d.  Are  you  in  favor  of  such  additional  legislation,  as  may  be  needed 

61 


722  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

to  secure    the  immediate  and  effectual  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade 
between  the  United  States  and  Texas  ? 

4th.  "  Do  you  think  it  would  be  the  duty  of  a  member  of  the  next  con- 
gress, to  take  the  earliest  possible  opportunity  to  make,  and  to  sustain,  a 
motion  to  instruct  the  committee  on  the  District  of  Columbia,  to  bring 
in  a  bill  for  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade,  in 
that  District ;  and  if  this  fails,  to  himself  bring  in  a  bill  to  that  effect ; 
and  should  this  be  ineffectual,  to  seize  every  proper  opportunity,  under 
the  rules  of  the  house,  to  urge  this  question  upon  the  consideration  of 
that  body?" 


MR.  RANTOUL'S  REPLY. 

Gloucester,  Nov.  Sd,  1838. 

Gentlemen  :  —  Yours  of  the  24th  ult.  was  received  by  me  on  the  29th. 
I  reply  at  my  earliest  leisure. 

Considering  the  circumstances  under  which  your  letter  comes  to  me, 
I  think  it  proper  to  observe,  that  I  neither  expect  nor  wish  to  receive 
votes  for  congress  from  any  of  my  fellow-citizens  who  do  not  approve 
of  my  general  political  course,  merely  upon  the  strength  of  any  opinions 
I  might  now  express.  The  only  pledges  for  any  man's  future  conduct 
as  a  public  servant,  which  are  at  all  worth  having,  are  those  resulting 
from  his  known  character  ;  and  that  character  is  to  be  judged  of  solely 
by  his  past  conduct,  and  7iot  by  his  professions. 

I  have  been  nominated  for  a  seat  in  congress  by  the  democratic  party 
in  Essex  South  District,  and  I  have  a  right  to  expect  the  suffrages  of 
that  party,  and  of  that  party  only. 

By  the  democratic  party  I  understand  the  party  of  progress  and  re- 
form, of  faith  in  man's  high  destiny,  and  hope  and  trust  in  those  blessed 
promises  of  general  and  lasting  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the 
whole  human  race,  which  the  spirit  of  our  age  holds  out,  no  less  than 
our  confidence  in  a  v/ise  and  good  Providence  confirms  them. 

Democracy  is  the  party  of  equal  rights,  equal  laws,  equal  privileges, 
universal  protection.  Its  foundation  rests  upon  the  eternal  principles  of 
equity  and  justice.  Its  creed  is  in  the  ordination  of  Providence,  the 
constitution  of  nature,  and  the  wisdom  of  revelation.  Its  rule  of  legis- 
lation is  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number. 

As  such,  it  is  contradistinguished  from  the  party  which  resists  all 
improvement  because  it  is  innovation ;  which  has  no  faith  in  the 
people,  no  trust  in  their  honesty,  or  in  their  capacity  for  self-govern- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  723 

merit;  which  instead  of  looking  forward  with  a  well-founded  hope,  is  for- 
ever bewailing  some  imaginary,  general,  impending  rwm,  "prophets  of 
woe,  forever  boding  ill,"  who  in  the  issue  of  every  political  contest 
that  terminates  in  a  popular  triumph,  anticipate  nothing  but  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  institutions,  the  blasting  of  all  our  cherished  hopes,  and  the 
extinction  of  our  liberties. 

The  party  opposed  to  the  democracy  is  that  which  vindicates  assumed 
"  vested  rights  "  to  do  wrong,  which  passes  and  defends  laws  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  law-making  faction  of  the  day,  which  grants  exclusive  priv- 
ileges, and  protects  the  few  against  the  many.  That  party  dares  not 
follow  equity  when  it  comes  into  collision  with  existing  interests,  or 
justice,  except  when  consistent  with  established  precedents.  Its  creed 
is  man-worship,  and  it  receives  its  doctrines  implicitly  from  selected 
oracles.  Its  rule  of  legislation  is  the  interest  now  of  the  mercantile 
class,  now  of  the  manufacturers,  now  of  the  great  planters,  now  of  the 
great  capitalists,  never  of  the  masses,  never  of  the  whole  people. 

It  is  in  conformity  with  the  principles  of  the  great  party  of  which  I 
am  a  member,  that  I  have  always  viewed  the  interesting  subject  of 
slavery,  and  the  collateral  questions  connected  with  it. 

Slavery  is  a  subject  open  to  the  fair  discussion  of  the  whole  world,  as 
much  so  as  any  other  subject  of  general  interest.  Not  only  so,  but  it  is, 
and  will  continue  to  be,  freely  discussed,  no  matter  how  numerous  or  in- 
fluential may  be  the  party  who  wish  it  to  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
The  present  literature  of  England,  France,  and  Germany,  indeed  of 
the  whole  civilized  w^orld,  is  full  of  eloquent  denunciations  of  domestic 
slavery,  which  must  circulate,  be  read,  and  produce  their  effect  on  the 
minds  of  American  scholars,  whether  we  will  or  no.  Of  course,  in  the 
several  States  in  this  Union,  upon  whose  condition  this  institution  and 
its  consequences  must  exert  a  very  serious  influence,  the  subject  excites 
a  more  intense  interest  than  in  Europe,  and  will  be,  and  ought  to  be, 
more  earnestly  discussed. 

The  question  of  the  right  to  discuss  this  subject  publicly  was  agitated 
in  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  a  few  years  ago,  while  I  was  a  member 
of  the  popular  branch.  His  Excellency  Governor  Everett  having  in  his 
message  suggested  that  such  discussion  might  be  a  misdemeanor  at  the 
common  law,  under  certain  circumstances,  punishable  by  fine  and  imprison- 
ment, this  suggestion  of  his  Excellency,  together  with  a  communication 
from  the  State  of  South  Carolina  proposing  still  heavier  penalties  for 
that  and  kindred  offences,  was  referred  to  a  committee  of  which  an  hon- 
orable senator  from  this  county  w^as  chairman.  Some  citizens  of  the 
Commonwealth,  to  whom  this  imaginary  crime  of  his  Excellency's  sug- 


724  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

gestion,  might  have  been  imputed,  appeared  before  this  committee  to 
show  why  they  should  not  be  fined  and  imprisoned  according  to  the  sug- 
gestion of  his  Excellency,  or  liable  to  severe  punishments  as  suggested 
from  South  Carolina.  While  one  of  these  citizens,  a  scholar  and  a  gen- 
tleman, a  man  of  talents  and  of  worth,  was  proceeding  in  his  argu- 
ment, to  my  astonishment,  he  was  interrupted  and  silenced  by  the 
chairman.  This  act  became  the  occasion  of  a  debate  in  the  house  next 
day,  and  while  several  members  of  the  more  aristocratic  portion  of  that 
body  defended  the  conduct  of  the  chairman,  the  farmers  and  mechanics 
from  the  country  generally,  and  all  the  more  democratic  members,  openly 
condemned  the  outrage.  In  this  debate  I  took  an  active  and  decided 
part,  going  as  far  as  the  farthest,  vindicating  the  free  right  of  thought 
and  speech,  with  as  much  zeal,  if  not  as  much  ability  as  any  man  who 
at  that  time  expressed  his  opinions. 

The  constitutional  right  of  petition  has  also  been  called  in  question  in 
the  course  of  the  discussions  arising  out  of  the  subject  of  slavery.  In 
the  year  1835,  a  petition  was  presented  to  the  house  of  representatives 
from  a  citizen  of  Charlestown,  and  a  scene  ensued  in  which  this  right 
was  grossly  violated,  though  without  any  reference  at  that  time  to  the 
subject  of  slavery.  The  petition  or  remonstrance  from  Charlestown, 
protested  against  any  further  imposition  of  tolls  on  Warren  Bridge,  and 
was  drawn  up  with  great  ability  and  force  of  argument.  I  had  the 
honor  to  present  it,  and  at  the  request  of  the  chair,  I  read  it  to  the 
house.  No  sooner  was  the  reading  finished  than  a  motion  was  made  "to 
throw  it  under  the  table."  Of  this  motion  the  chair  very  properly  took 
no  notice.  After  some  angry  comments  from  the  party  which  defended 
the  Charles  River  Bridge  monopoly,  a  motion  was  made  "  that  the  peti- 
tion be  not  received."  Against  this  motion  I  argued  with  some  indig- 
nation, taking  in  my  hand  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  and  read- 
ing to  the  house  the  provisions  intended  to  secure  to  all  our  citizens  the 
sacred  right  of  petition  unviolated.  That  my  denunciations  and  en- 
treaties, for  I  made  free  use  of  both,  produced  no  greater  effect  on  self- 
interest  and  the  spirit  of  faction,  M^as  partly  owing  to  their  obdurate 
character,  and  partly  to  want  of  oratorical  power  on  my  part,  but  not 
by  any  means  to  any  want  of  earnestness  and  sincere  zeal.  The  motion 
"  that  the  petition  be  not  received,"  was  adopted  by  a  very  large  ma- 
jority. Every  democrat  iYi  the  house,  so  far  as  I  could  ascertain,  voted 
against  that  motion.  The  vote  of  the  delegation  of  the  city  of  Boston, 
I  believe,  was  unanimous  for  the  motion.  Justice  requires  me  to  add 
that  several  of  those  gentlemen  have  since  grown  wiser ;  as  I  had  occa- 
sion to  remind  them  in  1837,  and  again  in  1838.     I  have  seen  no  reason 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  725 

to  change  any  of  the  opinions  which  I  have  expressed  in  the  house, 
either  on  the  right  of  petition,  or  on  the  right  of  free  discussion. 

The  institution  of  slavery,  in  common  with  the  whole  North,  and  a 
large  proportion  of  the  most  intelligent  of  the  South,  including  many  of 
their  most  admired  patriots  and  ardent  democrats,  I  mean  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson and  others  of  his  school  in  politics,  I  have  always  regarded  as  a 
curse  upon  this  nation,  and  particularly  on  those  States  within  whose 
limits  it  exists.  If  God  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  the  earth,  sla- 
very is  an  outrage  on  human  nature.  If  the  product  of  one's  toil  is  the 
surest  inducement  to  industry  and  economy,  slavery  is  sure  to  blast  with 
barrenness  and  poverty  the  land  which  it  tills.  If  the  onward  progress 
of  civilization  and  Christianity  is  not  to  be  arrested  before  their  mission 
is  half  accomplished,  slavery  is  destined  to  disappear  from  the  earth. 

It  seems  to  me  that  no  man  can  have  studied  the  history  of  his  race, 
on  whose  mind  any  doubt  remains  of  the  correctness  of  these  principles. 
The  proof  of  their  truth  is  written,  in  letters  of  light,  on  every  page  of 
the  record. 

My  views  of  the  manner  in  which  this  great  national  evil  ought  to  be 
treated,  are  somewhat  modiiied  by  the  opinions  which  I  hold,  in  common 
with  all  other  democrats,  on  two  important  points  of  political  doctrine, 
which  I  will  try  to  explain  so  clearly  that  it  shall  be  impossible  to  mis- 
understand my  meaning. 

1.  As  to  the  character  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I 
hold  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  be  a  government  of  very 
limited  powers.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his  official  opinion 
as  secretary,  of  State,  against  the  constitutionality  of  a  United  States 
bank,  dated  February  15,  1791,  "  I  consider  the  foundation  of  the  Consti- 
tution as  laid  on  this  ground,  that  '  all  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserv- 
ed to  the  States  or  to  the  people.'  (Tenth  Amendment.)  To  take  a 
single  step  beyond  the  boundaries  thus  specifically  drawn  around  the 
powers  of  congress,  is  to  take  possession  of  a  boundless  field  of  power, 
no  longer  susceptible  of  any  definition."  (Jefferson's  AVritings,  Vol.  IV. 
page  523.) 

The  Hon.  Henry  Clay,  in  his  argument  against  the  constitutionality 
of  the  United  States  Bank,  in  1811,  remarked,  that  "  the  great  advan- 
tage of  our  system  of  government  over  all*  others,  is,  that  we  have  a 
written  Constitution,  defining  its  limits,  and  prescribing  its  authorities ; 
and  that  however,  for  a  time,  faction  may  convulse  the  nation,  and  pas- 
sion and  party  prejudice  sway  its  functionaries,  the  season  of  reflection 
will  recur,  when  calmly  retracing  their  deeds,  all  aberrations  from  funda- 
mental principles  will  be  corrected.     But  once  substitute  practice  for 

61* 


726  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

principle ;  the  expositions  of  the  Constitution,  for  the  text  of  the  Consti- 
tution ;  and  in  vain  shall  we  look  for  the  instrument  in  the  instrument 
itself.  It  will  be  as  diffused  and  intangible  as  the  pretended  Constitu- 
tion of  England.  I  conceive,  then.  Sir,  that  we  are  not  empowered  by 
the  Constitution,  nor  bound  by  any  practice  under  it,  to  renew  the  charter 
of  this  bank." 

By  the  same  test  by  which  Mr.  Clay  then  tried  the  bank,  I  would  try 
every  question  of  congressional  legislation,  by  "  the  text  of  the  Constitu- 
tion ; "  and  if  I  should  find  that  "  we  are  not  empowered  by  the  Con- 
stitution "  to  adopt  any  measure,  no  matter  how  desirable  that  measure 
might  be  in  itself,  I  should  stop  short  at  the  threshold,  and  enter  not 
where  the  Constitution  did  not  bid  me  enter :  not  only  because  the  last 
hope  of  human  liberty  depends  upon  the  question,  whether  a  written 
Constitution  can  be  preserved  inviolate,  whether  the  people  can  fix 
limits  to  the  powers  of  their  government,  and  cause  those  limits  to  be 
permanently  respected  ;  but  also  because  no  man  takes  any  part  in  our 
State  or  national  legislation,  who  has  not  first  sworn  a  solemn  oath  to 
support  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  —  an  oath 
which  I  have  often  taken,  and  from  which  there  is  no  power  on  earth 
that  can  absolve  me.  I  should  protest,  therefore,  against  any  action  by 
congress  on  slavery,  or  any  other  subject,  which  was  not  clearly  warranted 
by  the  strictest  construction  of  the  Constitution. 

2.  The  other  point,  to  which  I  call  your  attention  a  moment,  is  the 
value  of  the  Federal  Union.  So  far  as  I  can  look  forward,  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union  seems  to  be  a  necessary  condition  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  our  liberties.  There  is  a  vicious  tendency  in  every  national 
government  to  augment  its  powers,  and  enlarge  its  sphere  of  action. 
"Whatever  promotes  this  tendency  hastens  the  downfall  of  popular  insti- 
tutions, and  the  creation  of  an  arbitrary  power  upon  their  ruins.  Checks 
upon  this  tendency  are  the  bulwarks  of  freedom.  Now,  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  impossibility  of  maintaining  free  governments  in  Europe  has 
arisen  from  the  frequency  of  war,  and  the  constant  liability  to  war  among 
the  neighboring  nations.  Mutual  jealousy  compels  them  to  keep  up  vast 
standing  armies,  to  raise  immense  revenues  to  pay  them,  to  incur  debts 
mortgaging  the  industry  of  future  generations  for  the  expense  of  killing 
their  fathers,  like  the  debt  of  Great  Britain,  nearly  equal  to  all  the  specie 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  ;  and  presiding  over  all  this  stupendous  machin- 
ery of  slaughter,  and  wielding  this  patronage,  and  these  expenditures, 
and  administering  this  national  debt  through  a  national  bank  or  some 
such  mighty  engine,  proudly  rears  itself  a  strong  government,  and  tram- 
ples beneath  its  feet  the  rights  of  the  people. 

We  owe  it  to  our  Union,  that  we  are  safe  from  these  abominations. 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  727 

The  Union  once  broken  up,  standing  armies,  crushing  taxes,  a  debt  like  a 
maelstrom,  swallowing  up  the  resources  of  the  nation  to  defray  the  in- 
terest ;  government  patronage  sufficient  to  spread  corruption  into  every 
village  and  hamlet  in  the  country  ;  all  these  must  follow  in  every  one 
of  the  new  nations  to  be  formed  out  of  the  fragments  ;  and  as  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  all  these,  governments  too  strong  to  be  controlled 
by  any  practicable  checks  to  be  set  up  against  them. 

In  the  treatment  of  this  question,  therefore,  wisdom  and  discretion  are 
no  less  necessary  than  courage  and  determination.  It  is  a  generally 
received  rule  of  morals,  that  a  man  must  be  held  to  intend  the  know^n, 
necessary  consequences  of  his  actions.  One  who  should  act  upon  a  con- 
trary supposition  would  be  considered  insane.  While  therefore,  the 
Union  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  palladium  of  our  liberties,  he  who  should 
so  conduct  an  ill-advised  and  unsuccessful  attempt  to  liberate  three  mil- 
lions of  human  beings,  as  to  rend  asunder  the  Union,  and  thereby  bring 
down  upon  fourteen  millions  educated  to  the  enjoyment  of  freedom,  the 
miseries  of  political  slavery,  destroying  the  noblest  fabric  of  free  gov- 
ernment that  human  wisdom  ever  erected,  would  incur  a  fearful  weight 
of  responsibility,  leaving  out  of  the  account  the  gloomy  possibility  of 
civil  and  servile  wars,  with  their  manifold  and  varied  horrors. 

Where  such  momentous  interests  are  at  stake,  it  is  manifest  that  they 
are  not  to  be  touched  with  a  rash  hand.  The  soundest  judgment  must 
be  exercised,  the  highest  order  of  statesmanship  the  country  affords  will 
be  put  in  requisition  to  grapple  with  these  complicated  dangers.  With 
these  remarks,  I  proceed  to  answer  your  queries. 

1.  The  entire  power  of  legislation  over  the  District  of  Columbia 
being  ceded  to  the  United  States,  they  have  the  same  power  over  slavery 
in  the  District  that  the  State  of  Virginia  has  within  her  own  limits ; 
and  no  one  doubts  that  the  sovereign  and  independent  State  of  Virginia 
can  abolish  slavery  within  her  boundaries  whenever  she  chooses. 

Indeed  there  has  long  been  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  intelligent 
men  both  in  Virginia  and  Maryland,  who  have  looked  forward  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  their  respective  States,  not  only  as  perfectly  with- 
in the  power  of  these  States,  but  as  likely  to  be,  at  no  distant  time, 
achieved.  There  have  been  many  very  decided  indications  that  this 
hope  is  well  founded. 

Slavery  ought  not  to  exist  in  the  District.  So  long  as  it  exists  there, 
it  will  endanger  the  existence  of  the  Union  by  the  continual  irritation  it 
cannot  fail  hereafter  to  occasion.  The  legislative  power  being  in  con- 
gress for  the  District,  northern  men  feel  that  it  is  with  their  consent 
that  slavery  is  continued  there,  and  this  conviction  they  cannot  avoid, 
except  by  taking  all  proper  measures  for  the  removal  of  the  evil.     All 


728  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

proper  and  practicable  measures  ought  therefore  to  be  taken  to  remove 
it,  not  only  for  the  general  reasons  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  enume- 
rate, but  also  because  the  continual,  and  every  year  more  dangerous 
altercations,  which  its  presence  occasions,  will  cease  when  their  cause  is 
removed,  and  never  before. 

Congress  has  also  the  entire  legislative  power  over  the  territories. 
Those  who  look  upon  slavery  as  a  great  moral,  social,  and  political  evil, 
ought  not  to  contribute  directly  or  indirectly  to  enlarge  its  limits,  increase 
its  miseries,  or  augment  the  number  of  its  subjects.  It  would  have 
been  already  circumscribed  within  much  narrower  limits  than  it  now 
occupies,  but  for  the  malign  influence  exerted  by  one  man,  the  Honora- 
ble Henry  Clay,  some  eighteen  or  nineteen  years  ago. 

2.  The  power  to  regulate  commerce  among  the  several  States,  is  given 
in  the  same  clause  and  in  the  same  terms  as  the  power  to  regulate  for- 
eign commerce.  The  third  clause  of  section  eight,  article  first,  provides 
that  "  congress  shall  have  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign 
nations,  and  among  the  several  States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes." 
Under  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  congress 
have  already  prohibited  the  African  slave-trade ;  and  under  the  power 
to  regulate  commerce  among  the  several  States,  congress  may  equally 
prohibit  the  slave-trade  among  the  several  States. 

As  this  trade  tends  to  prolong  the  existence  of  slavery  in  several 
States  where  slave  labor  is  comparatively  unprofitable,  as  it  tends  to 
augment  the  number  of  slaves  in  the  States  where  their  labor  is  more 
profitable,  as  it  heightens  the  evils  inseparable  from  slavery,  by  suddenly 
breaking  up  the  ties  of  acquaintance,  connection,  and  relationship ;  for 
these  and  many  other  reasons,  it  ought  not  to  be  sanctioned  by  the  gen- 
eral government,  but  all  judicious  and  practicable  measures  should  be 
adopted  to  cause  its  discontinuance. 

3.  I  am  in  favor  of  prompt  and  efficient  measures  to  secure  the  dis- 
continuance of  the  slave-trade  between  the  United  States  and  Texas. 

4.  Your  last  question  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  answer  in  detail. 
I  hold  it  to  be  my  duty  to  act  in  every  situation,  according  to  my  delib- 
erate judgment  of  right  and  wrong.  The  precise  line  of  conduct  which 
I  ought  to  pursue  in  any  given  case,  I  choose  to  be  left  at  liberty  to  de- 
termine, with  all  the  light  I  can  derive  from  observation,  reading,  dis- 
cussion, and  reflection,  previously  to  the  moment  of  action.  This  liberty 
I  shall  not  surrender,  unless  on  any  question,  I  should  be  specifically 
instructed  by  a  majority  of  my  constituents ;  in  which  event,  I  should 
vote  according  to  their  instructions  if  I  could  conscientiously  do  so ; 
otherwise,  I  should  resign. 

I  have  given  you  frankly  my  present  opinions ;  I  will  only  add,  that 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  729 

as  they  have  not  been  hastily  adopted,  they  will  not  be  lightly  relin- 
quished. 

Respectfully,  gentlemen,  I  have  the  honor  to  be 

Your  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 

Robert  Rantoul,  Jr. 
To  Messrs.  E.  Hunt,  Wm.  B.  Dodge,  and  others,  committee,  etc. 


THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.* 

Mr.  President  :  —  The  convention  which  I  now  have  the  honor  to 
address,  was  called,  as  I  suppose,  at  my  suggestion.  The  reason  why  I 
desired  of  the  district  committee  of  this  district  that  the  democratic  voters 
of  this  district  should  be  called  together,  and  that  I  might  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  address  them,  was  one  which,  I  think,  will  meet  the  approba- 
tion of  you  all.  It  was,  that  since  the  period  when  I  was  first  nominated 
to  represent  this  district  in  congress,  a  very  material  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  condition  of  affairs.  One  change  was  this.  I  have  had  the 
honor  to  be  nominated  for  congress  again  and  again,  when  I  supposed 
there  were  very  few  persons  who  believed  there  was  any  probability  of 
my  election.  A  law  has  now  been  passed  which  makes  it  certain  that 
some  person  must  be  elected  to  represent  this  district  in  congress.  It  is 
called  the  Plurality  Law.  Therefore,  as  we  now  know  we  are  not  to 
pass  through  trials  without  end,  but  either  at  the  election  on  Monday 
next,  or  on  the  succeeding  one,  some  person  will  be  elected,  it  therefore 
becomes  a  different  question  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done. 

There  has  also  been  a  change  with  regard  to  other  great  questions. 
The  great  question  of  slavery  has  now  assumed  a  particular  shape,  con- 
cerning which  it  is  now  necessary  to  declare  an  opinion.  So  long  as  that 
question  was  floating  in  uncertainty,  so  long  as  it  was  connected  with 
subjects  which  were  changing  day  by  day,  it  might  not  be  desirable  that 
a  public  man  should  state  his  opinions.  But  at  last  this  question  has 
assumed  a  definite  shape.  It  has  presented  a  distinct  issue,  an  issue 
reaching  back  to  fundamental  principles.  And  I  did  in  my  conscience 
suppose,  that  the  democratic  voters  would  desire  to  hear  from  me,  before 
they  should  deposit  their  votes  at  the  election  of  Monday  next. 

*  Speech  delivered  before  the  Grand  Mass  Convention,  holden  at  Lynn,  Thursday, 
April  3,  1851. 


730  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Supposing  that  all  the  democratic  voters  desired  to  be  acquainted 
witii  the  views  of  their  candidate,  one  of  two  courses  was  necessary  to  be 
adopted ;  either  in  writing  to  present  my  views  to  the  citizens  of  this 
district,  or  to  invite  the  democratic  voters  to  come  together  and  meet  me 
face  to  face.  I  have  preferred  the  latter,  because  I  can  speak  more 
freely  than  I  can  write,  (though  that  is  a  personal  consideration,)  and 
because  if  I  address  my  fellow-citizens  here,  those  who  wish  to  hear  me 
can  come,  and  those  who  do  not  wish  to  hear  me  can  stay  away. 

I  am  now  ready  to  proceed  to  make  an  exact  statement  of  my  opin- 
ions,—  a  statement  so  unequivocal,  that  there  shall  be  no  mistake  about 
it.  I  intend  to  make  a  distinct  and  unequivocal  definition  of  my  ideas  of 
what  seems  to  be  the  most  important  issue  now  before  the  country.  And 
when  I  have  done  so,  —  for  I  want  to  lay  down  a  distinct  proposition  upon 
this  subject,  —  I  shall  then  say  to  my  friends  of  the  democratic  party,  who 
are  here  present.  Gentlemen,  you  have  supported  me  as  your  candidate 
through  a  good  many  trials.  It  has  come  to  my  ears  lately,  that  there 
are  some  persons  who  claim  to  belong  to  the  democratic  party,  who 
would  not  be  satisfied  if  I  made  such  declarations  as  I  now  intend  to 
make.  I  desire  that  if  there  be  such  gentlemen  present,  they  may  have 
an  opportunity  to  show  themselves,  and  to  declare  their  purposes,  and,  if 
they  constitute  a  majority  of  the  democratic  party,  that  they  may  sub- 
stitute some  other  candidate  in  my  stead.  If  the  democratic  party  here 
present,  after  having  heard  the  views  which  I  shall  express  on  this  sub- 
ject, shall  choose  to  make  any  other  arrangement  than  the  present,  with 
regard  to  the  congressional  election,  either  for  the  reason  that  I  have 
suggested,  or  for  any  other  reason,  for  any  grounds,  I  care  not  what,  then 
I  shall  only  have  to  thank  them  for  past  favors,  and  go  into  the  battle  as 
a  private  soldier. 

In  explaining  one's  ideas  before  the  people,  it  seems  to  have  become 
quite  the  fashion,  of  late,  to  go  back  so  far  as  to  swear  fealty  to  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  Union.  I  will  follow  that  fashion.  I  am  attached,  and  as 
devotedly  attached  as  any  other  man,  to  the  Union  of  these  States,  and  to 
the  Constitution  of  our  government.  I  believe  the  Union  to  be  at  the 
bottom  of  almost  all  the  other  political  blessings  that  we  enjoy.  I  be- 
lieve the  Constitution  to  be  —  not  perfect,  as  nothing  proceeding  from 
human  hands  is  perfect  —  but  as  nearly  and  as  reasonably  perfect  as 
could  have  been  expected  at  the  time  it  was  made,  as  could  be  expected 
if  it  were  made  now,  and  even  better  than  if  we  were  to  make  it  over 
again. 

But  when  I  say  that  I  admire  and  love  both  the  Union  and  the  Con- 
stitution, it  is  because  of  that  which  they  secure  to  us.  The  Union  is 
great,  I  might  almost  say  it  is  the  greatest  of  our  political  blessings,  be- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  731 

cause  it  secures  to  us  what  was  the  object  of  the  Union.  And  the  Con- 
stitution is  good,  and  great,  and  valuable,  and  to  be  held  forever  sacred, 
because  it  secures  to  us  what  was  the  object  of  the  Constitution.  And 
what  is  that  ?  Liberty  !  And  if  it  were  not  for  that,  the  Union  would 
be  valueless,  and  the  Constitution  would  not  be  worth  the  parchment 
upon  which  it  is  written. 

Why  do  we  value  the  Union  ?  Because  it  secures  our  national  inde- 
pendence and  the  independence  of  the  several  States ;  because  without 
it,  there  would  exist  a  number  of  petty  States,  which  would  be,  as  they 
are  in  Europe,  exposed  to  perpetual  wars  with  each  other  and  with  their 
neighbors.  We  should  be  obliged  to  keep  up  a  standing  army,  and  should 
be  quarrelling  with  each  other,  as  the  petty  German  States  have  done 
for  ages.  With  all  that,  your  national  independence  would  be,  if  pre- 
served, continually  in  hazard,  but  most  probably  could  not  even  be  pre- 
served. And  out  of  that  condition  of  things  would  grow,  most  probably, 
a  contest  of  small  States  with  great  ones  ;  and  the  independence  of  the 
weaker  ones  would  be  sacrificed,  while  the  greater  ones  would  rule  over 
them.  Against  all  that,  the  Union  guarantees  us.  It  guarantees  to  us 
independence.  What  is  independence  ?  Have  there  not  been  the  most 
cruel  despotisms  on  earth  which  were  independent  nations  ?  Our  inde- 
pendence is  valuable  because  it  preserves  our  liberty  ;  and  the  Union  is 
great  and  glorious  because  it  preserves  our  independence,  and  thereby 
our  liberty. 

I  love  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  then,  not  for  themselves,  but 
for  the  great  end  for  which  they  were  created  ;  to  secure  and  perpetuate 
liberty,  not  the  liberty  of  a  class  superimposed  upon  the  thraldom  of 
groaning  multitudes,  not  the  liberty  of  a  ruling  race  cemented  by  the 
tears  and  blood  of  subject  races,  but  human  liberty,  perfect  liberty,  com- 
mon to  all  for  whom  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  were  made,  to  the 
whole  "  people  of  the  United  States,"  and  to  their  "  posterity." 

It  is  because  I  believe  all  this,  that  I  love  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution. And  if  I  did  not  believe  this,  I  should  go  back  to  my  pilgrim 
ancestors  and  take  a  lesson  from  them.  When  they  came  o^jt  from  the 
old  world,  and  left  their  country  Avhich  they  loved,  and  the  Constitution 
of  Great  Britain  which  they  loved,  (for  they  expressed  their  love  for  it 
in  all  their  writings,  speeches,  and  deeds,)  though  they  loved  their  coun- 
try and  its  Constitution,  they  loved  something  else  more  than  they  loved 
their  country.  They  loved  liberty. more.  "  Patrice  cara,  carior  libertasT 
Interwoven  with  every  fibre  of  my  heart  is  the  love  of  my  country  ;  but 
freedom  is  the  charm  which  endears  and  consecrates  her ;  and  if  the 
spirit  of  liberty  should  take  her  flight  from  my  native  land,  my  love  and 
worship  are  not  due  to  brute  clods  and  rocks,  to  her  prairies,  or  her 


732  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

mountains  ;  but  where  liberty  dwells,  there  is  my  country,  and  there  only 
is  my  country  !  Dear  to  my  inmost  soul  are  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution ;  but  God-given  liberty  is  above  the  Union,  and  above  the  Consti- 
tution, and  above  all  the  works  of  man. 

The  President.     That  is  the  true  higher  law. 

Mr.  Rantoul.  These  ideas  are  not  at  all  new  with  me.  They  are 
not  taken  up  on  account  of  any  present  position  of  public  aifairs.  I  see 
before  me  quite  a  number  of  gentlemen  who  were  present  eighteen  years 
ago,  when  I  had  occasion  to  discuss  the  value  of  the  federal  Union.  I 
then  took  the  same  view  of  the  value  of  the  Union  and  the  Constitution 
that  I  take  now.  I  valued  them  then,  as  I  value  them  now,  because  of 
their  great  purpose.  So  long  as  they  accomplish  that  purpose,  so  long 
are  they  the  highest  political  blessings.  And  if  they  ever  cease  in  the 
providence  of  God  to  accomplish  that  great  purpose,  they  become  worth- 
less ;  they  may  become  even  a  curse. 

"VYashington,  in  his  invaluable  legacy  of  practical  sagacity,  the  farewell 
address,  held  the  same  view  of  the  relations  in  which  the  Union,  the 
Constitution,  and  the  great  principle  of  liberty  stand  to  each  other.  It 
is  because  of  our  love  of  liberty,  that  we  do  love  and  ought  to  love  the 
Union  and  the  Constitution.  He  gives  to  the  view  which  I  have  just 
taken  the  full  sanction  of  his  mighty  name.  He  declares  "  The  unity  of 
government  which  constitutes  you  one  people "  to  be  "y^/s% "  dear  to 
you,  because  "  it  is  a  main  pilhir  in  the  edifice  of  your  real  independence," 
and  "  of  that  very  liberty  which  you  so  highly  prize."  He  tells  you  that 
by  this  Union  the  several  parts  avoid  much  of  the  liability  to,  and  the 
danger  from  wars  with  foreign  nations,  and  domestic  "  broils,  and  wars 
between  themselves  ; "  and  though  last,  not  least,  "  the  necessity  of  those 
overgrown  military  establishments,  which,  under  any  form  of  government, 
are  inauspicious  to  liberty,  and  which  are  to  be  regarded  as  particularly 
hostile  to  republican  liberty."  "  In  this  sense  it  is,"  says  he,  "  that  your 
Union  ought  to  be  considered  as  a  main  prop  of  your  liberty ;  and  that 
the  love  of  the  one  ought  to  endear  to  you  the  preservation  of  the  other." 
It  is  because  I  receive  into  an  undoubting  heart  these  parting  lessons  of 
that  apostle  of  liberty,  who  was  the  founder  of  our  Union,  and  inaiigu- 
rator  of  our  Constitution,  that  I  venerate  his  work,  and  cling  to  it,  as  to 
the  ark  of  our  political  salvation. 

Living  in  this  faith,  and  desiring  to  live  up  to  this  faith,  I  so  exhibit 
my  fidelity  to  the  Union,  and  so  exercise  my  devotion  to  the  Constitution, 
as  will  best  promote  the  ultimate  purpose  of  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution, the  cause  of  human  liberty.  Were  I  knowingly  to  swerve  from 
this  straight  path,  but  by  the  division  of  a  hair,  I  should  be  so  far  false 
to  the  glorious  mission  of  an  American  citizen,  and  to  the  obvious  duty 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  733 

devolving  on  a  Massachusetts  man.  Every  son  of  our  ancient  Common- 
wealth, who  swears  to  support  her  institutions,  becomes,  by  that  fact,  a 
soldier  sworn  upon  the  altar  of  freedom.  My  influence,  I  know,  must  be 
but  limited,  and  my  sphere  of  action  humble  ;  but  this  does  not  affect  the 
nature  of  my  obligations.  The  degree  of  power  which  a  man  may  be 
able  to  put  forth  is  determined  by  God,  in  the  original  constitution  of 
his  faculties.  He  is  justly  deemed  responsible  only  for  the  tendency  in 
which  they  may  be  directed.  The  tendency  of  my  steps  this  day  is  to 
tread  the  path  our  fathers  trod,  the  path  of  freedom  and  progress.  My 
hope  and  trust  is  to  hand  down  to  posterity,  not  only  unimpaired,  but 
strengthened  and  augmented,  all  the  safeguards  of  liberty,  which,  through 
many  ages  of  long  suffering,  the  toil  of  patriots  earned,  and  the  blood  of 
martyrs  hallowed,  and  which  the  fathers  of  the  American  Revolution 
died  believing  that  they  had  secured  forever. 

It  is  not  any  new-fangled  doctrine  that  sets  up  the  means  above  the 
end,  and  says  that  the  parchment  is  the  inestimable  treasure,  and  that 
the  object  for  which  that  Constitution  was  made  is  to  be  forgotten ;  that 
the  object  which  our  fathers  went  through  a  seven  years'  war  to  accom- 
plish, is  to  be  neglected,  —  it  is  no  such  new-fangled  doctrine  that  I 
maintain.  I  contend  that  the  declaration  of  independence,  the  Consti- 
tution, and  the  Union  of  the  United  States  are  valuable,  only  as  long  as 
the  purpose  of  them  is  valuable.  But  that  these  instruments  are  to  be 
talked  of  as  if  they  were  intrinsically  holy,  and  that  the  purpose  which 
was  in  the  souls  of  those  that  made  them,  as  it  should  be  in  our  souls  to- 
day, is  not  to  be  spoken  of  without  incurring  the  charge  of  fanati- 
cism or  abolitionism,  —  I  go  for  no  such  new-fangled  doctrines  as 
those. 

Liberty  is  the  object  for  which  governments  are  founded  ;  and  that 
government  is  best  administered  where  the  spirit  of  liberty  is  best  pre- 
served. If,  then,  this  be  the  great  object  of  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution, and  that  which  makes  the  Union  and  the  Constitution  dear,  how 
is  the  government  to  be  administered  ?  how  is  the  Constitution  to  be  in- 
terpreted? There  have  been  two  great  schools  of  politics  in  this  coun- 
try since  the  foundation  of  our  government.  To  one  of  these  schools  I 
have  always  belonged.  I  think  the  maxims  of  that  school  essential  to 
the  durability  of  our  institutions.  It  is  not  the  expediency  of  party 
policy  which  seems  to  me  to  be  involved.  Two  great  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, as  to  how  the  Constitution  is  to  be  interpreted,  are  involved.  It 
is  a  question  on  which  parties  are  now  divided,  and  on  which  they  al- 
ways will  divide,  till  the  end  of  time. 

Let  us  look  at  that  question.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
creates  a  government  of  limited  powers.     Are  they  to  be  held  strictly^ 

62 


734  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

to  the  limitations  of  that  instrument  ?  or  are  they  to  have  a  system  of 
loose  construction  which  will  transcend  those  powers  ?  That  is  the  great 
question  at  the  bottom  of  all  our  party  divisions  for  six#^  years  past. 

Now  I  hold,  and  have  always  held,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  is  an  instrument  which  is  to  be  strictly  construed ;  that  the  Con- 
stitution is  the  letler  of  attorney  by  which  the  members  of  congress  are 
authorized  to  act,  and  that  they  are  empowered  to  do  nothing  which  it 
does  not  authorize  them  to  do.  That  is  my  doctrine,  and  it  is  demo- 
cratic doctrine.  I  ask  of  democrats  some  application  of  that  doctrine. 
It  is  the  doctrine  on  which  the  government  stands,  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  to  be  strictly  construed.  Nothing  is  to  be  estab- 
lished by  means  of  unnatural  inferences.  Was  that  the  doctrine  of  those 
who  made  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ? 

The  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  says  that  the  general  court  shall 
make  all  laws  which  are  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  which  are  not  for- 
bidden in  that  instrument.  It  says,  the  legislature  shall  not  take  away 
the  trial  by  jury  ;  it  shall  not  abolish  the  haheas  corpus.  It  forbids  that 
which  shall  not  be  done.  All  else  may  be  done  by  the  legislature.  This 
is  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  on  the  other  hand,  says,  this 
thing  you  may  do ;  that  thing  you  may  do ;  the  other  thing  you  may 
do ;  and  there  it  stops.  To  that,  the  government  of  the  United  States 
is  to  be  strictly  held.  To  prevent  any  misapprehension  on  that  subject, 
let  me  say  that  it  was  well  known  that  there  was  one  school  of  politi- 
cians who  considered  that  safety  only  consisted  in  following  the  example 
of  their  predecessors,  that  is,  in  following  the  example  of  Glreat  Britain ; 
wdio  said  that  we  must  have  a  strong  government,  or  we  should  be  in 
the  condition  of  the  Germans,  the  Italians,  and  the  Greeks,  for  a  long 
series  of  years.     And  history  seemed  to  be  in  their  favor. 

I  do  not  wonder  at  their  opinions.  They  said,  "  all  these  republican 
experiments  have  failed  because  the  governments  were  not  strong 
enough.  You  must  not  make  the  government  too  M^eak."  And  perhaps 
our  government  would  not  have  held  together  if  the  people  had  not  been 
more  intelligent  than  those  of  the  German  States,  or  if  they  had  been 
surrounded  by  strong  nations  at  war  with  them.  If  we  had  had  a  na- 
tion in  Canada  as  strong  as  France,  and  one  in  Mexico  as  strong  as 
Great  Britain,  and  should  have  been  at  war  with  them,  or  were 
constantly  liable  to  war  with  them,  perhaps  our  government  would 
not  have  stood.  It  was  not  at  that  time  to  be  expected  that  they 
should  know  how  the  thing  would  turn  out,  because  it  had  never 
been  written  in  history.  They  had  seen  no  great  successful  repub- 
lican government.     But  it  is  our  own  fault  if  we  are  not  wiser  by 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  735 

experience.     I  say  that  the  school  of  politicians  who  thought  the  govern- 
ment was  not  strong  enough  did  not  intend  to  have  a  strict  construction. 

A  gentleman  once  remarked  to  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  was  one  of 
that  school,  that  he  thought  the  Constitution  w^as  a  pretty  good  instru- 
ment. "It  depends,"  replied  he,  "upon  how  you  construe  it."  He  was 
in  favor  of  modelling  our  government  somewhat  after  the  English  form. 
He  thought  that  the  minister  of  the  treasury,  and  of  foreign  affairs, 
should  step  into  our  house  of  representatives  as  the  premier  of  England 
enters  the  house  of  commons,  and  should  there  explain  the  intentions  of 
the  government  and  the  relations  of  other  countries  to  our  own.  Then  he 
wanted  a  public  debt,  because  Great  Britain  had  a  debt.  He  wanted  a 
bank  as  Great  Britain  had  a  bank.  And  so  on  other  points,  he  wanted 
the  government  as  strong  as  it  could  be  made.  It  is  my  opinion  that  he 
was  honest  in  that  view. 

There  was  another  party  who  took  the  opposite  view.  They  said,  it 
is  true  that  confederations  have  broken  to  pieces  ;  but  there  have  also 
been  many  governments  which  have  progressed  until  they  became  des- 
potisms. They  laid  down  the  principle  that  government  should  not  go 
one  hair's  breadth  beyond  the  powers  given  to  them.  When  the  Con- 
stitution came  up  for  adoption,  many  States  refused  to  adopt  it,  unless 
there  was  strong  probability  that  certain  amendments  would  be  adopted. 
One  of  them  was  thought  peculiarly  important.  That  amendment  was 
subsequently  adopted,  and  is  now  in  my  hands.  It  is  the  tenth  article 
of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States :  — 

"  The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respect- 
ively, or  to  the  people." 

The  powders  not  given  are  reserved  to  the  States,  or  to  the  people. 
"When  you  ask  whether  a  bill  be  constitutional  or  not,  the  first  thing  to 
be  done  is  to  look  into  the  Constitution,  and  find  the  express  grant  there- 
for. If  it  is  not  there  it  is  reserved  to  the  States  or  to  the  people. 
That  is  the  democratic  doctrine. 

Now  was  that  Massachusetts  doctrine  ?  Most  assuredly  it  was.  Mas- 
sachusetts had  a  good  deal  of  democracy  in  her,  in  early  times.  When 
old  Samuel  Adams  drafted  this  bill  of  rights,  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
democracy  in  him,  and  a  good  deal  in  the  people.  Here  is  the  bill  of 
rights,  drawn  up  in  1780,  showing  what  they  thought  then:  — 

Article  IV.  "  The  people  of  this  Commonwealth  have  the  sole  and 
exclusive  right  of  governing  themselves  as  a  free,  sovereign,  and  inde- 
pendent State ;  and  do,  and  forever  hereafter  shall  exercise  and  enjoy 
every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,  which  is  not  or  may  not  hereafter 


736  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

be  by  them  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  of  America  in  con- 
■gress  assembled." 

What  do  they  mean  by  "  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  ?  " 
They  say  this,  in  so  many  words,  in  language  that  cannot  be  mistaken. 
This  is  what  they  meant.  They  meant  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  should  not  then,  or  thereafter,  assume  any  power  which 
the  States  had  not  expressly  delegated  to  it.  And  well  would  it  have 
been  if  that  principle  of  the  majority  of  the  States  of  the  Union  had 
always  been  adhered  to;  it  would  have  saved  us  a  vast  deal  of  trouble. 

I  belong,  then,  to  that  school  which  holds  that  the  Constitution  should 
T^e  strictly  construed,  and  its  meaning  strictly  adhered  to.  And  when  I 
say  this,  I  have  at  the  same  time  a  great  veneration  for  all  the  compro- 
mises of  the  Constitution.  We  hear  much  of  them.  What  are  they? 
I  sometimes  hear  people  talk  of  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution  in 
such  a  way  that  I  think  they  would  be  much  puzzled  if  they  were  to  be 
asked  what  they  are.  There  were  compromises,  the  non-adoption  of 
which  would  have  prevented  the  Constitution  itself  from  being  adopted 
by  the  people.  Leading  members  even  went  home  in  despair  of  effect- 
ing a  Constitution  acceptable  to  the  people.  And  it  was  after  they  had 
gone,  that  certain  compromises  were  adopted,  which  finally  insured  the 
acceptance  of  that  instrument.     What  were  they  ? 

In  many  confederacies,  ancient  and  modern,  all  the  States  entering 
into  the  combination  had  an  equal  number  of  votes.  The  small  States 
insisted  that  that  was  the  right  way.  They  said,  we  shall  be  swallowed 
up  by  the  larger  States  unless  we  can  vote  by  States,  as  was  done  in 
congress  under  the  confederation.  I  suppose  it  is  well  known  to  you, 
that  the  Convention  of  States  was  called  together  for  the  purpose  of 
amending  the  old  articles  of  confederation.  They  found,  however,  that 
they  would  not  bear  amendment.  They  scarcely  made  any  attempt  at 
amendment,  for  they  ascertained  that  it  was  easier  to  make  a  new  in- 
strument than  to  repair  the  old  one.  In  the  old  confederation  the  States 
w^ere  all  equal.  Delaware  had  as  large  a  vote  as  New  York.  Luther 
Martin  who  led  off  this  opposition,  has  left  an  account  of  it,  and  of  his 
own  action.  The  small  States  refused  to  come  into  the  support  of  a 
combination,  unless  they  could  have  an  equal  vote.  And  the  conven- 
tion came  very  near  breakin^g  up  in  despair  of  ever  settling  that  distract- 
ing question.  How  did  they  finally  settle  it  ?  By  making  this  compro- 
mise ;  by  saying,  that  in  one  branch  the  people  should  be  represented 
according  to  population,  and  in  the  other  the  States  should  be  equally 
represented  !  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  Massachusetts, 
said  to  the  small  States,  you  shall  be  represented  in  the  one  branch  ac- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  737 

cording  to  population  ;  and  we  will  consent  to  be  represented  in  the  other 
branch  by  States.  The  large  States  were  discontented  with  the  equal 
representation  in  the  senate.  The  small  States  were  discontented  with 
the  great  amount  of  power  which  the  large  States  had  in  the  lower 
house.  This  was,  then,  the  first  compromise.  It  was  the  great  one,  be- 
cause this  difficulty  came  nearer  shipwrecking  the  whole  government 
than  any  other,  and  because  it  was  the  most  important. 

There  was  another  compromise,  and  it,  too,  was  important.  The  im- 
mediate occasion  of  the  formation  of  this  government,  grew  out  of  diffi- 
culties of  navigation  chiefly  in  Chesapeake  Bay  and  Delaware  Bay. 
Great  difficulties  arose  on  account  of  the  different  commercial  arrange- 
ments which  were  entered  into  by  the  several  States.  For  instance,  if 
Massachusetts  laid  duties,  and  Rhode  Island  did  not,  goods  would  be 
introduced,  duty  free,  into  Rhode  Island,  and  smuggled  over  the  line. 
Ten  thousand  difficulties  were  growing  up  between  the  different  States 
on  this  account,  and  particularly  between  Virginia  and  Maryland,  con- 
cerning the  navigation  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  These  difficulties  led  to 
the  calling  of  a  convention  for  the  purpose  of  amending  the  articles  of 
confederation.  It  was  ascertained  at  once,  that  this  could  not  be  done. 
But  finally  a  new  attempt  was  made,  which  resulted  in  the  formation  of 
this  Constitution.  The  attempt  to  regulate  commerce  was  in  fact  what 
led  to  the  formation  of  this  Constitution.  And  they  were  obliged  to 
make  a  compromise  which  we  have  almost  forgotten. 

There  were  some  States  which  were  agricultural  States,  raising  to- 
bacco and  rice  principally,  as  the  cultivation  of  cotton  was  then  hardly 
thought  of.  They  were  planting  States.  Then  there  were  also  certain 
States  which  it  was  then  foreseen  would  be  navigating  and  manufactur- 
ing States.  The  commerce  existed  then  in  some  measure,  but  the  manu- 
facturing did  not  to  any  great  extent.  Now  the  agriculturists  said, 
If  we  allow  congress  to  regulate  commerce,  they  will  put  duties  on  ex- 
ports, and  thereby  shut  off  the  sale  of  our  products.  They  did  not  then 
think  that  the  duties  on  imports  would  produce  the  same  effect.  They 
did  not  think  at  that  time,  as  seems  to  be  now  a  favorite  notion  with 
some,  that  the  greater  the  weight  of  taxation,  the  better  for  them  and 
for  the  people,  under  the  plea  that  the  greater  duty  would  furnish  the 
greater  protection  to  our  industry.  Neither  thinking  of  that,  nor  of 
the  effect  which  would  be  produced  by  the  taxation  of  imports,  they 
insisted  that  congress  should  put  duties  on  imports  alone.  The  reve- 
nue on  the  importation  of  goods  was  of  great  value  to  New  York  and 
Massachusetts.  They  gave  up  that,  and  this  bargain  was  made  between 
the  agricultural  States  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  commercial  on  the  other, 

62* 


738  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

in  wliicli  tliey  agreed  that  exports  should  not  be  taxed,  and  that  taxes 
on  imports  should  be  equalized. 

Then  came  another  compromise.  They  had  not  then  thought  that  tax- 
ation on  all  the  imported  goods  was  to  be  regarded  as  a  blessing.  There- 
fore they  had  never  anticipated  that  all  the  revenue  necessary  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  on  the  government  would  be  obtained  on  the  im- 
ports. So  strong  was  the  feeling  against  raising  a  large  revenue  from 
imports,  that  when  Hamilton  made  a  report  proposing  jS.ve  per  cent, 
duties  on  some  imports,  he  had  to  argue  at  great  length  to  the  effect, 
that  though  it  was  a  terrible  thing,  we  should  submit  to  it,  because  it 
was  necessary  in  order  to  obtain  funds  for  the  government.  The  taxes 
on  imports,  it  was  not  apprehended,  would  ever  be  so  high  as  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  government.  On  the  contrary,  they  expected  that 
the  expenses  of  government  would  be  defrayed  by  direct  taxation. 
Then  it  became  an  important  question.  How  shall  taxation  be  appor- 
tioned among  the  people  ?  "  Why,"  said  the  men  at  the  North,  "  accord- 
ing to  population  ;  and  let  everybody,  white  and  black,  be  enumerated." 
"No,"  replied  the  South,  "for  here  are  our  southern  slaves  who  do  not 
produce  as  much  as  your  laborers.  We  ought  not  to  be  taxed  according 
to  population."  And  not  only  was  there  a  compromise  made  on  this 
subjeet,  but  they  were  ready  to  have  their  representation  diminished 
by  two  fifths  of  their  slaves,  which  was  not  much  thought  of  at  the  time, 
inasmuch  as  they  obtained  as  a  recompense  what  was  esteemed  by  them 
as  a  great  boon,  namely,  the  taxation,  also  in  proportion  to  their  num- 
bers, omitting  two  fifths  of  their  slaves.  This  was  very  much  desired 
at  the  South  and  opposed  at  the  North.  And  the  South  conquered. 
We  now  talk  about  taking  off  the  whole  of  their  slave  representation. 
I  do  not  know  but  that  they  would  have  been  glad  to  have  had  tlie 
whole  removed,  if  they  could  by  that  means  have  avoided  taxation 
therefor.  That  was  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  then  looked 
upon  it.  It  was,  as  you  perceive,  then  viewed  very  differently  from 
what  it  now  is. 

In  that  compromise  there  was  no  reference  whatever  made  to  a  slave, 
or  to  the  condition  of  a  slave.  It  is  simply  a  certain  mode  of  ascer- 
taining taxation  and  representation.  It  was  decided,  that  to  certain 
persons  who  were  described,  they  should  add  three  fifths  of  all  other 
persons,  to  obtain  the  basis  of  representation  and  direct  taxation.  The 
reason  why  that  phraseology  was  adopted,  was,  that  there  existed  a  sort 
of  secret  dislike  of  the  institution  of  slavery ;  a  dislike  extending  to 
southern  men  as  well  as  to  northern  men.  Southern  men  aided  in  the 
formation  of  this  Constitution,  and  in  the  adoption  of  this  article. 
■  Southern  men  felt  a  sort  of  unpleasant  sensation  at  the  sound  of  that 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  739 

word  slave,  and  of  that  other  word  slavery,  and  did  not  fancy  the  idea 
of  introducing  them  into  a  document  which  was  to  live  forever.  They 
contrived  to  express  their  ideas,  therefore,  without  mentioning  those 
terms.  It  cannot  be  said  that  this  v»'as  any  compromise  on  the  subject  of 
slavery.  It  was  a  compromise  on  the  subject  of  taxation.  They  put  in 
something  equivalent  on  the  subject  of  representation. 

There  comes,  then,  another  compromise,  w^iich  is  important.  There 
were  several  smaller  ones,  to  which  I  have  not  alluded.  .  Those  to 
wdiich  I  have  already  referred,  and  that  which  I  shall  mention,  are  im- 
portant.    The  remaining  compromise  is  this  :  — 

Art.  1.  sect.  9.  "The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as 
any  of  the  States  now  existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  shall  not  be 
prohibited  by  the  congress  prior  to  the  year  1808." 

Those  who  made  the  Constitution  said  that  this  importation  should  go 
on  in  such  States  as  chose  to  carry  it  on,  for  twenty  years,  and  that 
after  that  time  the  federal  power  may  be  exerted,  and  the  slave-trade 
shall  be  stopped.  Accordingly,  when  that  period  arrived,  it  was  de- 
clared piracy.  At  the  moment  that  the  Constitution  would  allow  con- 
gress to  act,  that  moment  congress  acted.  There  was  not  the  delay  of 
a  day  or  an  hour.  The  slave-trade  was  forever  prohibited.  That  is  the 
last  of  the  important  compromises. 

Now,  when  people  talk  about  adhering  to  the  compromises  of  the 
Constitution,  referring  thereby  to  certain  other  things  which  are  not 
compromises,  which  are  not  the  agreement  of  two  parties,  in  which 
each  gives  w^ay  a  little  for  the  sake  of  that  which  it  esteems  a  greater 
good,  but  to  those  other  things  which  are  not  alluded  to  in  the  Consti- 
tution, I  should  like  to  have  them  define  what  they  mean.  These 
which  I  have  mentioned,  it  is  necessary  to  adhere  to. 

Therefore,  I  go  on  to  declare  as  to  certain  other  clauses,  that  there 
are  stipulations  which  are  to  be  construed.  And  I  propose  now  to  con- 
strue them. 

I  come  to  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
In  that  I  find  all  that  is  found  in  regard  to  the  delivery  of  fugitive 
slaves.  And  I  intend  to  ask,  What  does  that  language  mean  ?  Con- 
strue it  by  the  same  rules  according  to  which  the  other  clauses  are  con- 
strued. In  the  first  place,  the  first  section  of  the  fourth  article  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  says,  "  Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be 
given  in  each  State  to  the  public  acts,  records,  and  judicial  proceedings 
of  every  other  State."  Every  State  shall  give  full  faith  and  credit  to 
the  public  records  of  every  other  State.  Does  this  grant  power  to  any- 
body ?  I  see  in  the  words  that  follow,  what  the  makers  of  the  Consti- 
tution thought  on  that  subject.     I  see  that  they  thought  it  did  not  grant 


740  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  power  to  congress,  because  they  add  language  giving  the  power. 
What  I  have  read  is  no  grant  of  power  to  congress.  It  is  a  prohibition 
to  the  States.  It  says,  You  shall  not  deny  your  belief  in  the  truth  of 
the  public  records  of  your  sister  States.  If  a  court  in  South  Carolina 
says  a  certain  thing,  you  are  to  give  full  faith  to  it.  That  does  not  say 
that  congress  shall  do  any  thing  about  it.  And  the  people  of  the  United 
States  did  not  understand  that  congress  had  the  power.  The  makers  of 
the  Constitution  did  not  understand,  from  the  extract  which  I  have  read, 
that  congress  had  any  power  over  the  subject ;  and  for  this  reason,  that  the 
close  of  the  section  gives  to  congress  the  power  which  would  have  been 
needless  had  the  preceding  language  conferred  it.  "  And  the  congress  may, 
by  general  laws,  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  such  acts,  records,  and 
proceedings  shall  be  proved,  and  the  effect  thereof."  What  need  was 
there  of  adding  this  latter  clause,  if  the  first  was  a  grant  of  power  ? 
You  may  read  this  Constitution  through,  and  you  will  not  find  any  words 
wasted.  Every  word  means  something.  It  was  put  there  because  it 
was  necessary,  and  because  the  meaning  would  not  have  been  there 
without  it.  I  say,  that  that  first  clause  did  not  contain  a  grant  of  power ; 
and  the  men  who  put  it  there  knew  it.  They  first  say,  that  faith  shall 
be  given ;  and  then  bestow  on  congress  the  power  in  relation  thereto. 
The  powers  not  delegated  to  congress  are  reserved  to  the  States.  That 
power  would  have  been  reserved  to  the  States,  if  not  given  to  congress 
in  the  last  clause  of  this  section.  Can  language  make  that  clearer  ?  I 
go  to  the  next  section. 

Sect.  2.  "  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the 
privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States." 

Very  well !  A  colored  man  in  Massachusetts  goes  out  from  our  ports, 
and  goes  into  one  of  the  harbors  of  South  Carolina.  They  do  not  give 
him  the  immunities  of  the  citizen  of  the  State.  Does  any  southern  man 
contend  that  congress  has  the  power  to  enforce  that  section  ?  No ! 
there  is  no  power  granted  there.  There  is  a  declaration  of  a  principle, 
but  it  does  not  say  that  congress  shall  possess  the  power  to  enforce  it. 
Therefore  they  say  that  South  Carolina  may  make  what  laws  she  pleases, 
and  the  United  States  government  can  do  nothing  to  prevent  it.  They 
adopt  one  rule  for  this  clause,  and  another  rule  for  another  clause  in  the 
same  section.  But  do  I  say  that  congress  has  the  power  to  enforce 
action  in  consonance  with  this  clause,  in  the  harbor  of  Charleston  ?  No ! 
I  choose  strict  construction  on  all  these  clauses.  I  adopt  the  rule  of 
strict  construction  in  them  all,  and  not  a  strict  construction  in  one  and  a 
loose  one  in  another. 

The  next  clause  is  as  follows :  "  A  person  charged  in  any  State  with 
treason,  felony,  or  any  other  crime,  who  shall  flee  from  justice  and  be 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  741 

found  in  another  State,  shall,  on  demand  of  the  executive  authority  of 
the  State  from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  to  be  removed  to  the 
State  having  jurisdiction  of  the  crime."  Under  that  clause  no  serious 
difficulty  has  arisen.  The  States  have  given  up  criminals,  and  no  State 
has  of  late  years  objected  to  it. 

Then  comes  the  next  clause :  "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in 
one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  con- 
sequence of  any  law  or  regulation  therein  be  discharged  from  such  ser- 
vice or  labor." 

To  whom  is  that  directed  ?  To  the  States  or  to  Congress  ?  To  the 
States  I  It  says,  "  no  person  shall  be  discharged  by  any  law  or  regula- 
tion of  the  States."  That  is  a  regulation  addressed  to  the  States  and 
not  to  the  Union.  And  then  it  goes  on  to  say,  "  But  shall  be  delivered 
up  on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due." 

In  the  case  of  a  person  charged  with  crime,  the  rule  is,  that  he  shall 
be  removed  to  the  State  having  jurisdiction  of  the  crime.  Now,  if  the 
first  part  of  this  section  is  addressed  to  the  States,  then  to  whom  is  the 
subsequent  clause  addressed  ?  For  it  does  not  go  on  to  say  Congress 
shall  make  the  laws,  but  it  says  you  shall  deliver  up.  How  can  any 
person  contend  that  one  is  addressed  to  the  States  and  the  other  not  ? 

One  clause  says  they  shall  not  make  laws,  and  the  next  that  they  shall 
deliver  up.  I  say,  that  that  last  clause  is  as  clearly  addressed  to  the 
States  as  the  first.  And  then  I  go  back  to  the  old  rule  laid  down  by  our 
fathers,  Avritten  by  Samuel  Adams  in  the  bill  of  rights  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  which  he  says,  "  Every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,  shall 
remain  with  the  people,  unless  specially  delegated  to  congress."  Have 
these  powers  been  delegated  ? 

There  is  not,  then,  in  this  clause,  a  delegation  of  power  to  the  United 
States  government  to  pass  any  law  about  fugitives  from  labor.  There 
is  a  direction  that  certain  things  shall  be  done,  and  that  certain  other 
things  shall  not  be  done.  And  that  is  directed  to  the  States.  A  fugi- 
tive shall  not,  by  any  law  or  regulation  of  that  State,  be  discharged. 
That  is  addressed  to  the  State. 

I  come,  then,  to  the  conclusion  to  which  the  present  head  of  the  State 
department  came,  and  which  he  announced  again  as  late  as  March  7, 
1850.  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  section  of  the  Constitution  was 
addressed  to  the  States.  I  quote  Mr.  Webster's  opinion  for  this  reason, 
that  he  has  always  gone  rather  further  in  favor  of  increasing  the  power 
of  the  government  than  the  democratic  party.  Mr.  Webster  has  gone 
further  than  we  have.  He  has  allowed  a  national  bank  to  be  constitu- 
tional. I  might  give  other  cases.  His  mind  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it 
has  a  tendency  to  extend  the  powers  of  the  United  States  government 


742  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

a  great  deal  farther  than  the  democratic  party  have  thought  it  right. 
I  am  not  now  criticizing  his  opinions  in  favor  of  enlarging  the  powers 
of  the  government.  He  has  been  a  federalist  all  his  life,  belonging  to  a 
party  who  have  been  inclined  to  give  great  power  to  the  United  States 
government.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely,  that  if  the  power  had  existed  in 
the  Constitution,  he  would  there  have  found  it.  He  says  particularly 
that  he  thought  it  was  directed  to  the  States,  and  not  to  the  general 
government. 

The  United  States  supreme  court  have  made  a  decision  to  the  con- 
trary. That  is  a  fact  which  stares  us  full  in  the  face.  In  the  case  of 
Prigg  V.  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  they  decided  that  the  States  have 
no  right  to  legislate  for  the  carrying  into  effect  of  this  section,  but  that 
the  power  thereof  lies  in  congress.  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  proper  for 
me,  considering  my  profession  as  a  lawyer,  to  argue  the  case  against 
them.  But  I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  decision,  or  their  reasons  for  it. 
And  I  believe  it  was  a  mistake.  I  believe,  too,  that  it  was  a  mistake, 
the  whole  consequences  of  which  will  not  be  seen  for  many  years.  I 
think  they  should  have  taken  the  ground  the  democratic  party  must 
take,  (for  they  cannot  come  to  any  other  conclusion,)  and  which  Daniel 
Webster  tells  us  was  his  opinion,  that  the  language  of  this  clause  of  the 
Constitution  was  addressed  to  the  States. 

Why,  my  friends,  two  sets  of  dangers  have  always  threatened  this 
government  in  the  view  of  the  people ;  one  party  has  feared  that  it 
might  fall  to  pieces ;  the  other  that  it  might  become  too  strong.  Which 
have  we  now  most  reason  to  apprehend  ?  Is  there  any  danger  that  our 
government  will  prove  to  be  too  weak  ?  Originally,  one  fear  was  that 
they  could  not  raise  money  enough  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  gov- 
ernment. They  did  not  think  of  obtaining  a  revenue  by  the  taxation  of 
imports  to  such  an  extent  as  to  raise  thirty  or  forty  millions  of  dollars. 
They  thought  of  one  million,  one  and  a  half  or  two  millions  of  dollars. 
Alexander  Hamilton  said  that  the  government  could  not  be  carried  on 
because  men  would  not  travel  from  Maine  and  Georgia,  as  far  as  Wash- 
ington, for  the  purpose  of  participating  in  the  affairs  of  government. 
Now  it  is  not  difficult  to  find  men  of  the  first  order  of  talent  to  come 
even  from  California,  if  their  mileage  be  paid. 

The  dangers  that  the  general  government  could  not  enlist  powerful 
men ;  that  it  could  not  raise  money  enough  for  its  expenses,  have  disap- 
peared in  smoke  and  mist,  and  we  can  now  hardly  conceive  of  such 
dangers. 

But  the  contrary  danger  is  more  and  more  a  reality.  There  may  be 
a  continual  accumulation  of  power  by  the  general  government.  There 
may  be  such  an  increase  of  taxation  as  to  crush  the  community.     There 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  743 

may  be  a  large  standing  army.  Nobody  thinks  of  any  objection  to  add- 
ing a  million  or  five  millions  of  dollars  for  the  support  of  the  army  or 
navy.  But  add  a  few  thousand  dollars  to  the  salary  of  the  judges  of 
the  United  States,  and  there  will  be  a  great  outcry  about  the  lavish 
expenditure  of  the  government. 

I  say,  that  the  constant  increase  of  power  of  the  general  government 
does  seriously  atFect  the  interests  of  the  community.  If  that  be  so,  how 
is  it  to  be  cured  ?  How  is  it  to  be  prevented?  For  prevention  is  easier 
than  cure.  It  is  to  be  prevented  by  the  strict  construction  of  the  Con- 
stitution. And  this  becomes  every  hour  more  necessary,  not  only  be- 
cause it  will  prevent  the  enlargement  of  the  power  of  the  government, 
but  in  consequence  of  the  great  extent  of  our  territory. 

If  the  government  extended  over  New  England  only,  there  is  a  homo- 
geneous people  which  might  be  easily  managed.  But  when  we  come  to 
have  States  like  New  England,  States  like  the  cotton  and  planting 
States  of  the  south  and  west,  with  new  and  distant  States  like  California, 
containing  divers  habits,  religions,  and  so  much  diversity  in  all  those 
things  which  make  a  people  one  people,  then  it  is  important  that  the 
sphere  of  your  general  government  should  not  be  extended  into  all  sorts 
of  matters.  It  should  be  restricted  to  its  proper  subjects.  For  instance, 
the  regulation  of  foreign  commerce.  That  is  necessarily  done  by  the 
general  government.  I  am  for  carrying  it  a  little  further  than  some 
people.  Knowing  that  it  was  the  intent  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion to  carry  it  as  far  as  necessity  went,  I  am  for  carrying  it  far  as  that 
necessity  demands. 

And  when  the  general  government  decided  that  this  power  could  be 
exercised  for  the  construction  of  lighthouses,  the  construction  of  piers,  and 
for  the  removal  of  obstructions  in  the  harbors  of  our  eastern  ports,  and 
when  I  saw  all  that,  I  thought  that  it  was  a  legitimate  exercise  of  power. 
And  I  thought  the  same  principle  could  be  carried  into  the  west,  just  as 
well  as  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  If  that  power  will  authorize  the  removal 
of  an  obstruction  in  New  York  harbor,  it  will  authorize  the  removal  of 
obstructions  in  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi.  If  it  will  authorize  ex- 
penditures at  Cape  Ann,  it  will  also  authorize  them  in  Lake  Michigan. 
Give  the  west  fair  play.  Let  the  government  do  what  must  be  done ; 
and  then  carry  the  principle  out,  so  as  to  make  it  fair  and  equal  for  all 
sections  of  the  country.  But  having  done  that,  I  would  not  allow  the 
general  government  to  go  into  any  exercise  of  power  which  is  not  dele- 
gated to  it.  Since  the  decision  of  the  case  of  Prigg,  the  States  have 
thought  they  were  not  responsible  for  what  was  done.  They  have  there- 
fore in  some  cases  refused  the  use  of  their  jails,  and  the  assistance  of  their 


744  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

officers,  for  the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves.  The  United  States  govern- 
ment now  go  on  and  legislate. 

It  would  be  easy  to  illustrate,  in  a  thousand  ways,  the  evils  that  may 
grow  in  the  future  history  of  the  country  out  of  this  disposition  of  the 
general  government  to  encroach  upon  the  rights  of  the  States,  —  to  show 
that  the  fears  of  Thomas  JeiFerson,  and  Samuel  Adams,  and  Patrick 
Henry,  and  Elbridge  Gerry,  —  fears  of  indefinite  usurpation  tending 
towards,  and  finally  terminating  in  consolidated  federal  despotism, — 
may  perhaps  some  day  be  realized.  I  prefer  to  take  this  precise  evil  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  effect  of  this  tendency.  A  law  which  is  made  by 
a  State,  is  likely  to  be  suited  to  what  is  to  be  done.  The  State  of  Mas- 
sachusetts knows  what  her  people  can  bear,  and  what  they  cannot  bear. 
But  if  a  law  is  to  be  made  contrary  to  the  sentiments  of  any  State,  it 
will  be  impracticable  to  carry  it  out  in  that  State. 

How  does  that  apply  to  the  question  of  slavery  ?  Just  in  this  way  ! 
The  retaking  of  fugitive  slaves  is  to  be  carried  out,  if  anywhere,  in  a  free 
State.  Slaves  do  not,  when  they  escape,  stop  in  a  slave  State.  If  fugi- 
tives are  to  be  returned  from  any  place,  it  is  from  a  free  State.  When 
congress  makes  a  law  on  the  subject,  it  makes  it  against  the  very  inmost 
sentiments  of  the  souls  of  the  people  of  the  free  States. 

Is  that  a  power  likely  by  its  exercise  to  tend  to  the  perpetuation  of 
the  Union,  by  carrying  out  this  law  ?  I  propose  to  perpetuate  the  Union 
by  checking  the  power  of  the  general  government,  by  confining  it  within 
its  legitimate  sphere  of  action,  to  those  concerns  upon  which  it  may  act 
for  the  common  good,  without  arousing  indignation  and  hatred  in  one 
section  against  the  other  ;  sometimes  driving  South  Carolina  to  the  brink 
of  rebellion  by  the  galling  weight  of  unjust  and  intolerable  taxation,  and 
sometimes  outraging  all  that  is  honest  and  patriotic  in  puritan  Massachu- 
setts, by  levelling,  at  a  single  blow,  all  those  bulwarks  of  liberty,  which 
barons  bold  and  sages  grave  in  the  olden  time,  and  the  republicans  who 
brought  the  Stuart  to  the  block,  with  those  who  broke  the  yoke  of  the 
House  of  Hanover  in  later  days,  had  labored,  each  in  their  generation 
since  the  twelfth  century,  to  erect;  which  it  is  the  proudest  prerogative 
and  boast  of  Great  Britain  that  she  possesses  ;  and  which  constituted 
the  richest  inheritance  that  our  fathers  received  from  the  mother  island 
empire.  I  propose  that  the  federal  power  shall  lift  its  iron  heel  from 
the  neck  of  Massachusetts,  and  return  to  its  appointed  duty,  and  circum- 
scribed routine. 

But  we  are  told  that  these  are  measures  of  conciliation,  measures  of 
peace.  Enforce  this  law,  and  we  shall  have  peace  and  quietness,  it  is 
said.     How  ?     Is  one  third  of  the  white  people  of  the  United  States  to 


745 

dictate  to  the  other  two  thirds,  and  call  their  submission  peace  ?  I  admit 
that  these  slave  interests  may  set  one  part  of  the  country  against  the 
other.  It  may  so  happen  that  difficulties  will  take  place  in  either  case, 
whether  you  legislate  according  to  opinions  almost  universal,  and  moral 
feelings  deeply  rooted,  and  sanctioned  by  the  religion  of  nine  tenths  of 
the  people  of  the  North  who  possess  either  morals  or  religion,  or  whether 
you  legislate  according  to  notions  which  are  common  in  all  communities 
upon  whom  the  institution  of  slavery  has  been  entailed.  But  is  it  just 
as  likely  to  cause  difficulty  when  two  thirds  of  the  whole  people  of  the 
country  are  irritated,  as  when  only  one  third  are  irritated  ?  I  see  no 
way  of  getting  out  of  this  difficulty,  so  straight-forward,  so  sure  of  its 
results,  as  it  would  be,  if  practicable,  to  go  back  to  the  old  democratic 
principle,  of  the  strict  construction  of  all  constitutional  grants  of  power  ; 
and  finding  no  such  power  delegated,  finding  that  it  is  not  so  nominated 
in  the  bond,  to  say  the  United  States  government  have  nothing  to  do 
with  this  matter. 

But,  Sir,  and  gentlemen,  as  this  subject  is  one  of  great  interest,  and 
as  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  most  commonly  discussed  is  diffi;rent 
from  the  course  I  have  pursued,  allow  me  to  go  one  step  further.  If  it  be 
granted,  which  I  do  not  grant  at  all,  —  if  it  be  granted  that  the  United 
States  government  has  the  right  to  make  a  law  upon  this  subject,  under 
the  fourth  article,  let  us  inquire  what  sort  of  a  law  it  gives  them  a  right 
to  make  ;  for  that  is  a  matter  of  great  consequence.  A  man  charged  with 
crime  shall  on  demand  be  delivered  up.  That  is  the  law.  What  have 
you  to  ascertain  before  you  give  him  up  ?  Simply  that  he  is  charged! 
That  means,  that  he  is  charged  by  some  responsible  person,  on  what  a 
lawyer  would  call  good  and  probable  cause  ;  upon  which  charge,  so  far 
substantiated,  the  executive  of  the  State  from  which  it  is  alleged  that  he- 
fled,  demands  him,  by  a  formal  written  requisition. 

Where  shall  he  be  tried  ?  Where  he  is  charged  !  It  is  a  privilege 
to  the  party  charged  with  crime,  that  he  shall  be  tried  where  the  crime 
is  alleged  to  have  been  committed.  This  is  inserted  for  the  benefit  of 
the  person  charged  with  crime.  So  that  if  a  persoft  be  charged  with 
crime,  let  him  go  back  to  the  place  where  it  is  alleged  that  the  deed  was 
committed,  for  there  he  can  most  easily  prove  his  innocence.  This  is 
based  on  a  very  ancient  princi{)le  of  the  English  common  law. 

The  question  to  be  decided  is,  Is  the  man  charged  ?  Does  a  respon- 
sible man  who  would  be  convicted  of  perjury  if  it  were  not  true,  swear 
that  he  committed  the  crime  ?  If  so,  we  will  take  his  oath  and  send  the 
accused  man  back.  We  will  take  the  requisition  of  the  executive  as 
proof  that  such  a  charge  has  been  made.  He  does  not  have  his  trial 
where  he  is  found,  but  only  his  preliminary  trial  there.    The  preliminary 

63 


746  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

inquiry  in  sucli  a  case  may  be  accomplished  by  a  summary  process,  for 
it  includes  little  more  than  the  verification  of  tlie  authority  under  which 
he  is  demanded,  and  proof  of  the  fugitiv- e's  identity.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  have  a  jury  in  Massachusetts  to  try  a  man  who  is  charged  with  having 
committed  a  murder  in  New  York.  You  could  not  conveniently  give 
him  a  fair  and  full  trial  here.  You,  therefore,  go  through  a  summary 
process  to  determine  whether  it  is  necessary  to  send  this  man  back. 

I  go  next  to  the  succeeding  clause.  I  know  that  the  men  who  made 
this  Constitution  knew  what  they  were  about,  and  did  not  put  a  single 
clause  here,  or  a  single  w^ord  here,  without  meaning.  There  is  no 
book  in  the  English  language,  of  which  the  construction  is  so  plain,  as 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  If  a  man  comes  to  it  with  a  sin- 
cere and  honest  heart,  and  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  one  portion 
with  another,  he  cannot  fail  to  come  to  a  right  conclusion. 

We  come,  then,  to  the  next  section  :  "  No  person  held  to  service  or 
labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall, 
in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged,"  etc. 
There  is  a  very  extraordinary  difference  of  language  between  this  sec- 
tion and  the  preceding  one.  In  that  it  was  a  "  person  charged  with 
crime."  There  was  probable  cause  to  believe  that  he  might  be  guilty. 
But  in  this  section,  is  it  a  person  charged  with  being  held  to  service  ?  a 
person  that  somebody  swears  was  held  to  service  ?  The  Constitution 
tells  you  what  it  is  :  "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor,"  etc.  If  he  is 
not  held,  he  is  not  liable.  "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one 
State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence 
of  any  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor ;  but 
shall  be  delivered  up,"  etc.  Who  shall  be  delivered  up  ?  The  person 
"  held."  Not  the  person  "  charged,"  as  in  the  case  of  a  person  charged 
witli  murder.  It  is  not  the  person  suspected,  but  it  is  the  person  "  held'^ 
When  ?     Not  till  it  is  found  out  whether  he  he  held  or  not,  I  take  it. 

But  the  person  held  to  service  or  labor  "  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim 
of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due."  The  party 
who  held  him  must  prove  that  the  service  or  labor  is  due,  and  that  he 
was  held.  IIow  is  this  to  be  done  ?  Is  it  to  be  done  by  a  summary  pro- 
cess ?  Did  any  man  ever  hear  of  such  a  thing,  except  in  relation  to 
slavery  ?  Did  any  man  ever  hear  that  any  question  of  liberty  or  proi:)erty 
was  finally  disposed  of  by  means  of  a  summary  process,  except  in  rela- 
tion to  this  subject  of  slavery  ? 

W"e  are  told,  that  we  should  submit.  Now,  I  do  not  go  to  a  southern 
State  to  tell  them  what  they  shall  do,  or  what  they  shall  not  do.  Let 
them  provide  for  their  own  institutions  as  they  please,  but  let  them  not 
come  here  and  tell  me  that  a  man  shall  not  have  a  trial  by  jury,  and 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  747 

that  he  shall  not  only  not  have  a  jury  trial  here,  but,  perhaps,  nowhere 
else.     I  do  not  admit  any  such  doctrine  here. 

Why,  is  it  not  quite  clear  how  this  question  whether  he  be  held  to 
service  or  not,  should  be  decided  ?  What  is  the  principle  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  on  that  subject  ?  For  there  is  a  iDrinciple 
laid  down  here.  There  is  very  little  left  out  that  ought  to  be  in  this 
Constitution.  There  is  laid  down  here  the  rule  that  no  man  shall  ''  be 
deprived  of  his  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law." 
That  is  in  the  fifth  article  of  the  amendments  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

Xow  I  take  it,  if  you  seize  a  colored  man,  —  or  you  may  seize  a 
white  man  under  the  operation  of  this  law,  —  if  you  seize  any  man  in 
Massachusetts  under  this  fugitive  slave  law,  the  first  question  is.  Shall 
he  be  deprived  of  liberty  ?  You  are  not  to  take  it  for  granted  that  he 
is  a  slave.  All  presumptions  of  law  are  in  favor  of  liberty.  It  is  a 
maxim  older  than  Christianity  itself,  '•^  Presumitur  pro  Uhertate ;''  that 
the  presumption  is  always  to  be  in  favor  of  liberty.  Xow,  if  I  say  it 
was  the  maxim  of  ancient  Rome  before  Christ  was  born,  it  is  the  maxim 
of  Christian  Europe,  and  of  everybody,  the  world  over,  to-day ;  it  is  the 
maxiin  of  the  civil  law  of  Europe,  coming  from  the  early  ages  of  the 
republic,  through  the  empire,  and  surviving  the  empire,  a  system  of  law 
matured  for  twenty-five  hundred  years,  into  the  most  perfect  embodi- 
ment of  human  reason  to  which  the  world  has  given  birth;  this  law 
cried  through  all  time,  "all  men  are  by  nature  free; "  it  is  the  great  cry 
of  Pagandom  to  Christendom,  and  Christendom  echoes  it  back  ;  it  is  the 
maxim  of  the  common  law  of  England  ;  it  is  the  maxim  of  the  common 
law  of  Massachusetts ;  it  is  the  maxim  of  the  whole  world,  save  only 
the  slave-holding  States  of  this  Union.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  the 
man  is  free,  from  the  fact  that  he  is  a  man  made  in  the  image  of  God. 

The  image  of  God  stamped  upon  him  certifies  him  to  be  free.  The 
human  form  divine  with  which  he  walks  erect  and  proudly  looks  to 
heaven,  certifies  him  to  be  free.  And  when  all  Roman  and  all  Euro- 
pean, aye,  Asiatic  and  American  laws  have  decided  he  shall  be  free, — 
when  that  is  the  universal  law  of  the  world,  I  will  not  agree  that  any 
miserable  notion  of  a  temporary  expediency  shall  make  me  bow  down 
to  that  very  detestable,  abominable,  horrible,  and  wicked  doctrine,  that 
the  color  of  a  man  shall  establish  the  fact,  or  even  furnish  a  presump- 
tion of  the  fact,  that  he  is  not  free. 

I  go  on,  then,  upon  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  I  say 
this  man  found  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  is  presumed  to  be  free ; 
and,  therefore,  when  you  seek  to  make  a  slave  of  him,  the  question  is. 
Shall  he  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  ?     He  has  his  liberty.     Shall  he  be 


748  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND  WRITINGS 

deprived  of  it  ?  The  Constitution  says  he  shall  not  be  deprived  of  his 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law. 

I  admire  the  arrangement  of  those  three  words.  I  admire  the  put- 
ting of  liberty  between  life  and  property.  There  are  two  schools  on 
this  subject :  some  who  think  life  is  worth  more  than  property,  some 
■who  think  the  life  of  a  man  is  worth  more  than  the  shirt  upon  his  back ; 
and  others  who  have  a  sacred  regard  for  the  dollars  a  man  possesses,  and 
believe  that  his  purse  is  vastly  more  important  than  his  person.  If  a 
man  thinks  that  life  is  the  more  important  of  the  two,  then  is  liberty 
placed  most  appropriately  by  the  side  of  it.  If  on  the  contrary  he 
thinks  property  of  the  most  importance,  then  liberty  takes  precedence 
even  of  that.  Between  property  and  life,  it  is  in  either  case  in  a  re- 
spectable position. 

What  is  "  due  process  of  luw  ?  "  Let  me  say  why  it  was  that  that 
clause  was  put  there.  For  all  these  safeguards  are  inserted  in  the  Con- 
stitution by  its  framers,  or  by  those  who  amended  it,  because  they  knew 
what  had  happened  in  the  past.  Men  had  been  deprived  of  their  lives, 
their  liberty,  and  their  property,  without  due  process  of  law.  They  had 
in  their  minds  the  practices  in  the  house  of  Stuart  under  James  I.  and 
Charles  I.,  and  in  a  degree  under  Charles  II.  and  James  11.  Men's  lib- 
erties had  been  taken  away  without  due  process  of  law,  without  trial  by 
jury.  This  was  accomplished  by  means  of  the  star-chamber,  without 
trial  by  jury,  without  the  confronting  of  witnesses. 

In  that  star-chamber,  and  also  by  means  of  certain  other  courts,  the 
liberties  of  the  citizens  were  taken  away.  Commissioners  were  also 
appointed,  constituting  irregular  courts,  not  the  courts  of  the  king's 
bench,  nor  any  other  courts,  with  stated  terms ;  but  this  appointment  was 
•effected  by  selecting  certain  individuals,  fit  tools  of  the  tyrant.  These 
would  constitute  a  court,  for  the  express  purpose  of  trying  a  certain  man. 
Commissioners  were  appointed  who  went  down  and  tried  the  case  with- 
out a  jury,  and  without  a  public  hearing  and  without  confronting  the 
w^itnesses.  In  that  way  men's  liberties  have  been  taken  away.  This 
was  no  new  thing  under  the  Stuarts.  It  had  been  done  under  the  Tu- 
dors,  under  the  Plantagenets,  and  even  before  the  Plantagenets.  This 
very  ancient  abomination,  this  hoary  survivor  of  the  iniquities  of  a  thou- 
sand years,  had  been  among  the  causes  of  the  civil  wars  between  the 
monarch  and  the  subject,  in  which  British  swords  were  sheathed  in 
British  hearts,  till  the  genuine  Norman  nobility  was  almost  extermina- 
ted from  the  land.  It  was  denounced  in  all  the  bills  of  rights  in  the 
English  language,  and  in  charters  before  the  English  language  was 
known,  in  Magna  Charta,  before  Magna  Charta,  and  perpetually  in  all 
proclamations  of  liberties  afterwards. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  749 

When  this  article  was  added  to  the  Constitution,  those  who  did  it 
meant  to  guard  against  these  usurpations  of  power.  Governments  are 
the  same  in  all  ages,  and  these  things  might  be  done  in  our  nation  as 
well  as  elsewhere.  No  man  shall  "  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  pro- 
perty, without  due  process  of  law."  By  due  process  of  law,  they  meant 
in  due  process  of  proceeding  in  common  law.  It  was  the  taking  away 
of  the  trial  by  jury,  it  was  the  taking  away  of  the  habeas  corpus,  it  was 
star-chamber  doctrine,  — it  was  all  this  against  which  they  acted. 

What  was  due  process  of  law?  That  general  examination  of  the 
Constitution,  of  which  I  have  given  you  only  a  sketch,  would  show  you 
what  it  was.  To  prevent  any  possible  ambiguity,  they  said,  in  the 
seventh  article  of  amendments,  "  in  suits  at  common  law  where  the 
value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by 
jury  shall  be  preserved." 

And  they  supposed,  when  they  had  secured  both  criminal  prosecutions 
and  civil  suits,  that  they  had  covered  every  thing.  They  meant  to  cover 
all  things,  except  well  known  and  well  defined  proceedings  in  admiralty, 
proceedings  in  chancery,  and  also  courts  martial.  They  meant  to  in- 
clude all  save  those  exceptional  cases,  and  they  did  not  suppose  that 
anybody  would  imagine  that  the  trial  of  a  man's  liberty  was  one  of  these. 
The  writ  to  ascertain  whether  a  serf  belonged  to  the  lord  who  claimed 
him,  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  common  law. 

Will  any  one  rise  up  and  say  that  a  man's  liberty  is  not  worth  twenty 
dollars  ?  If  a  man  owes  another  eighteen  or  twenty  dollars,  and  it  costs 
a  hundred  dollars  to  get  it,  he  would  certainly  better  not  have  a  jury  to 
try  the  case.  All  sums  below  twenty  dollars  cannot  be  tried  by  a 
jury  for  this  reason,  namely,  that  it  would  cost  more  than  that  to  try  the 
case. 

Some  limit  it  was  necessary  to  fix ;  and  that  amount  was  selected  as 
the  most  appropriate.  They  never  dreamed  that  any  man's  liberty 
would  not  be  considered  worth  twenty  dollars. 

What  is  a  man's  liberty  v/orth  ?  Will  the  oivner  say  it  is  not  worth 
twenty  dollars  ?  If  it  be  worth,  to  the  master,  five  hundred  dollars,  is  it 
not  worth  as  much  to  the  man  himself?  No  slave  would  escape,  no 
master  would  pursue  him,  no  master  would  keep  him,  if  he  were  not 
worth  more  than  twenty  dollars.  But,  "  in  suits  at  common  law,  where 
the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  of  trial 
by  jury  shall  be  preserved."  Now  the  supreme  court  of  the  United 
States  have  decided  (in  the  case  of  Lee  against  Lee)  that  a  man's  lib- 
erty is  worth  to  him,  in  all  cases,  more  than  one  thousand  dollars,  and 
that  where  there  is  no  appeal  unless  the  amount  in  controversy  exceeds 

63* 


750  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

one  tliousand  dollars,  if  the  liberty  of  the  party  be  brought  in  question, 
he  shall  have  his  appeal. 

Due  process  of  law  is  meant  to  distinguish  the  careful,  guarded,  strict, 
precise  manner  known  to  the  English  law,  from  the  summary  military 
process  used  in  time  of  war.  There  can,  therefore,  be  no  doubt  that  a 
person  held  to  service  is,  by  due  process  of  law,  entitled  to  his  trial  by 

There  are  other  questions  entitled  to  consideration,  if  I  did  not  per- 
ceive that  the  hour  is  approaching  at  which  a  great  portion  of  my  audi- 
ence will  be  obhged  to  leave  the  hall  if  they  wish  to  reach  their  homes 
to-night. 

I  lay  down  two  propositions  :  first,  that  the  government  have  no  jot 
or  tittle  of  power,  authorizing  them  to  act  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive 
slaves ;  and  second,  even  if  they  had  such  a  power,  this  clause  would 
require  that  it  should  be  exercised  under  due  process  of  law,  which  due 
process  of  law  includes  a  jury  triah  A  jury  trial,  where?  "A  person 
Jield  to  service  shall  be  delivered  up."  Certainly,  in  the  place  where  he 
is  seized !  He  should  be  tried  by  an  impartial  jury.  It  is  said,  carry  a 
man  from  Maine  to  Texas,  and  then  he  can  have  his  trial.  I  should 
prefer  not  to  run  that  risk  if  I  were  liable  to  be  arrested.  I  would  make 
it  certain  whether  I  had  been  held  to  service,  before  I  ran  the  risk  of 
perpetual  servitude,  by  being  carried  into  a  slave  State. 

But  that  is  not  all.  Suppose  that  every  man  who  claims  a  fugitive 
slave  were  as  wise  as  Solomon,  and  as  upright  as  Sir  Matthew  ITale. 
Suppose  he  were  determined  to  give  the  alleged  fugitive  a  fair  trial  in  a 
slave  State.  What  follows  ?  Simply,  that  in  the  slave-holding  States, 
the  rule  of  law  is  opposite  to  what  it  is  here.  Here  he  is  a  freeman  till 
he  be  proved  to  be  a  slave.  There  he  is  a  slave  till  he  be  proved  to  be 
a  freeman. 

The  rule  at  the  South  is,  that  a  colored  man  is  a  slave  till  he  be 
proved  free.  He  may  be  free  and  unable  to  prove  it,  because  he  has  lost 
his  free  papers.  He  may  be  free  because  his  mother  and  grandmother 
were  free  before  him,  and  they  might  not  be  able  to  testify  in  a  south- 
ern court. 

Suppose  that  they  should  always  construe  their  laws  fairly.  Would 
you  send  a  man  back  to  a  system  of  laws  where  a  man  is  presumed  to 
be  a  slave  ?  I  say  no  !  Never !  Try  a  man  where  he  is  presumed  to 
be  free. 

I  will  go  no  further,  but  simply  read  these  resolutions  which  I  believe 
embody  the  substance  of  what  I  have  said,  and  leave  them  to  your  de- 
cision. I  have  made  this  explanation,  though  I  knew  that  it  would  be 
distasteful  to  some  persons  who  have,  heretofore,  voted  for  me.     I  want 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  751 

them  to  show  their  numbers  in  favor  of  the  expediency  of  making  a 
chano-e  in  the  candidate.  I  want  the  democratic  party  to  strike  out  the 
course  which  they  will  choose  to  pursue  ;  and  I  think  they  need  no  assur- 
ance from  me  that  in  any  course  they  may  adopt,  for  the  furtherance  of 
sound  democratic  principles,  the  ancient  principles  of  old  fashioned  lib- 
erty, they  will  find  in  me  a  zealous  coadjutor.  I  will  read  the  resolu- 
tions, because  they  state  my  position  more  clearly  than  the  remarks 
which  I  have  had  the  honor  to  address  to  you. 

[The  resolutions  were  then  put  to  vote,  and  the  response  shook  the 
hall  like  thunder.  They  were  passed  by  an  overwhelming  "  aye  "  to 
one  solitary  "?zo/"  Mr.  Rantoul  was  then  unanimously  re-nominated 
for  congress.] 


m  THE  COXSTITUTIOXALITY  OF  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW.* 

The  House  being  in  committee  of  the  whole,  and  having  under  con- 
sideration the  bill  making  appropriation  for  the  Indian  department,  Mr. 
Rantoul  said :  — 

Mr.  CiiAiKitAN,  the  gentleman  from  Vermont,  (Mr.  Meachara,)  who 
spoke  yesterday,  and  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  (Mr.  Stevens,) 
who  has  just  taken  his  seat,  have  addressed  to  me,  individually,  a  large 
portion  of  the  remarks  which  they  have  had  occasion  to  make  upon  the 
subject  of  the  tariff.  Now,  Sir,  I  am  not  concerned,  but  that  the  com- 
mon sense  of  the  world,  operating  as  it  is  upon  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic, 
will  set  this  question  of  free  trade  and  protection  right,  without  any 
assistance  from  me.  I  am  not  afraid  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  will  be  made  to  believe  that  the  highest  taxation  is  the  greatest 
blessing.  I  am  not  afraid  that  the  farmers  of  the  West,  by  any  degree 
of  ingenuity,  can  ever  be  led  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  better  for  them 
to  give  two  barrels  of  flour  for  a  certain  quantity  of  iron,  rather  than 
one  barrel  of  flour  for  the  same  quantity  of  iron  ;  and  to  that  it  comes. 
Gentlemen  may  talk  by  the  hour  together  about  this  question.  Reduce 
it  down  to  its  ultimate  elements,  and  it  is  simply  this  for  an  agricultural 
nation  :  Do  you  choose,  for  the  product  of  so  many  days'  labor,  to  get  a 
ton  of  iron ;  or  would  you  prefer,  for  the  same  amount  of  labor,  to  get 
only  half  a  ton  of  iron  ?  If  gentlemen  of  the  West  think  two  tons  of 
iron  better  than  one,  and  if  they  think  they  had  better  buy  a  given 
quantity  with  one  barrel  of  flour  rather  than  with  two,  then  I  think  they 

*  A  Speech  deUvered  in  Congress,  June  11,  1852. 


752  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

will  never  aid  Pennsylvania  in  screwing  down  labor,  which  has  been 
the  effect  of  protection  in  England,  Spain,  and  France,  and  wherever  it 
has  been  tried.  I  think  they  will  never  aid  Pennsylvania  capitalists  in 
screwing  labor  to  the  lowest  point,  in  order  to  carry  out  theories  which 
have  been  tried  over  and  over  again,  and  failed  wherever  they  have 
been  tried. 

Sir,  the  gentleman  who  last  addressed  the  house  addressed  it  very 
ably  and  very  eloquently,  but  in  a  long  series  of  historical  facts,  he  is 
totally  mistaken  in  his  idea.  The  supposition,  that  civilized  nations  have 
always  adopted  high  protective  tariffs,  is  ridiculously  wide  of  the  truth. 
Why,  Sir,  the  commerce  of  ancient  nations,  and  the  commerce  of  the 
middle  ages,  flourished  in  proportion  to  the  freedom  of  that  commerce, 
and  it  was  the  nations  who  adopted  restrictive  systems, —  the  nations 
that  adopted  restriction  and  protection  that  ruined  their  commerce,  and 
caused  it  to  depart  to  other  better  conducted  nations. 

Now,  the  gentleman  meant  to  allude,  as  I  suppose,  although  he  did 
not  specify  it,  to  the  Italian  republics  of  the  middle  ages,  and  to  the 
great  commerce  which  extended  round  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Now,  Sir,  the  gentleman  may  go  as  far  back  as  he  pleases, — he  may  go 
back  to  Athens,  a  republic  made  great,  and  wealthy,  and  powerful  by 
her  commerce,  and  Athenian  commerce  was  the  creation  of  free  trade, 
—  he  may  go  back  to  the  Roman  empire,  and  take  the  tariff  under  Dio- 
cletian, when  the  Roman  commerce  was  at  its  height. 

The  tariff  of  the  time  of  Diocletian  was  a  tariff  lower  than  that  of 
England  now,  and  that  of  England,  as  everybody  knows,  is  a  great 
deal  lower  than  ours.  Then  you  come  down  to  the  first  tariff  that  was 
constructed  upon  scientific  principles,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
empire,  which  was  that  adopted  under  Godfrey  de  Bouillon,  king  of  Je- 
rusalem at  the  time  of  the  crusades,  and  put  in  operation  in  Syria,  and 
which  afterwards  became  a  model  for  all  nations  around  the  Mediter- 
ranean, in  Italy  and  everywhere  else.  You  find  that  it  is  an  ^^advalo- 
rem^^  tariff,  with  very  few  exceptions,  from  beginning  to  end,  and  most 
of  the  duties  are  8  per  cent.,  while  some  articles  are  put  at  16  per  cent., 
and  a  very  few,  and  those  not  important,  at  24  per  cent.  Under  this 
tariff,  so  much  more  liberal  than  any  of  later  times,  modern  commerce 
had  its  birth.  That  is  the  truth  of  history,  and  it  was  the  freedom  of 
commerce  in  the  Italian  republics  that  made  them  what  they  were.  It 
was  from  their  great  commerce  that  their  great  wealth  sprung  up,  and 
from  their  wealth  grew  up  their  immense  manufactures,  and  not,  as  the 
gentleman  supposes,  that  the  commerce  was  created  by  the  manufactures. 
He  was  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse.  But  I  am  not  going  to  make 
a  speech  upon  the  subject  of  the  tariff  now ;  but  by-and-by,  if  the  house  will 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  753 

indulge  me,  after  gentlemen  from  the  North,  East,  and  particularly  from 
New  England,  have  said  all  they  have  to  say  in  propping  up  that  rotten 
system  which  has  produced  so  much  misery  in  England,  and  has  the  same 
tendency  here,  I  will  take  the  liberty  to  reply ;  and  for  the  present,  think- 
ing it  quite  safe  to  do  so,  I  leave  these  arguments  without  an  answer. 

I  pass  on  to  a  subject  of  as  much  more  consequence  than  the  tariff, 
as  liberty  is  more  important  than  property.  Liberty  and  property  are 
the  two  great  objects  of  good  government.  Government  ought  to  pro- 
tect them  both  ;  and  I  hold,  that  of  the  two,  liberty  is  infinitely  the 
highest  in  importance  ;  and  when  rights  and  liberties  are  outraged,  it 
becomes  an  imperative  duty  to  speak  upon  that  outrage,  and  set  it  right 
before  the  country. 

I  have  been  sitting  here  since  the  commencement  of  this  session, — 
aye,  and  it  began  before  we  took  our  seats  here,  —  I  have  been  sitting 
here  listening  to  denunciations  of  agitation,  and  agitators,  upon  a  certain 
subject,  which  has  been  handled  a  great  deal  upon  this  floor.  "  Cease 
this  agitation  !  Quiet  the  distracted  country  !"  That  has  been  the  cry. 
We  were  told  that  we  must  cease  agitation  upon  that  subject,  at  a  meet- 
ing of  the  democratic  members,  before  we  took  our  seats  here  ;  we  were 
told  so  in  a  manner  tending  to  promote  agitation.  We  came  here  on 
the  following  Monday,  and  the  first  greeting  that  I  received  upon  this 
floor,  before  we  went  into  the  election  of  speaker,  while  I  was  sitting 
very  quietly  as  I  generally  do,  being  a  quiet  and  peaceable  man,  was  a 
denunciation  of  myself  individually,  by  a  member  from  the  South,  (Mr. 
Meade,  of  Virginia,)  who  spoke  of  me  as  an  agitator,  coming  here  to  stir 
up  the  nation  into  strife,  to  lash  the  waves  of  agitation  into  fury.  I 
made  no  reply.  Very  strange  for  an  "  agitator ! "  Again  and  again, 
for  at  least  the  twentieth  time,  have  I  listened  to  the  same  denunciations, 
without  replying.  I  have  been  taunted  on  the  floor  of  this  house  with 
being  an  agitator.  By  whom  ?  By  gentlemen  from  the  South,  All 
the  gentlemen  who  have  risen  here  to  denounce  agitation,  and  to  stir  up 
bitter  feelings  by  that  very  denunciation,  —  all,  I  might  almost  say,  have 
come  from  the  South.  And  persons  who  sit  quietly  in  their  seats  and 
hear  epithets  a])plied  to  them,  which  they  can  scarcely,  as  gentlemen, 
listen  to  without  immediately  resentingihem  ;  gentlemen  from  the  North, 
who  have  exercised  all  this  forbearance,  are  again,  and  again,  and  again, 
and  seemingly  without  end,  taunted  in  this  manner  by  gentlemen  who 
say  they  desire  quiet,  and  that  agitation  shall  cease.  If  they  do  so  desire, 
why  do  they  not  cease  it  ?  I  and  my  friends  have  made  no  agitation. 
I  have  not  opened  my  mouth  before  this  house  in  any  allusion  to  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  except  in  reply  to  a  direct  attack  upon  me.  Again  and 
again  have  I  suffered  such  attacks  to  pass  without  notice  or  reply,  but 


754  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

still  the  charge  of  agitation  comes  from  another  and  another  quarter, 
against  me  and  all  those  who  think  as  I  do. 

Well,  Sir,  after  sitting  quiet  so  long,  disposed  to  leave  to  abler  hands 
the  work  I  am  about  to  undertake,  I  am  at  last  singled  out  in  such  a 
manner,  that  I  cannot,  as  a  man  of  honor,  sit  quiet  any  longer.  I  am 
compelled  to  speak  by  a  necessity  which  I  cannot  avoid,  without  the  im- 
putation of  cowardice,  and,  as  I  think,  a  justly  deserved  imputation  of 
cowardice,  if  I  should  remain  quiet.  That  is  my  position.  I  speak  not 
because  I  desire  it,  but  because  the  men  who  say,  "  put  an  end  to  agi- 
tation," compel  me  to  speak,  and  will  not  allow  me  to  remain  silent. 
That  is  the  reason  why  I  intend  at  present  to  discuss  this  question. 

I  said.  Sir,  that  these  taunts  and  sneers  came  from  the  South,  but 
sometimes  they  came  from  gentlemen  who  happened  to  be  born  in  the 
North.  By  what  mysterious  dispensation  of  Providence  it  happened 
that  they  were  born  there,  it  is  not  for  me  to  conjecture.  Why,  there 
comes  here  from  a  district  represented  in  the  last  congress  by  an 
abolitionist,  —  an  abolitionist  elected  by  the  votes  of  the  gentleman's 
friends,  —  a  young  stripling,  Hon.  Colin  M.  Ingersoll,  of  Connecticut, 
who  undertook  to  introduce  Benedict  Arnold  as  a  subject  of  comparison 
on  this  floor.  Well,  Sir,  if  Benedict  Arnold  is  to  be  compared  to  mem- 
bers of  this  house,  I  for  one  claim  the  liberty  to  select  the  member  with 
whom  the  comparison  is  to  be  made.  Benedict  Arnold,  if  I  recollect 
aright,  was  born  and  brought  up  in  Connecticut,  and  not  in  Massachu- 
setts. He  was  a  young  gentleman  of  great  promise,  —  a  gentleman  from 
w4iom  his  friends  expected  something  very  magnificent,  supposing  him 
to  be  just  the  man  fitted  to  rise  in  the  world,  —  a  man  troubled  with 
no  scruples.  They  w^ere  very  seriously  disappointed  in  that  expectation. 
Benedict  Arnold  apostatized  from  the  cause  of  freedom  to  the  cause  of 
slavery,  if  I  have  read  history  aright.  His  efforts  against  slavery  did 
him  honor.  Ambition  riveted  about  his  neck  the  collar  of  slavery,  and 
he  was  damned  to  eternal  infamy.  Well,  Sir,  when  gentlemen  from  Con- 
necticut choose  to  make  comparisons  of  that  sort,  let  them  read  their 
history  carefully,  and  see  where  a  parallel  will  run  ;  and  not  jump  to  find 
a  parallel  where  there  is  nothing  but  a  contrast.  But,  Sir,  (and  that  is 
my  excuse  for  occupying  the  attention  of  the  committee,)  events  have 
recently  transpired,  which  are  perfectly  well  known  to  every  member 
of  the  committee,  and,  therefore,  not  necessary  to  be  recapitulated  in 
detail  at  present,  which  have  singled  me  out,  and  made  it  my  duty  to 
explain  my  position.  I  am  about  to  speak  of  this  process  of  putting  an 
end  to  agitation,  so  wisely  conceived  by  these  gentlemen,  who  must 
know,  if  they  are  sane  men,  they  produce  agitation  by  the  course  they 
pursue. 


OF  ROBEET  EANTOUL,  JR.  755 

Sir,  when  six  and  a  half  millions  of  white  men  in  the  South  attempt 
to  control  the  feelings,  opinions,  judgments,  and  consciences  of  thirteen 
and  a  half  millions  of  wdiite  men  in  the  North,  —  when  that  process  is 
attempted,  and  when  they  undertake  to  drive  it  through  by  threats,  by  force, 
and  by  all  those  appliances  which  make  men  revolt  against  their  dictation, 
they  must  understand  that  they  have  to  do  with  the  descendants  of  the 
men  who  commenced  and  who  fought  through  the  Am.erican  revolution, 
and  whose  characters  have  not  materially  changed,  —  those  of  them  wdio 
stay  at  home,  —  hov^ever  much  those  wdio  come  here  may  be  corrupted  by 
the  influences  which  surround  them  here,  —  I  say,  those  who  remain  at 
home  have  not  very  much  departed  from  their  original  character.  I  allude 
to  the  circumstances  which  recently  occurred  at  Baltimore,  as  my  reason 
for  addressing  the  committee  at  this  time.  Sir,  I  was  unanimously 
elected  a  delegate  to  the  national  democratic  convention  by  ballot,  and 
on  the  first  ballot,  in  the  fullest  convention  tliat  has  been  held  in  my 
district  for  many  years,  —  a  convention  regularly  called,  according  to 
the  uniform  usage  in  Massachusetts  for  the  last  twenty-five  or  thirty 
years.  I  was  sent  there  to  represent  five  thousand  democrats,  who  act 
with  the  party  in  its  regular  organization.  The  convention  thought 
proper  to  disfranchise  my  district,  —  the  only  democratic  district  in  Mas- 
sachusetts,—  and  thought  proper  thereby  to  insult,  not  merely  that  dis- 
trict, but  the  sovereign  State  of  Massachusetts,  which  was  shorn  of  her 
proportionate  share  of  representation  in  the  convention  by  that  pro- 
ceeding. 

They  then  thought  proper  to  go  on  and  take  measures  for  the  union  of 
the  democratic  party.  Is  any  one  democrat  in  Massachusetts  bound  by 
v/iiat  you  do  in  such  a  convention  ?  I  speak  not  of  the  course  which 
those  democrats  may  think  proper  to  take.  That  is  a  matter  for  them 
to  determine.  But  I  ask  if  any  one  democrat  in  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts is  under  any  obligation  growing  out  of  the  proceedings  of  a  con- 
vention in  which  the  State  of  Massachusetts  was  deprived  of  lier 
proportionate  number  of  delegates  elected  by  her  choice  ?  That  is  a 
question  for  the  democratic  party  to  consider,  and  for  the  democrats  of 
Massachusetts  to  consider. 

As  to  the  district  which  has  been  thus  disfranchised,  why.  Sir,  if  there 
is  a  district  in  the  United  States,  from  the  Madawaska  to  the  Rio 
Grande,  —  if  there  is  a  district  from  Massachusetts  Bay  to  San  Francisco 
that  is,  and  ought  to  be  democratic,  it  is  the  district  that  I  represent ; 
and  I  sliould  like  to  compare  its  history  with  the  history  of  any  other 
district  represented  by  any  other  individual  upon  this  floor. 

Sir,  in  my  district  is  that  glorious  old  town  of  Marblehead.  Elbridge 
Gerry,  coming  from  the  town  of  Marblehead,  was  the  chairman  of  the 


756  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

committee  that  reported  the  resolutions  of  the  30th  of  April,  1784,  giv- 
ing the  power  to  regulate  commerce  to  the  government  of  the  nation, — 
the  resolution  that  laid  the  foundation  of  your  federal  union.  It  was  a 
citizen  of  my  own  native  town  of  Beverly,  and  a  native  of  my  own  dis- 
trict, Nathan  Dane,  who  was  chairman  of  the  committee  that  reported 
the  resolves  of  the  21st  of  February,  1787,  for  calling  the  federal  con- 
vention at  Philadelphia,  —  the  convention  that  framed  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  ;  and  that  same  Nathan  Dane,  of  that  same  town 
of  Beverly,  was  the  man  who  drew  up  the  ordinance  of  1787,  which 
gave  freedom  to  the  broad  territory  north-west  of  the  Ohio. 

Well,  Sir,  if  I  stopped  there,  I  think  I  should  have  made  out  a  list  of 
claims  for  my  district  which  it  would  not  be  very  easy  to  surpass.  But, 
Sir,  the  first  resistance  to  the  poAver  of  Great  Britain  in  the  revolution- 
ary struggle  was  in  the  town  of  Danvers,  —  a  town  in  my  district,  and 
wdiich  adjoins  my  own.  On  the  2Gtli  of  February,  1775,  before  the 
battle  of  Lexington,  that  which  was  done  at  Lexington  and  Concord  was 
attempted  to  be  done  at  Danvers.  The  British  troops  marched  upon 
the  town  to  seize  the  arsenals  and  stores  of  the  Americans,  but  they 
were  turned  back.  They  were  met  by  a  collection  of  the  farmers  and 
mechanics  of  Salem,  Beverly,  and  Danvers,  so  strong  that  Col.  Leslie, 
who  commanded  the  British  troops,  turned  back  discomfited  of  his  pur- 
pose, knowing  that  unless  he  did  so,  he  and  his  party  would  be  made 
prisoners-of-war.  Danvers,  far  distant  from  Concord,  and  in  a  different 
county,  had  more  men  killed  in  the  Concord  fight  than  any  other  town 
after  the  morning  massacre.  Beverly,  my  native  town,  sent  her  sons 
further  than  any  other  town  on  the  lOtli  of  April,  1775,  to  strike  in  the 
first  battle  for  liberty ;  and  I  have  seen  the  garment,  stained  with  his 
blood,  in  which  one  of  her  sons  was  killed  on  that  day.  The  first  con- 
tinental flag  hoisted  upon  the  ocean,  in  defiance  of  British  supremacy, 
was  the  flag  of  the  schooner  Hannah,  fitted  out  from  my  own  toAvn  of 
Beverly.  The  first  commission  given  by  Washington  to  the  commander 
of  any  cruiser  against  Great  Britain,  was  issued  to  Captain  Manly,  of 
Marblehead,  in  my  district.  The  first  in  the  long  list  of  naval  heroes; 
the  first  man  who  poured  out  his  life  in  that  great  war  against  slavery, 
crying,  as  Lawrence  afterwards  cried,  "don't  give  up  the  sliip,"  was 
Captain  Mugford,  of  Marblehead,  on  the  19th  of  May,  1775. 

There  is  the  material  out  of  which  to  form  a  democratic  congressional 
district.'  It  is  a  district  that  has  bright  revolutionary  glory,  —  historical 
glory  thickly  clustered  around  it.  It  is  not  to  me  that  the  insult  has 
been  offered,  but  it  is  to  that  district  which  I  have  described  to  you. 

Why,  I  ask,  is  it  that  this  insult  has  been  offered  ?  It  is  simply  be- 
cause, as  I  told  the  committee  who  examined  that  case,  when  they  asked 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  757 

me  if  I  would  pledge  myself  beforehand  to  agree  to  tlie  resolutions 
which  might  be  adopted  by  that  convention,  "  I  do  my  own  thinking,  and 
do  not  allow  any  convention  to  do  it  for  me."  That  is  the  reason. 
Well,  now,  do  gentlemen  suppose  there  are  not  some  millions  of  white 
persons  at  the  North,  who  do  their  own  thinking,  as  well  as  myself?  If 
they  suppose  any  such  thing,  they  are  grievously  mistaken,  and  by  and 
by  the  consequence  of  that  mistake  will  begin  to  appear,  a  little  more 
clearly  than  they  now  appear.  It  is  because  I  determined  to  think  for 
myself,  and  adhered  to  that  determination,  upon  a  great  question  of  con- 
stitutional law  ;  and  thought  it  a  duty  incumbent  upon  me  to  avow  the 
conclusions  at  which  I  had  arrived. 

That  question  of  constitutional  law  I  now  propose  to  examine.  It  is 
this  :  Is  there  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  a  grant  of  power 
to  legislate  for  the  rendition  of  fugitives  from  labor?  I  say  there  is  not; 
and  no  man  who  calls  himself  a  democrat,  —  whether  he  hails  from  New 
Ilumpshire,  or  any  other  part  of  the  Union,  —  can  for  a  moment  sustain 
his  character  as  a  democrat  upon  the  position  that  there  is  such  a  grant 
of  power.  Why,  Sir,  what  is  the  distinguishing  doctrine  of  the  demo- 
cratic party  ?  I  suppose  it  is  the  doctrine  laid  down  by  Jefferson,  in  his 
comments  upon  the  proposed  veto  of  the  first  United  States  Bank. 
Thomas  Jefferson  says  :  "  I  conceive  the  corner-stone  of  the  Constitution 
to  be  laid  in  the  tenth  article  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  ;" 
the  article  that  no  powers  can  be  exercised  by  the  general  government 
except  such  as  are  granted  to  it;  that  powers  not  granted  to  the  general 
government  "  are  reserved  to  the  States  or  to  the  people."  That  is  the 
foundation  of  the  democratic  faith,  so  stated  to  be  by  Thomas  Jefferson, 
so  understood  to  be  by  Samuel  Adams  and  Elbridge  Gerry,  and  all  the 
old  democrats  of  New  England  as  well  as  by  Virginia,  and  the  demo- 
crats in  the  South  ;  and  that  is  the  doctrine  upon  which  I  mean  to  take 
my  stand.  Tliat  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Baltimore  resolutions  as  they 
ivere  ;  the  doctrine  of  the  resolutions  of  1798,  '99,  adopted  at  Baltimore 
the  other  day,  which  gentlemen  talk  about  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  one 
to  suspect  that  they  have  not  read  them,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  resolu- 
tions of  1798,  '99,  which  declared  the  alien  and  sedition  lav/s  to  be 
unconstitutional  by  a  course  of  reasoning  which  applies  as  strictly  to  this 
question  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  as  it  does  to  the  alien  law,  or  tlie  sedi- 
tion law,  or  to  any  section  or  clause  of  either. 

But  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  when  the  constitutionality  of  the 
alien  and  sedition  laws  came  up  in  her  legislature,  voted  unanimously, 
in  a  full  house,  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  members  being  present, 
and  unanimously  in  the  senate,  that  those  laws  were  clearly  "  constitu- 
tional, and,  in  the  present  critical  situation  of  our  country,"  said  they, 

64 


758  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

"  highly  expedient."  Is  there  a  man  in  New  Hampshire  who  believes 
that  now  ?  New  Hampshire  blushes  when  that  page  of  her  history  is 
recalled  to  the  memory.  It  was  then  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the 
senate  and  house  of  representatives  of  New  Hampshire,  that  the  alien 
and  sedition  laws  were  '■^  constitutional.^^  It  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
New  Hampshire  now,  that  they  are  unconstitutional ;  and,  Sir,  the  day 
will  come  when  every  man's  children  will  blush  for  his  servile  heresy 
upon  this  question,  as  the  men  of  New  Hampshire  now  blush  for  w^hat 
their  fathers  did  upon  that  question. 

The  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  such  a  grant  of  power  is 
within  a  very  narrow  compass.  It  is  only  necessary  to  take  up  the  his- 
tory of  the  clauses  included  in  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution, 
and  see  where  they  came  from,  wdiat  they  mean,  and  what  changes  they 
underwent.  Sir,  everybody  knows  that  the  Constitution  contains  an 
enumeration  of  powers  granted  to  congress.  The  powers  granted  to 
congress  stand  by  themselves,  as  they  did  in  the  old  articles  of  confede- 
ration. In  another  part  of  that  instrument,  distinct  from  the  enumera- 
tion of  powers  granted  to  congress,  you  find  certain  clauses  of  compact. 
I  suppose  there  is  not  a  man  in  this  house  who  will  undertake  to  deny 
that  there  are  clauses  of  mere  compact  in  the  Constitution,  —  clauses  of 
compact  between  the  States,  which  imply  no  grant  of  power  whatever 
to  the  federal  government.  The  whole  question  is,  does  the  clause 
relating  to  fugitives  from  labor,  belong  to  that  class  of  clauses  which  give 
power  to  the  general  government,  or  is  it  simply  a  clause  of  compact 
between  the  States  ?     That  is  the  question. 

Well,  now.  Sir,  the  continental  congress  resolved,  on  the  11th  of  June, 
177G,  to  appoint  a  committee  of  one  from  each  colony  to  reporfe* articles 
of  confederation.  The  next  day  the  committee  was  appointed,  and 
Samuel  Adams  of  Massachusetts,  w^as  the  member  from  that  State,  upon 
it.  On  the  12th  of  July,  1776,  a  little  more  than  a  month  afterwards, 
this  committee  reported  the  articles,  which  were  debated  from  time  to 
time,  and  adopted  by  congress  on  the  loth  of  November,  1777.  They 
were  ratified  by  the  States,  one  after  another,  until  Maryland,  the  last 
on  the  list,  acted  upon  them  on  the  1st  of  March,  1781. 

The  first  article  establishes  the  style  of  the  confederacy,  —  it  shall  be 
"  The  United  States  of  America."  The  second  article  is  the  key  to  the 
whole  ;  and  is  therefore  very  important  to  be  considered.  It  determines 
that  the  government  to  be  established  for  the  management  of  the  general 
interests  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  strictly  held,  and  confined  within 
the  limits  of  powers  expressly  granted  by  the  act  of  confederation.  It 
is  in  these  words :  "  Each  State  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and 
independence,  and  every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,  which  is  not,  by 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  759 

this  confederation,  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States  in  congress 
assembled." 

No  implied  powers  there!  ^'-Expressly  delegated^  This,  I  say,  is 
the  corner-stone  of  the  whole  system  of  the  confederation,  —  State-rights 
jealously  preserved;  a  few  powers  clearly  defined  are  granted  to  a  con- 
gress, which  is  sternly  prohibited  at  the  outset,  by  the  first  fundamental 
regulations  of  its  existence,  from  assuming  any  scintilla  of  power  not  so 
granted. 

There  can  be  no  difficulty,  then,  in  ascertaining  what  powers  belonged 
to  the  congress  under  the  confederation.  We  have  only  to  read  the 
enumeration,  and  we  shall  find  them  all  expressly  delegated ;  none 
others  existed. 

Let  us  proceed,  then,  with  our  examination  of  the  several  "  Articles 
of  confederation  and  perpetual  union." 

By  the  third  article,  the  said  States  "severally  enter  into  a  firm  league 
of  friendship ; "  but  no  power  is  granted  to  congress. 

By  the  fourth  article,  the  free  inhabitants  of  each  State,  except  pau- 
pers, vagabonds,  and  fugitives  from  justice,  are  "  entitled  to  all  privileges 
and  immunities  of  free  citizens  in  the  several  States ;  "  but  no  grant  of 
power  is  connected  with  this  particular  provision  of  the  compact. 

A  second  clause  of  the  same  article  is  in  these  words :  "  If  any  per- 
son guilty  of,  or  charged  with  treason,  felony,  or  other  high  misdemeanor, 
in  any  State,  shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in  any  of  the  United 
States,  he  shall,  upon  demand  of  the  governor  or  executive  officer  of  the 
State  from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  and  removed  to  the  State 
having  jurisdiction  of  his  offence."  The  power  to  deliver  up  the  person 
guilty,  or  charged,  is  not  "  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States," 
but  "  each  State  retains  "  that  power,  as  entire,  and  unimpaired,  and 
unquestioned,  and  unquestionable,  as  if  the  confederation  had  never 
been  brought  into  existence. 

A  third  clause  of  the  same  article  is  in  these  words:  "  Full  faith  and 
credit  shall  be  given  in  each  of  these  States,  to  the  records,  acts,  and 
judicial  proceedings,  of  the  courts  and  magistrates  of  every  other  State." 
The  congress  had  no  power  to  enforce,  or  to  regulate,  this  stipulation  of 
the  compact.  Each  State  retained  linimpaired,  and  unquestioned,  all 
and  "every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,"  over  the  manner  in  which 
this  agreement  should  be  performed,  and  the  effect  of  that  performance. 

Now,  the  substance  of  this  fourth  article  of  confederation, — the  sub- 
stance of  each  of  the  three  clauses  of  this  fourth  article,  —  has  found  its 
way  into  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  constituting,  together 
with  certain  additional  provisions  to  be  considered  by  and  by,  the  first 
and  second  sections  of  the  fourth  article  of  that  instrument. 


760  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

How  came  these  agreements  of  the  old  compact  of  1777  into  the 
federal  Constitution  of  the  17th  of  September,  1787?  "What  changes 
have  the  J  undergone  in  passing  there  ?  What  effect  and  force,  in  their 
present  form,  do  thej  now  carry  with  them?  Are  they,  by  any  means, 
•transformed  from  mutual  stipulations  between  contracting  parties,  into 
grants  of  power,  by  parties  surrendering  what  they  had  retained  and 
reserved  to  themselves  for  ten  years,  to  a  new  administration  of  the 
powers,  jurisdiction,  and  rights,  in  this  behalf,  then  for  the  first  time 
delegated  to  the  United  States  ? 

If  so,  how,  when,  why,  by  whom,  by  what  apt  words  to  express  the 
transformation  of  these  mutual  covenants  into  delegations  of  power, 
was  this  new  grant  first  made,  and  where  in  the  record  do  you  find  it 
written  down  ? 

We  will  trace  the  subsequent  history  of  these  stipulations  of  the  old 
confederacy,  and  examine,  first,  the  process  to  which  they  have  been 
subjected,  the  changes  resulting  from  it,  and  the  additions  they  have  re- 
ceived ;  and  when  we  have  sufficiently  considered  the  clauses  by  them- 
selves, we  will  inquire  whether  they  are  affected  by  their  relation  to 
'€ther  parts  of  the  same  instrument,  and  whether  any  different  rule  of 
construction  is  to  be  applied  to  interpret  them,  so  as  entirely  to  change 
their  character. 

It  does  not  appear  that  any  complaint  was  made  of  the  non-perform- 
ance of  either  of  these  three  stipulations  by  any  State,  either  in  the 
continental  congress  during  the  ten  years  that  followed  the  adoption  of 
the  articles  of  confederation,  or  in  the  constitutional  convention  during  its 
whole  session,  or  that  any  apprehension  of  such  non-performance  in  fu- 
ture was  expressed  from  any  quarter.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  any  ob- 
jection was  raised  against  the  clause  concerning  the  faith  due  to  public 
records,  or  that  concerning  fugitives  from  justice. 

It  was,  however,  as  it  would  appear,  repugnant  to  the  sentiments  of 
South  Carolina  to  guarantee  all  the  privileges  of  free  citizens  of  her  ov/n 
State  to  the  colored  free  inhabitants  of  other  States.  On  the  25th  of 
June,  1778,  South  Carolina  accordingly  moved  to  insert  the  word 
^^luJiite"  in  article  fourth,  clause  first,  between  the  words  "free  in- 
habitants." 

On  this  proposition  the  States  voted,  —  ayes  2,  noes  8,  divided  1  ;  and 
the  motion  was  rejected ;  the  two  ayes  were  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia. 

South  Carolina  moved,  after  the  words  "  several  States,"  to  insert 
"  according  to  the  law  of  such  States  respectively,  for  the  government 
of  their  own  free  tvJiite  inhabitants."  'On  which  motion  the  ayes  were 
2,  the  noes  8,  divided  1 ;  and  it  was  rejected. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  761 

South  Carolina  was  unable  to  repeal  tliat  clause  of  the  old  confedera- 
tion, or  prevent  its  passing  into  the  new  Constitution.  But  she  has 
found  a  very  convenient  Avay  of  escaping  its  consequences  since  that 
time,  and  calls  upon  other  States  to  fulfil  their  agreements  in  these  arti- 
cles of  compact,  a  portion  of  which,  understanding  it  perfectly  well,  as 
she  showed  by  trying  to  change  it,  she  still  goes  on  coolly  and  dehber- 
ately,  and  habitually,  and  perseveringly  to  violate. 

No  other  change  seems  to  have  been  suggested  in  either  of  these 
clauses  in  the  continental  congress  during  the  whole  period  of  ten 
years. 

On  the  21st  of  February,  1787,  a  grand  committee,  of  which  the 
lion.  Xathan  Dane,  of  Beverly,  Massachusetts,  was  chairman,  recom- 
mended a  meeting  of  delegates  from  each  State  to  revise  the  articles  of 
confederation.  On  the  motion  of  the  delegates  from  Massachusetts,  it 
v>^as  resolved  to  call  a  convention  for  that  purpose,  to  meet  at  Philadel- 
phia on  the  second  Monday  in  May. 

Sundry  members  met  on  that  day.  May  14th,  1787,  but  the  conven- 
tion did  not  elect  their  president,  George  Washington,  until  the  25th, 
On  Monday,  the  28th,  they  adopted  their  rules  and  orders,  and  on  the 
29  th,  they  proceeded  to  business.  On  that  day,  Charles  Pinckney,  of 
South  Carolina,  submitted  a  draft  of  a  Constitution,  which  became  the 
basis  of  the  further  action  of  the  convention. 

In  this  draft,  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  articles  were  as  follows  :  — 

"Article  XII.  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privi- 
leges and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States.  Any  person 
charged  with  crimes  in  any  State  fleeing  from  justice  to  another,  shall, 
on  demand  of  the  executive  of  the  State  from  which  he  fled,  be  de- 
livered up,  and  removed  to  the  State  having  jurisdiction  of  the  offence. 

"Article  XIII.  Full  faith  shall  be  given,  in  each  State,  to  the  acts  of 
the  legislature,  and  to  the  records  and  judicial  proceedings  of  the  courts 
'and  magistrates  of  every  State." 

There  is  no  reason  to  suspect,  therefore,  that  it  had  occurred  to  South 
Carolina  at  that  time  to  convert  either  of  these  clauses  into  a  grant  of 
power,  or  to  insert  among  them  any  provision  for  the  case  of  fugitives 
from  service.  Xeither  of  these  changes  had  been  thought  of  either  by 
South  Carolina  or,  so  far  as  v/e  know,  by  any  other  State.  That  these 
clauses,  as  they  stood  in  the  articles  of  confederation,  were  so  far  satis- 
factory to  all  sections  and  to  all  parties  as  not  to  be  among  those  provi- 
sions of  the  compact  which  it  was  desired  to  revise,  and  which  the  con- 
vention had  come  together  expressly  to  reform,  seems  to  be  quite  evi- 
dent, not  only  from  the  facts  already  stated,  but  also  from  the  circum- 
stance that  in  the  six  other  plans  submitted  to  the  constitutional  conven- 
er* 


762  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tion,  in  the  form  of  resolutions,  embodying  the  views  of  leading  states- 
men, and  of  the  different  parties  struggling  to  mould  the  new  mstitutions 
upon  principles  in  some  respects  widely  diverse  from  each  other,  neither 
the  faith  due  to  public  records,  nor  the  immunities  mutually  pledged  to 
citizens,  nor  the  extradition  of  fugitives  from  justice,  nor  the  extradi- 
tion of  fugitives  from  labor,  is  so  much  as  once  alluded  to.  Yet  the 
very  object  of  all  of  these  resolutions  was  to  bring  forward  and  present 
for  discussion  the  views  of  their  authors  upon  all  the  disputed  points  in- 
volved in  the  mission  of  the  convention.  The  plans  to  which  I  refer 
v/ere  Edmund  Randolph's  fifteen  propositions,  presented  May  29th;  Mr. 
Patterson's  eleven  propositions,  presented  June  loth;  Colonel  Hamil- 
ton's plan  in  eleven  propositions,  presented  June  18th;  Randolph's  plan 
as  amended,  and  again  submitted  in  committee  of  the  whole,  in  nineteen 
resolutions,  June  19th  ;  the  report  of  the  committee  of  detail  on  the 
twenty-three  resolutions,  July  26th  ;  the  report  of  the  committee  of 
eleven,  made  September  4th,  and  for  several  days  afterwards.  Neither 
of  these  plans  contains  any  allusion  to  the  question  of  fugitives  from 
service,  now  insanely  imagined  by  the  fanatics  of  slave-worship  to  have 
been  one  of  the  leading  "  compromises  of  the  Constitution  "  —  a  thing 
which  no  man  in  the  convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  dreamt 
of  until  it  was  suggested  in  another  assembly,  and  upon  another  occa- 
sion, and  for  another  purpose.  On  the  18th  of  June,  the  same  day  in 
which  he  submitted  his  plan,  Mr.  Hamilton  read,  as  part  of  his  great 
speech,  his  complete  draft  of  a  Constitution,  in  which  the  clauses 
already  given  from  Pinckney's  draft  reappear  in  the  following  shape :  — 

"  Article  IX.  Sec.  5.  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to 
the  rights,  privileges,  and  immunities  of  citizens  in  every  other  State  ; 
and  full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to  the  public  acts, 
records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  another. 

"  Sec.  G.  Fugitives  from  justice  from  one  State,  who  shall  be  found  in 
another,  shall  be  delivered  up  on  the  application  of  the  State  from  which 
they  fled." 

This  draft  of  Mr.  Hamilton  is  a  carefully-finished  production,  carried 
out  into  all  the  minute  details,  and  giving  the  author's  matured  opinions 
Avhat  the  Constitution  ought  to  be  in  every  one  of  its  provisions.  This 
gentleman  represented  the  ultra  federal,  consolidation,  monarchical  ten- 
dencies of  the  convention  more  fully  and  frankly  than  any  other  mem- 
ber ;  and  was  most  desirous  to  multiply  and  extend  grants  of  power  to 
the  federal  government.  He  carried  this  notion  so  far  as  to  desire  that 
the  legislation  of  each  State  should  be  controlled  by  the  United  States ; 
and  to  effect  this  object,  in  the  tenth  of  the  resolutions  offered  by  him 
on  the  18th  of  June,  he  proposed  that  the  governor  of  each  State  should 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  763 

be  appointed  by  the  general  government,  and  have  a  veto  upon  all  laws 
about  to  be  passed  in  the  State  of  which  he  was  governor.  This,  with 
his  president  and  senate  for  life,  as  proposed  in  the  same  resolutions, 
would  have  constituted  a  consolidated  monarchy. 

Mr.  Charles  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  was  the  champion  of  the 
sectional  slave  interest,  and  he  also  declared,  in  the  debate  on  the  2od 
of  August,  that  he  thought  the  State  executive  should  be  appointed  by 
the  general  government,  and  have  a  control  over  the  State  laws  by  means 
of  a  veto.  Neither  Mr.  Hamilton,  nor  any  other  friend  of  the  northern 
monarchical  interest,  nor  Mr.  Pinckney,  nor  any  other  southern  friend 
of  the  sectional  slave  interest,  had  suggested  in  their  drafts,  or  resolu- 
tions, or  speeches,  or  in  any  other  way ;  still  less  had  any  friend  of  demo- 
cratic freedom  and  State  rights  suggested,  before  the  28th  of  August, 
to  give  congress  any  power  over  either  of  the  three  subjects  of  compact, 
namely,  credit  due  to  records,  immunities  of  citizens,  and  fugitives  from 
justice ;  nor  had  any  one  alluded  in  the  convention  to  the  subject  of  fu- 
gitives from  service.  On  the  6th  of  August,  about  a  month  after  the 
principal  compromises  had  been  settled,  and  the  difficulties  surmounted, 
a  committee  of  five,  —  of  which  John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina,  was 
chairman,  —  reported  a  Constitution  entire,  a  printed  copy  being  handed 
on  the  same  day  to  each  member.  In  their  report,  the  fourteenth,  fif- 
teenth, and  sixteenth  articles  are  as  follows  :  — 

"  Article  XIV.  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  priv- 
ileges and  immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States. 

"  Article  XV.  Any  person  charged  v\dth  treason,  felony,  or  high  mis- 
demeanor in  any  State,  who  shall  tlee  from  justice,  and  shall  be  found 
in  any  other  State,  shall,  on  demand  of  the  executive  power  of  the 
State  from  which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  and  removed  to  the  State  hav- 
ing jurisdiction  of  the  offence. 

"Article  XVI.  Full  faith  shall  be  given  in  each  State  to  the  acts  of 
the  legislature,  and  to  the  records  and  judicial  proceedings  of  the  courts 
and  magistrates  of  every  other  State." 

On  the  28th  of  August,  these  paragraphs  came  up  in  order  for  consid- 
eration. Article  fourteen  was  taken  up.  General  Pinckney  (Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney)  was  not  satisfied  with  it.  lie  seemed  to  wish 
some  provision  should  be  included  in  favor  of  property  in  slaves.  Arti- 
cle fourteen  was  adopted,  —  ayes  9,  no  (South  Carolina)  1,  divided 
(Georgia)  1.  Article  fifteen,  the  words  "high  misdemeanor"  were 
struck  out,  and  "other  crime  "  inserted.  Mr.  Butler  and  Mr.  Pinckney, 
(Mr.  C.  Pinckney,)  both  of  South  Carolina,  moved  to  require  "fugitive 
slaves  and  servants  to  be  delivered  up  hke  criminals."  Mr.  Wilson,  of 
Pennsylvania,  said,  "  this  would  oblige  the  executive  of  the  State  to  do 


764  MEMOmS,   SPEECHES  AND  WKITINGS 

it  at  the  public  expense."  Mr.  Sherman,  of  Connecticut,  saw  no  more 
propriety  in  the  public  seizing  and  surrendering  a  slave,  or  servant,  than 
a  horse.  Mr.  Butler  does  not  object  to  either  objection  ;  but  he  under- 
takes to  change  his  proposition.  "  He  withdrew  his  proposition,  in  order 
that  some  particular  provision  might  be  made  apart  from  this  article." 
Article  fifteen  was  then  adopted  unanimously. 

Thus  far  there  is  no  indication  of  any  intent  to  make  a  grant  of  power. 
Butler's  motion  to  require  slaves  to  be  delivered  up,  was  to  "  require  " 
the  States  to  do  it,  —  not  to  empower  congress  to  do  it ;  or  rather,  to  au- 
thorize the  national  executive  to  do  it.  Wilson's  objection  shows  this 
understanding :  it  would  oblige  the  executive  of  the  State  to  do  it  at  the 
public  expense,  as  happens  when  one  State  demands  from  another  a  fu- 
gitive from  justice.  Sherman  thought  the  public  had  no  more  cause  to 
seize  a  slave  than  a  horse.  How  did  Butler  propose  to  obviate  this  ob- 
jection ?  Was  it  by  transferring  the  duty  and  expense  from  the  lesser 
public,  the  State,  to  that  greater  public,  the  United  States  ?  It  was  by 
giving  the  master  authority  to  reclaim  his  servant,  precisely  as  he  might 
by  the  old  process  of  the  English  law.  As  the  relations  of  the  States 
then  were,  a  person  held  to  service  in  Virginia  escaping  into  Pennsylva- 
nia would  be  free.  The  Constitution  stipulated,  that  the  character  of  a 
servant  belonging  to  him  before  his  escape,  should  cause  to  attach  to 
him  in  any  State  to  which  he  might  flee,  whatever  might  be  the  laws  of 
that  State,  —  a  liability  to  reclamation,  and  that  is  all. 

When  gentlemen  imagine  that  the  Constitution  has  attributed  to  the 
service  of  a  negro  held  to  labor,  —  to  that  description  of  property,  —  the 
character  of  sacredness  that  does  not  attach  to  any  other  property  what- 
ever, they  misread  the  Constitution,  and  misjudge  the  men  who  framed 
it.  Than  have  done  what  you  impute  to  them,  some  of  them  would 
sooner  have  had  their  right  hands  cut  oiF;  yet  the  clause,  as  it  now 
stands,  passed  unanimously.  The  strict  attention  of  very  sharp  intel- 
lects was  drawn  to  this  very  question  which  I  have  been  discussing,  in 
that  convention,  and  they  settled  it  with  their  eyes  wide  open,  and  as  I 
have;  as  I  will  prove  to  this  committee.  Article  sixteenth  of  the  draft 
was  that  concerning  public  faith  in  the  acts  of  the  legislatures  and 
records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  the  courts  and  magistrates  of  the 
several  States.  That  was  the  last  in  this  series  of  compacts.  What  did 
the  convention  do  with  it  ? 

August  29,  Mr.  Williamson  (of  North  Carolina)  moved  to  substitute 
in  place  of  article  sixteenth,  "  the  words  of  the  articles  of  confederation 
on  the  same  subject.  He  did  not  understand  precisely  the  meaning  of 
the  article."  Mr.  Wilson  and  Dr.  Johnson  said  it  meant  "  that  judg- 
ments in  one  State  should  be  the  ground  of  actions  in  other  States  ;  and 


OF  ROBEET  RANTOUL,  JR.  765 

that  acts  of  the  legislature  should  be  included,  for  the  sake  of  acts  of 
insolvency." 

Mr.  Pinckney  moved  to  commit  it,  with  a  motion  for  a  power  to  pass 
bankrupt  laws,  and  to  regulate  damages  on  protested  bills  of  exchange. 
Mr.  Madison  favored  the  commitment,  and  wished  a  power  to  be  given 
to  congress  "to  provide  for  the  execution  of  judgments  in  other  States. 
lie  thought  this  might  be  safely  done."  Mr.  Randolph  thought  there 
was  no  instance  under  heaven  of  one  nation  executing  the  judgments  of 
another.  He  had  not  been  graduated  in  the  modern  Virginia  consolida- 
tion school.  Gouverneur  Morris  moved  to  commit  also  a  motion  to  give 
to  congress  power  "  to  determine  the  proof  and  effect  of  such  acts, 
records,  and  proceedings."  Nobody  dreamed  that  there  was  a  power 
in  the  article  already.  Many  thought  one  should  be  inserted.  It  was 
committed.  It  became  the  opinion  of  the  majority  that  they  had  better 
attach  to  the  compact  a  clause  giving  power  to  congress  over  that  sub- 
ject, the  faith  to  be  given  to  records. 

John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina,  was  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee to  which  these  clauses  were  referred  to  make  the  change.  They 
took  the  clause  which  stood  last  in  order  and  transferred  it  to  the  head 
of  the  list,  where  it  now  stands,  attaching  to  it  power  to  congress  to  act 
upon  the  subject.  There  it  stands.  Were  these  men  so  simple  as  not 
to  know  whether  a  grant  of  power  was  necessary  to  be  added,  in  ex- 
press w^ords,  to  enable  congress  to  determine  the  effect  of  public  acts, 
records,  etc.,  in  another  State?  Congress  had  the  power  already,  as  the 
article  stood,  if  they  have  any  power  under  either  of  the  other  clauses 
over  fugitives  from  labor,  or  over  either  of  the  other  subjects  of  either 
of  these  clauses  of  com.pact.  But  so  thought  not  John  Rutledge,  of 
South  Carolina,  who  reported  the  grant  of  power ;  James  Madison,  of 
Virginia,  who  desired  a  grant  of  power,  and  favored  a  commitment  for 
that  purpose  ;  Gouverneur  Morris,  a  high-toned  federalist,  who  could 
find  constructive  powers  wherever  Hamilton  could  find  them,  but 
could  find  none  here,  and,  therefore,  asked  for  an  express  grant.  All 
these  clauses  were  in  the  confederation  originally,  and  articles  of  com- 
pact there,  and  nobody  had  ever  pretended  that  they  were  any  thing  else 
there.  All  the  four  clauses  are  still  in  their  language,  in  terms,  in  their 
obvious,  —  one  might  almost  say,  in  their  only  possible  construction,  ar- 
ticles of  compact.  Still,  it  is  agreed  to  attach  to  one  of  them  a  grant  of 
power,  and  not  to  the  other  three.  The  convention  takes  out  that  fourth 
clause,  makes  it  the  first,  and  says  congress  shall  have  power  to  deter- 
mine the  effect  to  be  given  to  the  public  records  of  the  States.  Where 
did  congress  get  that  power  from,  in  either  of  the  other  clauses  of  com- 


766  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

pact  where  it  is  not  given  ?  Why  did  congress  have  that  power  given 
to  them  by  express  words  in  that  clause,  if  the  government  had  it  al- 
ready in  all  these  clauses,  as  they  must,  if  they  had  it  in  either  ?  These 
were  not  men  to  waste  words.  There  is  not  a  document  in  the  language 
of  any  human  race  which  treads  the  face  of  the  globe,  so  carefully  con- 
sidered in  the  effect  of  every  word,  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  When  the  constitutional  convention  saw  they  had  not  made  a 
grant  of  power  in  either  of  these  four  clauses,  and  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  they  had  better  make  it  as  to  one  of  them ;  they  knew  what  to 
do.  They  picked  out  that  clause,  put  it  at  the  head  of  the  article,  and 
said  congress  shall  have  power  to  determine,  by  law,  what  shall  be  the 
effect  given  to  public  records.  Why  did  they  not  say :  "  Congress  shall 
have  power  to  provide  for  the  rendition  of  fugitives  from  labor  ?  " 

That  is  what  they  would  have  said  had  they  so  meant.  They  did  not 
so  mean,  and,  therefore,  they  did  not  say  it.  And  this  is  the  only  rea- 
son which  the  ingenuity  of  man  can  divine  for  the  omission  to  express  a 
grant  of  power  in  this  clause  of  a  Constitution,  which  grants  no  powers 
except  those  given  in  so  many  words,  or  those  which,  being  subsidiary 
in  their  nature,  are  essential  to  the  carrying  into  exercise  of  powers 
granted  in  so  many  words.  Where  they  desired  a  power,  the  clause 
was  changed.  Who  made  that  change  ?  Was  this  a  cunning  device  of 
northern  men?  John  Rutledge  was  chairman  of  the  committee  ap- 
pointed on  the  29th  of  August,  that  reported  that  clause  as  altered,  giv- 
ing the  power  to  congress.  Mr.  Pierce  Butler,  General  Pinckney,  and 
Mr.  C.  Pinckney,  the  three  other  members  from  South  Carolina,  —  for 
there  were  but  four  in  all,  —  had,  each  of  them,  had  his  attention  called 
to  this  subject  on  the  very  day  before  that  on  which  the  committee  was 
appointed ;  they  had,  each  of  them,  alluded  to  it  in  the  convention,  and 
nobody  else  had  done  so,  in  the  debate  of  August  28th.  Three  members 
from  South  Carolina, — each  having  his  attention  specially  called  to  the 
subject  of  fugitives  from  labor,  on  the  28th  of  August,  —  that  subject 
brought  up  again  on  the  29th.  John  Rutledge  was  chairman  of  the 
committee  of  five,  appointed  on  the  29th,  when  Mr.  Butler  moves  the 
clause  of  fugitives  from  labor,  and  that  committee  of  five,  who  reported 
this  clause  on  the  1st  of  September,  took  the  ground  that  the  power  to 
legislate  on  the  proof  and  effect  of  public  acts,  must  be  expressly  granted. 
On  the  3d  of  September,  another  debate  took  place,  on  granting  this 
power,  in  which  Madison,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Colonel  Mason,  Mr.  Wil- 
son, Dr.  Johnson,  and  Mr.  Randolph  participated,  with  various  views. 
No  one  suggests  that  the  clause  will  give  a  povrer,  although  none  be  ex- 
pressed.    The  doctrine  of  implied  powers  had  not  then  been  strained  so 


767 

far.  No  one  suggests  a  power  over  fugitives  from  labor.  Slaveocracy 
had  not  then  ventured  so  far.  It  would  have  been  rejected  at  once. 
But  the  clause  as  it  stands  passed  unanimously. 

Does  it  not  make  a  clear  case  ?  I  would  like  to  see  those  profound 
lawyers  of  New  Hampshire,  or  Virginia,  or  anywhere  else,  show  us  how 
the  power  was  put  into  this  clause  of  fugitives  from  labor,  which  was 
not  originally  there  ;  and  who  put  it  there ;  and  where,  and  how  Koger 
Sherman  and  Elbridge  Gerry  were  induced  to  put  it  there.  John  Rut- 
ledge  put  it  there,  in  the  clause  of  faith  and  credit  to  records  ;  but  he 
did  not  put  it  into  the  other  clause.  He  had  a  reason  for  putting  it  in 
the  one  clause,  and  he  had  a  reason  for  omitting  it  in  the  other  clause. 
When  Colonel  Mason,  on  the  22d  of  August,  only  a  week  before  this 
clause  was  unanimously  adopted,  told  the  world  that  "  every  master  of 
slaves  is  born  a  petty  tyrant.  They  bring  the  judgment  of  Heaven  on 
a  country.  If  nations  cannot  be  rewarded  or  punished  in  the  next 
world,  they  must  be  in  this.  By  an  inevitable  chain  of  causes  and 
effects.  Providence  punishes  national  sins  by  national  calamities."  *  * 
*  *  "  He  held  it  essential,  in  every  point  of  view,  that  the  general 
government  should  have  power  to  prevent  the  increase  of  slavery." 
When  that  far-seeing  Virginian,  who  seems  to  have  anticipated  the  his- 
tory of  Virginia  in  the  nineteenth  century,  uttered  these  memorable 
words  in  the  convention,  do  you  suppose  that  he  was  contriving  a  gov- 
ernment to  be  used  as  a  great  negro-catching  machine,  and  that  should 
be  good  for  nothing  else,  —  to  be  broken  up  the  moment  it  ceased  to 
perform  that  function,  as  seems  now  to  be  the  prevailing  opinion  among 
the  demagogues  of  both  parties  ?  Do  you  suppose  for  a  moment  that 
James  Madison,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  George  Washington, 
Geo]-ge  Mason,  and  other  abolitionists  of  that  day,  —  to  use  the  word  as 
we  hear  it  used  every  day  in  congress,  —  imagined  that  a  provision  so 
abhorrent  to  their  general  views  had  been  inserted  in  the  Constitution, 
and  did  not  make  it  the  subject  of  indignant  comment  in  the  convention 
or  out  of  the  convention  ?  Mr.  Madison  would  not  suffer  the  black  and 
odious  name  of  slave  to  be  named  in  the  Constitution.  Is  it  conceiva- 
ble that  he  meant  to  enroll  the  hunting-down  of  the  fugitive  slave  among 
the  highest  duties  of  the  government  founded  under  that  Constitution, 
as  our  present  administration  esteems  it  to  be  ? 

Are  we  to  believe  that  one  half  of  the  convention,  being  honest  and 
firm  men,  behed  all  the  instincts  of  their  hearts,  all  the  prejudices,  if 
you  choose  so  to  phrase  it,  of  their  education,  all  that  devotion  to  the 
principles  of  liberty  in  the  abstract,  which  the  revolution  had  developed, 
and  made  themselves  parties,  without  a  particle  of  inducement  held  out 
to  them,  without  a  word  of  remonstrance  from  one  of  them,  to  an  eter- 


768  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   AVRITINGS 

nal  national  slavelinnt  ?  Are  we  to  believe  this,  not  only  without  evi- 
dence, but  against  all  the  evidences  ?  Let  me  remark  upon  the  strange- 
ness of  this  fact.  Among  the  thousand  letters  which  were  written  by- 
leading  members  of  the  constitutional  convention,  or  of  the  State  conven- 
tions at  the  South,  and  at  the  North,  never  was  there  any  thing  produced 
that  would  lead  one  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  convention,  or  any 
man  in  it,  or  any  man  out  of  it,  in  the  year  1787,  suspected  that  the 
clause  relative  to  fugitives  from  labor,  contained  a  grant  of  power. 

Not  a  solitary  letter,  speech,  journal,  memorandum,  or  record,  of  any 
description  has  been  brought  forward,  which  contains  the  explanation 
which  is  now  put  upon  this  clause  for  the  purpose  of  impairing  State 
rights,  —  helping  to  build  up  a  consolidated  system  of  government, 
which  is  centralizing  power,  and  growing  stronger  and  stronger  every 
day  and  every  hour,  without  casting  into  the  vortex  to  be  swallowed  up 
in  the  federal  maelstrom,  the  State  institution  of  slavery  ! 

Do  the  southern  gentlemen  know  wdiat  they  are  doing?  Do  you 
mean  to  throw  the  whole  power  over  the  subject  of  slavery  into  the 
hands  of  the  federal  government  ?     You  do  it  here. 

Do  gentlemen  desire  that  two  thirds  of  the  white  men  of  the  country, 
—  aye,  a  great  many  more  than  two  thirds  very  soon,  for  by  the  next 
census  v/e  shall  have  at  least  twenty-one  millions  of  white  people  at 
the  North,  and  nine  milUons,  at  the  utmost  at  the  South,  —  do  gentlemen 
desire  that  those  twenty-one  millions  of  people  should  take  this  subject 
of  slavery  into  their  hands,  —  to  let  it  agitate,  and  agitate,  and  convulse 
the  whole  nation,  until  it  shall  finally  be  treated,  as  it  will  be  treated, 
if  it  becomes  the  fuel  of  a  universal  conflagration  through  this  land  ? 
Let  southern  statesmen  take  warning  in  this  matter.  I  desire  to  stand 
upon  the  Constitution,  your  only  rock  of  safety,  in  this  terrible  future, 
glimpses  of  which  are  opening  upon  us,  —  to  stand  there,  because  I 
think  I  can  stand  there  safely,  and  nowhere  else. 

When  I  said  that  John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina,  was  the  man 
wdio  reported  the  grant  of  power  in  the  one  clause,  but  that  he  did  not 
report  any  such  grant  in  the  other  clause,  I  had  not  exhausted  the  argu- 
ment. The  clauses  underwent  another  scrutiny ;  they  passed  another 
ordeal.  This  matter  was  committed  to  a  committee  of  eleven  for  re- 
vision. It  came  back  in  essentially  the  same  shape.  Who  was  upon 
the  committee  of  revision  ?  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  of  South 
Carolina,  was  one  of  that  committee  of  eleven.  Plis  attention  had  been 
drawn  to  this  subject,  the  reclamation  of  fugitive  slaves,  for  he  had  not 
only  taken  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  subject  on  the  28th,  but  he  was 
the  individual  member  who  first  introduced  it  to  the  notice  of  the  con- 
vention.    If  he  wanted  a  grant  of  power,  he  knew  how  it  was  to  be 


OF  KOBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  769 

expressed,  for  the  clause  in  which  the  grant  of  power  was  inserted  on 
the  same  day  that  the  fugitive  from  labor  clause  was  adopted,  was  also 
before  that  committee.  James  Madison,  a  sound  and  a  keen  constitutional 
lawyer,  was  one  of  that  committee.  Luther  Martin,  of  Maryland,  was 
also  of  that  committee.  If  ever  there  was  a  strict  constructionist, 
Luther  Martin  was  one  ;  and  he  also,  as  well  as  Mr.  Madison,  was  a 
sound  constitutional  lawyer,  as  the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  (Mr. 
Bayly,)  who  reviewed  this  matter  the  other  day,  will  allow.  If  the 
committee  intended  a  grant  of  power,  would  Luther  Martin  have  left  it 
to  be  implied,  and  that,  too,  in  such  a  manner  that  it  requires  your 
optics  to  be  sharpened  by  a  judicial  decision  to  discover  the  implication  ? 

Williamson,  of  North  Carolina,  was  also  of  that  committee.  Here 
were  men  who  would  look  to  the  interests  of  the  South,  and  if  they 
meant  a  grant  of  power,  express  a  grant  of  power.  Why  did  they  not 
do  it  ?  Why  did  they  not  put  it  there  ?  They  have  not  put  it  there. 
Perhaps  they  did  not  want  it ;  perhaps  they  wanted  the  power,  but 
knew  they  could  not  have  it.  One  or  the  other  is  the  natural  and  true 
interpretation.  This  clause  came  from  the  ordinance  of  1787,  passed 
by  the  congress  of  the  confederation,  —  a  clause  that  there  should  be  no 
slavery  north-west  of  the  Ohio,  and  that  a  fugitive  flying  from  labor 
into  that  territory  should  be  delivered  up. 

That  was  a  compact,  and  that  compact  we  could  not  fail  to  understand. 
It  contained  no  grant  of  power.  It  is  not  materially  changed  as  to  this 
point.  Trace  out  its  history  ;  it  is  easy  to  find  what  that  compact  was, 
and  whence  it  came.  It  was  copied  from  an  old  New  England  compact, 
made  in  the  year  1642,  between  Massachusetts  Bay  and  her  neighbor 
colonies.  Afterwards,  substantially  the  same  compact  was  renewed, 
and  extended  a  little  further,  but  granting  no  power,  —  simply  an  agree- 
ment to  return  each  other's  runaway  servants.  This  is  the  whole 
history  of  it.  Nathan  Dane  copied  a  famihar  provision  of  New  Eng- 
land policy  from  those  old  contracts  into  the  ordinance,  which  made  the 
whole  North-west  free  soil  forever. 

Mr.  Jefferson,  in  1784,  attempted  to  make  all  the  territory  then  be- 
longing to  the  United.  States  free  soil.  He  attempted  to  exclude  slavery 
by  an  organic  ordinance  from  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and  all  the 
South-west,  as  well  as  the  North-west.  It  was  defeated  by  the  vote  of 
Mr.  Spaight  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina.  If  Spaight  had  been  a. 
Jeffersonian  democrat  that  day,  there  would  have  been  no  slavery  west 
of  the  Alleghanies.  Mr.  Jefferson  proposed  to  exclude  slavery,  but  did 
not  provide  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves.  That  was  Thomas 
Jefferson's  plan  in  1784. 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

65 


CHAPTER  X. 

MR.  RANTOUL'S  BRIEF  CONGRESSIONAL  CAREER.— ELECTED  A  DELEGATE 
TO  THE  BALTIMORE  CONVENTION.  — THE  PROCEEDINGS  OF  THAT  BODY. 
—  HOW  REGARDED  BY  THE  FREEMEN  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  — HOW 
LOOKED  UPON  BY  HIMSELF. 

The  rights  of  man  in  the  social  state,  were,  perhaps,  never 
better  understood,  more  highly  prized,  or  eloquently  defended 
than  by  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  from  the  commencement  to  the 
close  of  his  political  life.  His  love  of  liberty  was  not  an  idle 
and  empty  sentimentality,  or  the  assumed  fervor  of  a  self-seek- 
ing partisan.  It  was  the  earnest  and  entire  devotion  of  his 
soul,  an  inextinguishable  flame,  which,  when  he  ceased  to 
breathe,  ascended  to  shine  forever,  a  star  in  the  firmament  of 
freedom;  and  multitudes,  of  the  present  and  future  generations, 
shall  look  up  to  it  for  guidance  and  courage  in  the  often  dark, 
and  always  rough  and  rugged,  path  of  political  duty.  It  was 
this  path  which  he  trod  from  beginning  to  end,  with  a  fearless 
and  unswerving  step. 

Born  and  educated  in  a  section  of  Massachusetts  where  poli- 
tical principles  antagonistic  to  those  which  the  noble  aspirations 
of  his  youth,  and  the  ripened  judgment  of  his  manhood,  led 
him  to  adopt,  and  which  his  genius  preeminently  qualified  him 
to  sustain,  he  was  involved,  through  the  whole  of  his  political 
career,  in  a  sturdy  and  unflinching  conflict  with  opposing  ad- 
vantages, belonging  to  his  opponents,  which  they  deemed  un- 
conquerable. But  he  proved  that  there  was  a  power  familiar 
to  him,  but  sometimes  overlooked  by  politicians,  which  no  en- 
trenchments of  party,  whether  of  wealth,  or  fashion,  or  num- 


MEMOIRS  OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  771 

bers,  can  long  withstand.  That  power  is  honesty^  —  a  true  and 
heartfelt  purpose  to  do  right.  Political  power  may  erect  its 
batteries  of  cannon,  but  moral  power  wields  the  lightning  and 
thunder  of  heaven. 

Essex  county  had  been  celebrated  for  the  bitterness  of  its 
hostility  to  democratic  opinions,  identified,  as  they  were,  with 
the  anti-commercial  and  war  measures  of  the  administrations 
of  Jeflerson  and  Madison  ;  and  this  hostility,  excited  to  the 
highest  degree  by  many  of  the  ablest  federal  partisan  leaders, 
was  felt  in  the  full  strength  of  its  original  violence,  by  a  vast 
majority  of  the  people  in  that  section  of  the  State.  It  is  true, 
that  the  measures  of  the  democratic  administrations  above  re- 
ferred to,  fell,  with  a  crushing  weight,  upon  the  great  and  im- 
mediate interests  of  Essex  county,  whose  wealth  hardy  and 
adventurous  enterprise  had  gathered  from  the  ocean.  The  in 
terests  of  no  part  of  the  Union  were  more  completely  identified 
with  freedom  of  navigation  and  commerce  ;  and,  perhaps,  no 
equal  population  on  any  part  of  the  seaboard  suffered  so  much 
from  the  interruption,  or,  for  the  time  being,  annihilation,  of 
their  accustomed  pursuits.  It  followed,  therefore,  that  political 
opinions,  zealously  advocated  by  the  most  talented  whig  leaders, 
came  to  be  considered  by  the  people,  as  enforced  by  their  suffer- 
ings, until  they  took  deep  root ;  and,  long  after  prosperity  re- 
turned, they  were  almost  as  invincible  as  they  were  prevalent. 
Neither  the  brilliant  naval  victories  wdiich  marked  the  course  of 
the  war,  nor  its  splendid  and  triumphant  close  in  the  battle  of 
New  Orleans,  could  cause  the  people  of  Essex  to  forget  their 
losses  and  sufferings,  which  the  madness  of  party  ascribed  to 
their  own  free  government,  rather  than  to  the  tyrannical  injustice 
of  Great  Britain.  They  persisted,  how^ever,  in  maintaining  their 
well  organized  antagonism  to  the  democracy  of  the  Union. 

This  prestige  in  his  native  county,  against  the  principles  and 
measures  of  the  democratic  party,  presented  an  aspect  suffi- 
ciently discouraging  to  a  young  man  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  opinions  ; 
and  he  foresaw  that  only  indomitable  labor  in  the  course  he  had 
defined  for  himself,  could  place  him  in  a  position  suited  to  his 
generous  and  philanthropic  views  of  the  duty  of  an  American 
statesman.  It  seemed  as  if  the  sin,  if  it  were  a  sin  in  one  so 
distinguished  by  intelligence  and  uprightness  as  his  father,  leav- 


772  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES    AND  WRITINGS 

ing  the  ranks  of  the  federal  party  to  support  the  democratic  ad- 
ministration of  Andrew  Jackson,  was  visited,  with  redoubled 
injustice,  upon  the  son.  It  is  certain  that  the  latter  had  to  face 
an  opposition,  which  for  its  violence  was  unparalleled  in  the 
history  of  any  other  man  in  Massachusetts.  It  had  no  inter- 
mission from  the  commencement  to  the  close  of  his  political 
life.  It  is,  however,  only  the  intelligent,  the  bold,  the  talented, 
the  true  in  a  good  cause,  to  whom  opposition  is  made.  The 
timid,  the  weak,  those  who  are  ready,  in  seasons  of  trial,  to 
compromise  their  principles,  need  fear  no  harm.  They  are  safe 
in  their  impotency. 

That  Mr.  Rantoul  early  looked  forward  with  a  high  moral 
aim,  to  political  life,  cannot  be  questioned.  He  duly  weighed 
the  difficulties  to  be  encountered,  and  set  himself  resolutely  to 
the  work  of  removing  them.  One  of  the  greatest  of  these,  in 
Massachusetts,  was  the  apathy  of  the  democratic  party  itself. 
It  had  dwindled  down  to  a  narrow  and  powerless  minority, 
which  presented  scarcely  a  shadow  of  opposition  to  the  most 
ultra  whig  legislation.  To  reanimate  the  sentiments  of  liberty 
slumbering  in  the  breasts  of  its  people,  required  the  best  efforts 
of  its  best  friends.  The  few  recipients  of  the  favor  of  the  gen- 
eral government  in  Boston,  and  two  or  three  other  large  towns, 
were  content  with  their  wages,  and  cared  not  how  small  might 
be  the  number  of  competitors  for  them.  This  state  of  things 
remained  until  the  sledge-hammer  blows  of  David  Henshaw 
resounded  upon  the  falling  idols  of  whig  adoration,  and  not 
only  alarmed  the  worshippers,  but  aroused  the  democracy.  All 
honor  to  the  memory  of  that  bold,  shrewd,  practical,  strong- 
armed  champion  of  the  people  I  To  him,  immediately  before 
Mr.  Rantoul  entered  on  public  life,  belonged  the  honor  of  lead- 
ing the  forlorn  hope  of  the  democratic  party  in  Massachusetts. 
To  increase  their  number,  to  fill  up  their  ranks,  and  place  them  in 
a  position  for  a  fair  contest  with  their  opponents,  was  a  service, 
for  wi:iich  the  brilliant  talents,  the  thorough  knowledge,  and 
glowing  eloquence  of  Mr.  Rantoul  preeminetly  fitted  him.  With- 
out the  sacrifice  of  principle,  without  turning  one  hair's  breath 
from  the  straight  path  of  duty,  he  met  the  difficulties  he  had  fore- 
seen, and  conquered  them.  He  triumphed  at  last,  nobly,  glori- 
ously.    Nay,  his  whole  political  career  was  a  series  of  victories. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  773 

It  has  already  been  seen  that  the  democratic  measures  of  reform 
which  he  introduced  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  and  elo- 
quently sustained,  have  been,  with  a  few  exceptions,  adopted 
and  carried  into  successful  practice.  Those  now  demanded  of 
the  convention,  called  for  the  revision  of  the  State  Constitution, 
w^ere  seen  by  him  to  be  necessary,  and  on  various  occasions 
ably  advocated. 

Mr.  Rantoul  was  a  candidate  for  representative  to  congress, 
1838,  and  was  afterwards  unanimously  nominated,  several 
times,  previous  to  his  election  to  that  office  in  1851.  In 
August  of  that  year,  he  was  chosen  by  the  legislature  to  fill  the 
unexpired  term  of  United  States  senator,  vacated  by  INIr.  Web- 
ster accepting  the  office  of  secretary  of  State.  Mr.  Rantoul 
entered  the  senate  under  circumstances  highly  honorable  to 
himself,  and  at  the  same  time  extremely  unfavorable  to  his 
cordial  reception,  or  his  just  appreciation  by  that  distinguished 
body.  The  second  session  of  the  Thirty-first  Congress  was  near 
its  close  ;  and,  although  his  reputation  for  various  and  accurate 
knowledge,  and  for  high  accomplishment  as  a  debater,  had  pre- 
ceded him,  so,  too,  had  the  malevolence  of  his  enemies,  and 
their  misrepresentations  of  his  principles.  The  democratic  party 
of  Massachusetts  had  been  strengthened  and  rendered  victorious 
by  the  union  v/ith  it,  for  purposes  chiefly  of  State  reform,  of 
thousands  of  other  good  men  and  true,  who,  besides,  had  re- 
solved, that,  with  their  consent,  there  should  be  no  further  exten- 
sion of  slave  territory,  or  its  continuance  where  the  constitutional 
powers  of  congress  can  reach  and  extirpate  it.  By  the  demo- 
cratic party  of  Massachusetts  thus  constituted,  the  only  demo- 
cratic party  existing  within  her  borders,  through  its  regular 
organization  and  its  constitutional  authorities,  Mr.  Rantoul 
was  elected  United  States  senator.  No  man  with  a  better 
understanding  of  his  obligations,  or  with  a  truer  purpose  to 
fulfil  them,  ever  took  the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  He  took  his  seat,  as  a  member  of  that  body, 
on  Saturday,  February  22,  1851.  Bat  neither  the  sovereign 
right  and  authority  of  Massachusetts,  constitutionally  expressed, 
nor  the  unimpeachable  integrity,  nor  the  well-known  and  able 
services  of  Mr.  Rantoul,  as  a  sound  and  thorough  democratic 

65  * 


774  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

legislator,  could  save  him  from  encountering,  in  a  body  which 
claims  for  itself  the  highest  legislative  character  in  the  world, 
the  most  narrow,  ill-founded,  and  unjust  prejudices.  For  the 
honor  of  the  country  be  it  said,  these  prejudices  were  not  uni- 
versal in  that  branch  of  the  government.  Individuals  there  of 
the  highest  distinction,  whose  moral  sentiments  revolted  at  in- 
justice, received  him  with  open  arms  and  cordial  welcome.  In 
the  senate,  he  availed  himself  of  but  two  or  three  opportunities 
to  speak,  and  then  with  great  brevity,  and  only  to  give  informa- 
tion, or  reasons  for  his  vote,  which  others  had  overlooked.  He 
was  qualified  by  genius,  by  knowledge,  by  all  the  acquirements 
befitting  a  statesman,  to  meet  the  ablest  there  in  any  discussion 
involving  the  principles  of  legislation  on  the  domestic  or  foreign 
relations  of  the  government.  But  of  him  it  may  be  said  in  the 
words  of  Pliny,  —  "  Neque  cinquam  tarn  statim  clarum  ingeniwn 
est,  ut  possit  cmergere,  nisi  illi  materia,  occasio,  fautor,  com- 
mendator  que  contingatJ^ 

No  fit  opportunity  was  given  Mr.  Rantoul  to  speak,  as  he 
intended,  on  the  great  topics,  which  had  ever  been  most  deeply 
interesting  to  him,  either  in  the  senate  or  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives. Of  the  latter  body  he  was  elected  a  member  from 
the  second  district  of  Massachusetts,  and  took  his  scat  at  the 
commencement  of  the  first  session  of  the  Thirty-second  Congress. 
Those  great  topics  to  which  he  had  given  the  best  thoughts,  the 
indefatigable  study  of  his  youth  and  manhood,  were  the  prin- 
ciples which  form  the  basis  of  all  just  laws  regulating  trade  and 
•commerce,  as  well  as  those  which  facilitate  intercourse  between 
distant  parts  of  the  Union,  and  between  the  United  States  and 
foreign  nations.  It  was  on  subjects  of  this  nature,  that  depended 
for  illustration  on  the  facts  of  history  and  well  digested  statistical 
knowledge,  the  result  of  wide  and  patient  research,  and  mathe- 
matical accuracy,  a  kind  of  information,  in  short,  essential  to  the 
accomplished  statesman,  that  he  displayed  the  elevated  intel- 
lectual and  moral  character  of  his  mind,  and  the  singular  weight 
and  value  of  his  influence  as  a  legislator.  Had  he  lived  to  give 
his  reasons,  with  his  accustomed  eloquence,  for  his  well-known 
opinions  upon  the  tariff",  the  currency,  and  other  kindred  topics, 
to  which  he  had  devoted  many  years  of  active  and  profound 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  775 

investigation,  he  would  have  won  accumulated  honors  from  his 
countrymen,  and  have  added  fresh  laurels  to  his  coronal  of 
fame. 

He  believed  that  the  generous  and  life-giving  fruits  of  the 
highest  civilization  depended  on  freedom  of  trade  and  inter- 
course between  the  different  nations  and  communities  of  man- 
kind ;  that  the  asperities  of  tribes,  races,  and  sections  which 
divide  the  world,  would  be  mitigated,  and  that  wars  would 
cease,  so  soon  as  the  advantages  of  unembarrassed  intercom- 
munication should  be  generally  enjoyed,  and  the  untaxed  com- 
modities of  different  countries  could  be  freely  exchanged.  It 
was  because  he  believed  a  democratic  government  would  prove 
most  favorable  to  these  objects,  so  interesting  to  humanity,  that 
he  was  a  democrat.  His  political  course  had  its  principles  laid 
deep  in  the  soundest  philosophical  and  philanthropic  vievs^s  of 
the  relations  and  duties  of  man  in  the  social  state.  As  a  politi- 
cian, he  united  with  an  inflexible  honesty,  depth,  solidity,  firm- 
ness, and  vital  power.  He  was  not  one  of  those  light  bodies 
that  float  upon  the  stream  of  party,  whose  emptiness  gives  them 
buoyancy,  and  whose  adaptation  to  the  whirls  and  eddies  of 
the  political  current  enables  them  to  catch  what  is  their  only 
aim,  the  mucky  prizes  upon  its  surface.  He  was  more  like  one 
of  those  noble  steamers,  animated  with  intelligence,  whose 
capacious  and  deep  freighted  bulk  ploughs  the  waves  of  the 
western  waters,  bearing,  from  tributary  States  to  its  destined 
port,  the  bounties  of  nature  and  the  productions  of  industry  and 
science. 


KOSSUTH, 


On  Tuesday,  December  30,  1851,  a  resolution  offered  by  Mr. 
Carter,  of  Ohio,  in  the  United  States  house  of  representatives, 
gave  rise  to  one  of  those  disorderly  and  disgraceful  debates, 
which  have  too  often  been  witnessed  in  that  body.  The  resolu- 
tion is  in  these  words  :  —  "  ResolvccL    That  a  committee  of 


776  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

five  be  appointed  by  the  Speaker,  to  wait  npon  Louis  Kossuth 
and  introduce  him  to  the  house  of  representatives." 

Of  the  speeches  made  on  that  occasion,  as  reported  in  the 
Congressional  Globe,  some  of  which  were  of  considerable  length, 
the  few  remarks  offered  by  Mr.  Rantoul  alone  present  that  just 
view  of  the  subject,  which  satisfies  every  demand  of  patriotism 
and  philanthropy.  He  presented  Kossuth  to  the  courtesies,  not 
to  say  the  homage  of  the  nation,  as  the  champion  of  the  liberty, 
the  independence,  the  rights  of  his  own  State,  instead  of  admit- 
ting that  State  to  be  a  mere  fractional  part  of  the  domain  of  a 
despotic  empire,  —  the  champion,  in  short,  of  State  rights,  as 
understood  by  the  founders  of  the  American  confederacy. 


REPORT  OF  THE  SPEECH  OE  MR.  RANTOUL. 

I  desire  to  say,  that  I  shall  vote  for  this  resolution,  not  because  I 
consider  Louis  Kossuth  to  be  identified  with  the  great  cause  of  Eu- 
ropean liberty,  —  although  I  sympathize  strongly  with  all  who  are  the 
champions  of  that  cause,  —  nor  simply  because  he  stands  before  the 
country  as  a  champion  of  national  independence,  although  there  is 
no  holier  or  higher  cause  in  which  man  can  be  engaged  than  that ;  but 
because  he  comes  here  the  representative  of  a  principle  heretofore  almost 
peculiar  to  our  own  institutions.  The  case  of  Hungary  is  the  case  of  a 
sovereign  independent  State  united  with  other  States  under  one  common 
executive,  for  limited  and  specific  purposes,  that  sovereign  State  reserv- 
ing her  own  rights ;  and  Louis  Kossuth  stands  here  before  the  country, 
the  first  European  that  ever  stepped  upon  our  shores,  the  champion  of 
State  rights.  It  is  that  principle  which  he  personifies,  and  no  other  man 
ever  came  from  the  Old  World  that  could  be  said  to  personify  it.  That  is 
the  highest  claim  which  he  has  upon  my  regard,  and,  as  I  believe,  upon 
the  regard  of  the  civilized  world.  What  was  the  case  of  Hungary  for 
several  hundred  years  ?  She  had  constituted  a  part  of  a  confederated  em- 
pire, —  she  had  had  her  own  rights,  and  guarded  them  with  jealous  care, 
and  she  had  her  separate  State  independence  and  sovereignty,  which 
perished  through  the  encroachments  of  the  central  power ;  a  power 
created  originally  under  express  limitations.  If  this  republic  shall  go 
the  downward  path  which  every  republic  has  gone  whose  history  has 
been  written,  from  what  cause  will  it  perish  ?  I  stand  here  to  welcome 
Louis  Kossuth,  because  I  love  this  Union,  and  pray  that  it  may  be  eternal ; 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  777 

but  I  see  in  this  government  a  symptom  of  mortality,  —  and  wliat  is  it  ? 
If  this  government  shall  perish,  it  Vv^ll  perish  by  the  encroachments  of 
the  central  power  upon  the  reserved  rights  of  the  separate  States.  And 
here  stands  a  man  whose  whole  life  has  been  devoted  to  the  vindication 
of  State  rights  against  consolidation  and  centralization.  That  is  the  prin- 
ciple he  embodies,  and  it  is  for  that  we  should  welcome  him  here,  if  we 
welcome  him  at  all,  —  as  I  trust  in  God  we  shall  do  cheerfully,  and  with 
our  whole  hearts. 

Now,  what  is  the  reason  liberty  has  baen  impossible  in  Europe,  from 
the  earliest  times  down  to  the  present  day?  Simply  because  they  have 
had  no  contrivance  there  for  dividing  the  powers  of  the  government 
among  many  different  administrations.  How  was  it  that  that  great  man, 
—  the  apostle  of  liberty  in  two  worlds,  —  and  his  companions  failed  to 
establish  constitutional  government  in  France  ?  For  one  reason,  and 
one  only;  and  that  is,  because  all  the  powers  of  the  government  are  in- 
trusted to  one  central  power  ;  and  that  power  must,  of  necessity,  be  alto- 
gether too  strong  for  liberty  to  exist  anywhere. 

And,  Sir,  when  I  see  here  in  this  country  the  universal  tendency  of 
power  to  attract  to  itself  all  power  ;  when  I  see  that  there  must  some 
day  or  other  come  up  the  question.  Shall  this  cluster  of  republics  cease 
to  be  a  cluster  of  repubhcs  ?  Shall  it  become  a  national  government? 
When  I  see  a  party  sometimes  calling  itself  national,  because  it  carries 
national  powers  further  than  other  men  are  disposed  to  carry  them ; 
when  I  see  such  tendencies,  —  I  allude  not  to  the  present  time  particu- 
larly, but  to  different  periods  since  the  formation  of  the  government,  — 
when  I  see  that  that  is  the  great  danger  against  which  every  man  in  this 
country  ought  to  contend,  who  desires  the  preservation  of  our  institu- 
tions ;  and  when  I  see  here  a  man  who  has  devoted  his  life,  his  energies, 
his  genius,  —  a  genius  which  I  will  not  now  pause  to  characterize,  for  I 
trust  all  around  me  appreciate  it  as  I  do,  —  a  man  who  has  devoted  all 
the  powers  that  God  has  given  him  to  the  single  purpose  of  defending 
the  institutions  and  independence  of  his  country  against  the  central  power 
of  the  federal  government,  I  ask  myself.  Is  it  possible  that  any  man  who 
sees  in  tlie  rights  of  the  several  States  the  bulwark  and  safeguard  of  our 
liberties,  can  for  a  mom.ent  hesitate  to  welcome  such  a  man  ?  The  mys- 
tery is  to  me  incom[)rehensible.  I  confess  I  cannot  fathom  it;  and 
nothing  that  I  have  yet  heard  in  the  debate  npon  this  floor  has  given  me 
any  assistance  in  understanding  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  unwilling- 
ness to  welcome  our  brother,  our  friend,  our  compatriot,  in  the  defence 
of  that  great  principle  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  our  institu- 
tions. 

If,  Sir,  Louis  Kossuth  had  not  been  brought  here  in  a  government 


778  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

ship,  —  if  he  had  come  in  his  own  vessel,  at  his  own  expense,  —  if  he 
had  never  been  hearcl  of  except  as  the  champion  of  the  principle  which 
I  have  already  specified,  —  that  alone  would  have  been  claim  enough 
on  me.  And  when  such  a  man  has  been  brought  here  at  the  national 
expense,  are  we  to  stand  parleying  while  he  is  at  the  door,  and  debating 
whether  w^e  will  let  him  in,  or  shut  him  out  ?  What  new  light  have  we 
on  this  subject  ?  Are  we  to  say,  that  by  admitting  Louis  Kossuth  we 
sanction  all  the  opinions  that  he  has  ever  uttered  ?  If  that  be  so,  we 
never  should  have  invited  him  here.  He  had  uttered  a  good  many 
opinions  before  he  came  to  this  country,  in  which  I  for  one  could  not 
agree  with.  him.  But  I  say,  that  we  must  take  the  man  as  the  glorious 
representative  of  a  glorious  cause.  As  such  we  can  take  him  to  our 
hearts,  differ  from  us  as  he  may,  on  a  great  variety  of  questions,  and 
important  questions  too,  that  may  arise.  All  honest  men,  having  sound 
intellects,  do  differ.  When  I  find  two  men  agreeing  precisely  in  opinion, 
I  take  it  for  granted  that  they  are  either  both  fools,  or  that  one  of  them 
is  a  fool  and  is  controlled  by  the  other.  This  man  has  a  right  to  his 
owm  opinions.  Let  him  express  them,  and  express  them  fearlessly.  I 
do  not  say  by  my  vote  that  I  indorse  any  of  his  opinions.  I  simply 
say  that  I  glory  in  welcoming  to  America,  the  peculiar  champion  of  the 
great  principles  of  American  institutions. 


SLAYERY. 


In  Mr.  Rantoul's  speech  in  the  house  of  representatives,  June 
11,  1852,  he  said,  "I  have  not  opened  my  mouth  before  this 
house  in  any  allusion  to  the  subject  of  slavery,  except  in  reply 
to  a  direct  attack  upon  me.  Again  and  again  have  I  suffered 
such  attacks  to  pass  without  notice."  "  I  have  been  sitting 
here  since  the  commencement  of  this  session,  listening  to  de- 
nunciations of  agitation  and  agitators  upon  a  certain  subject, 
which  has  been  handled  a  great  deal  upon  this  floor.  '  Cease 
this  agitation  !  Quiet  the  distracted  country ! '  That  has  been 
the  cry."  This  cry  was,  indeed,  raised  so  vociferously,  reiterated 
so  constantly,  insisted  upon  so  uproariously,  with  such  loud, 
commanding,  angry  tones,  that  it  seems  almost  incredible,  if  it 
were  not  indisputably  true,  that  the  very  members  who  said 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  779 

they  would  have  quiet,  were  the  only  ones,  and  they  chiefly 
from  the  South,  who  raised  the  disturbance,  and  lashed  the 
"  waves  of  agitation."  Such  was  the  frenzy  of  the  time  ;  first, 
prodncing  the  enactment  of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  that  new, 
and  for  the  present,  successful  whig  attempt  at  consolidation, 
and  monstrous  violation  of  the  Jeffersonian  rules  of  interpreting 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  then  breaking  out 
into  passionate  denunciations  of  all  whom  the  law  offended  by 
its  despotic  character.  IMembers  of  the  house,  of  the  senate, 
and  of  the  cabinet,  might  agitate  as  much  as  they  pleased  for 
the  law,  and  this  was  no  agitation  whatever ;  but  let  a  word  be 
spoken  against  the  enactment,  and  not  the  "  crack  of  doom," 
nor  the  explosion  of  earth's  central  fires,  upheaving  the  ocean 
and  the  land,  could  spread  wider  consternation,  or  excite  more 
holy  horror  of  danger  to  the  Union. 

There  is  a  party  in  this  country,  v/hich,  for  the  want  of  some- 
thing better  to  sustain  it,  has  contrived  to  thrive  upon  panic, 
and  never  has  it  manufactured  a  more  successful  one,  than  the 
fugitive  slave  law  panic.  This,  too,  is  doomed  to  be  as  short- 
lived, and  ultimately  to  plague  its  inventors,  as  much  as  the 
others.  This  enactment  will  fall.  It  will  be  swept  away  by 
the  slow  rising,  but  at  last,  overwhelming  tide  of  democratic 
opinion.  The  slave-holding  states  themselves  will  demand  the 
repeal  of  that  law.  They  will,  as  an  instinct  of  self-defence, 
repudiate  the  doctrine  that  congress,  without  a  change  of  the 
Constitution,  has  any  right  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  the  States  ;  for  if  the  right  exists,  who  shall  limit  the  use  of 
it  ?  The  only  safety  of  the  South  is  most  clearly  in  a  return  to 
the  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution.  If  southern  institu- 
tions in  relation  to  slavery,  depend  upon  nothing  more  certain 
than  a  majority  vote  of  congress,  their  day  is  destined  to  a 
speedy  decline,  and  nothing  in  the  form  of  earthly  power  can 
save  them.     Are  they  worth  saving? 

On  the  23d  of  January,  1852,  Hon.  G.  T.  Davis  of  the  Sixth 
Congressional  District  of  Massachusetts,  in  a  speech  in  the  house 
of  representatives,  referring  at  first  to  the  Mexican  indemnity 
bill,  ventured  rather  rashly,  considering  his  own  previous  coali- 
tion with  the  ultra-abolition  party,  to  bring  the  charge  with 
much  vehemence   and  loud  denunciation,  before  the   face  of 


780  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

heavpii  and  earth,  of  corruption  against  the  union  of  the  demo- 
crats and  free  soilers  to  overthrow  the  whig  party  in  Massachu- 
setts. The  coalition  of  this  gentleman  with  the  abolitionists, 
the  coalition  of  the  whig  party  through  a  long  series  of  years, 
with  every  form  of  what  is  called  anti-slavery  movement,  was 
all  innocent,  harmless,  and  holy.  But  any  coalition  against  the 
whigs,  being  a  coalition  against  "  all  the  decency,"  all  the  intel- 
ligence, all  the  purity  in  the  world,  must,  from  its  very  nature, 
be  an  abomination  fit  only  to  be  anathematized.  So,  however, 
it  appears  that  Mr.  Davis  regarded  the  matter ;  and  he  thought 
it  necessary,  accordingly,  to  denounce  all  who  favored  this 
anti-whig  coalition.  The  next  day,  January  24,  Mr.  Rantoul 
replied  to  this  attack  in  a  speech,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
report  from  the  Congressional  Globe. 

Mr.  EantoLil  said :  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  at  all  into  the  general 
merits  of  the  question  before  the  committee ;  indeed,  I  would  not  have 
troubled  the  committee  —  as  I  am  always  very  unwilling  to  do  it  —  with 
any  remarks  of  mine,  if  there  had  not  been  cast  upon  my  native  State 
an  imputation  so  serious  as  to  demand  immediate  notice  from  me.  A 
majority  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  are  involved  together  in  an 
imputation  which,  it  seems  to  me,  the  honor  of  the  people  of  that  great 
State,  without  distinction  of  party,  requires  should  not,  when  it  is  thus 
cast  upon  her  by  a  representative  of  one  of  her  congressional  districts, 
on  this  floor,  himself  a  native  son  of  hers,  be  suffered  to  pass  unrepelled. 
The  imputation  is  one  of  corruption,  —  not,  as  I  understand  it,  upon  a 
few  leaders  of  a  single  political  party,  but  upon  a  vast  majority  of  the 
voters  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  —  of  a  State  which  has 
stood  so  high  in  the  history  of  this  country  from  the  time  when  this 
country  began  to  have  a  history,  and  which  I  am  proud  to  believe  has 
never  forfeited  her  pristine  rank  in  the  glorious  sisterhood  of  confeder- 
ated States.  That  such  an  imputation  upon  the  people  of  such  a  State 
should  be  noticed  upon  this  floor  as  soon  as  it  is  made,  seems  to  me  so 
plain  that  I  should  think  myself  without  excuse  if  I  kept  my  seat  under 
such  a  call  to  speak  here.  Sir,  Massachusetts  bears  a  name  too  resplen- 
dent with  the  glories  of  her  colonial  and  revolutionary  history  to  be  ques- 
tioned by  her  children.  She  has  maintained  her  high  standard  of 
patriotism,  and  virtue,  and  honor,  too  long,  too  uniformly,  too  brilliantly, 
to  have  it  supposed  for  a  moment  that  a  true  son  of  hers  would  endure 
to  see  her  fair  fame  sullied  without  rushing  to  her  defence. 

Sir,  the  imputation  of  corruption  is  made  here  upon  two.  political  par- 


OF  EOBEKT   RANTOUL,  JR.  781 

ties,  which  the  gentleman  estimates  to  contain  forty-three  thousand  in 
the  one  party,  and  twenty-eight  thousand  in  the  other,  —  a  majority, 
according  to  his  own  calcuhition,  of  the  voters  who  take  sufficient  inter- 
est in  political  matters  to  present  themselves  at  the  polls.  That  is  the 
charge,  and  it  is  to  that  that  I  address  myself  And  first,  let  me  answer 
as  to  that  portion  of  those  voters  with  whom  I  am  directly  and  politically 
identified,  and  have  been  for  more  than  a  score  of  years,  through  a 
series,  scarcely  paralleled,  of  hard-fought  battles,  —  I  mean  the  demo- 
cratic party  of  Massachusetts.  But  before  going  into  the  details  of  this 
matter,  let  me  make  one  general  observation,  and  I  shall  appeal  to  the 
knowledge  and  consciousness  of  every  man  that  hears  me,  whether  I 
am  justified  in  what  I  am  about  to  say,  and  that  is,  that  if  there  be  any 
political  party  in  any  State  in  this  Union  whose  history  places  it  above 
the  suspicion  of  corruption,  from  its  peculiar  position,  it  is  the  indefatiga- 
ble and  indomitable  democracy  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts ;  because 
there  is  no  party  in  any  State  in  the  Union  that  has  stood  up  against 
such  odds,  against  such  disadvantages,  against  such  actual  losses  and 
sacrifices,  as  the  democratic  party  of  Massachusetts,  and  every  man  in 
that  party,  has  confronted  and  sustained  for  very  many  years  past. 
Why,  who  are  the  democrats  of  that  State  ?  The  laboring  men  of  the 
State,  and  some  men  of  talent  who  are  not  laboring  men,  but  who  arc- 
not  men  of  capital  or  property.  And  against  whom  are  they  contend- 
ing ?  Against  the  whole  aggregate  mass  of  the  capital  of  New  Eng- 
land, concentrated  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 
That  is  the  position  of  the  two  parties.  Now,  I  ask,  if  there  be  cor- 
ruption in  the  State  of  Massachusetts, — and  I  do  not  deny  that  there  is 
corruption,  more  or  less,  everywhere,  in  every  State  and  nation  under 
heaven, — but  if  there  be  corruption  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
where  is  it?  Prima  facie  the  answer  is  a  pretty  plain  one.  The  cor- 
ruption is  where  the  means  of  corruption  exist.  There  are  several 
hundreds  of  millions  of  capital  piled  up  in  and  about  the  city  of  Boston. 
There  is  no  other  such  aggregate  of  wealth  in  so  few  hands  on  the 
American  continent ;  and  if  there  be  corruption  there,  it  is  that  vast, 
unequalled  mass  of  capital  that  purchases  whatever  is  venal.  This  capi- 
tal, like  all  other  capital,  is,  by  the  instincts  of  its  holders,  adverse  to 
democratic  principles.  Conceive  the  effect  of  this  on  the  position  of 
political  parties.  The  democrats  are  mostly  of  the  laboring  classes.  I 
do  not  say  that  there  is  bribery  there  ;  but  I  say  that  if  there  be,  it  is 
the  rich  that  bribe  the  poor,  and  not  the  poor  that  bribe  the  rich.  Upon 
that  position,  then,  I  start  in  this  examination.  The  democratic  party 
of  Massachusetts  consists  of  men  who  stand  up  against  their  own  indi- 
vidual interests ;  and  this  every  man  may  know  that  will  pass  through 

66 


782  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

that  State,  and  not  shut  his  eyes  to  facts  around  him.  Is  there  an  ope- 
rative in  a  factory  there  who  does  not  know  that  this  place  is  less  secure 
to  him  if  he  votes  the  democratic  ticket  than  if  he  votes  the  whig 
ticket  ?  Is  there  an  agent  in  a  factory  who  does  not  know  the  same 
thing  ?  Is  there  a  porter,  or  stevedore  on  a  wharf  who  does  not  feel 
his  certainty  of  future  employment  sensibly  diminished  if  he  is  known, 
nay,  if  he  is  even  suspected,  to  be  a  democrat  ?  Is  there  a  storekeeper 
there,  not  a  whig,  who  does  not  know  that  those  who  would  be  his  best 
customers,  pass  by  his  door  because  he  does  not  happen  to  be  of  the 
same  politics,  and  that  the  customers  whom  he  gets  in  their  place  do  not 
expend  with  him  such  large  sums  of  money  ?  Is  there  a  physician,  or 
a  professional  man  of  any  kind,  who  does  not  know  that  he  makes  heavy 
sacrifices  if  he  adopts  and  professes  the  so-called  heresies  that  have  been 
so  unpopular  formerly  with  the  powerful  in  Massachusetts  ?  Is  there  a 
lawyer  of  any  talent,  who  is  a  democrat,  who  does  not  know  that  he 
could  quadruple  his  practice  by  simply  professing  to  be  a  whig  ?  Cler- 
gymen, physicians,  laborers,  tradesmen,  —  all  classes  of  men  make 
sacrifices  by  belonging  to  the  democratic  party.  No  mortal  man  in 
Massachusetts  ever  made  sacrifices  by  joining  the  whig  party,  but  tens 
of  thousands  of  democrats  have  sacrificed  a  large  proportion  of  their 
means  of  support  by  standing  up  to  what  they  believed  to  be  sound, 
and  true,  and  right.  That  is  the  position  of  the  democratic  party  of 
Massachusetts,  and  that  has  been  its  history  from  its  commencement 
down  to  the  present  time.  Against  this  party  particularly  is  the  charge 
of  corruption  aimed,  and  what  is  the  ground  of  that  charge  ?  It  is 
brought  down  to  the  alleged  fact  of  a  coalition. 

Before  going  into  the  character  of  the  alleged  coalition,  let  me  ask, 
are  coalitions  in  themselves  wrong  ?  Is  it  wrong  that  those  who  seek  a 
common  object,  should  cooperate  to  effect  that  object  ?  Am  I  to  stop  to 
inquire  whether  my  neighbor  thinks  as  I  do  upon  all  questions,  —  all 
important  questions,  if  you  please, —  before  I  act  with  him  upon  any 
one  important  question  ?  If  the  capitol  is  on  fire,  and  the  engines  in 
the  rotunda,  and  not  men  enough  to  man  the  brakes,  must  I  refuse  to 
fall  in  and  help  to  work  for  the  salvation  of  the  common  interest,  and 
to  extinguish  the  conflagration,  because  there  happens  to  be  a  man  at 
work  there  for  the  same  object,  who  entertains  different  sentiments  from 
me,  on  religion,  for  instance,  the  most  important  concern  of  man,  —  he 
being  a  Catholic,  and  I  a  Protestant?  Everyman  will  say  at  once, 
that  the  man  would  be  an  idiot  who  would  suffer  his  energies  to  be  para- 
lyzed by  scruples  against  the  coalition  in  such  a  case,  though  it  might  be 
a  coalition  with  atheists  and  drunkards,  polygamists  and  monarchists. 
I  hold  that,  as  a  general  thing,  for  those  to  act  together  who  desire  a 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  783 

great  public  object,  impossible  to  be  accomplished  without  their  union, 
shows  that  thej  are  men  of  sense,  and  understand  how  to  effect  their 
object.  What  do  all  these  men  who  cry  out  against  the  alleged  coalition 
in  Massachusetts  do  in  respect  of  coalition  among  themselves?  Do  they 
isolate  themselves?  Does  each  man  stand  apart  from  his  neighbors 
with  whom  he  differs  on  any  important  question  ?  If  they  did,  there 
v.'ould  be  no  parties  in  this  country,  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other,  and 
no  government;  for  Vvithout  combinations  of  men  differing  widely  from 
each  other,  constitutions  could  never  be  adopted,  nor  governments  car- 
ried on,  nor  even  established,  and  freedom  would  expire  in  universal 
anarchy. 

But  to  come  now  to  the  precise  question  raised  by  the  charge  of  my 
colleague  against  Massachusetts  :  is  a  coalition  between  men  who  do  not 
oppose  the  compromise  measures,  and  the  fugitive  slave  law  particularly, 
with  men  who  do  oppose  them,  an  unholy  coalition  ?  If  it  be,  where 
and  since  when  was  that  discovery  made?  Was  it  by  the  whig  party 
in  the  State  of  Missouri?  Has  Missouri  been  denounced  again  and 
again  upon  this  floor,  by  whig  gentlemen,  because  the  gentleman  (Mr. 
Geyer)  who  holds  his  seat  in  the  other  branch  of  this  congress,  was 
elected  by  a  coalition,  as  I  understand  it,  of  those  who  favored  and 
those  who  were  opposed  to  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  the  compromise 
measures,  in  the  State  of  Missouri  ?  Is  it  in  the  State  of  Wisconsin, 
wdiere  the  gentleman  nominated  by  a  free  soil  convention,  and  known 
to  concur  in  their  views,  was  elected,  and  the  whig  papers,  from  one  end 
of  the  country  to  the  other,  set  up  a  shout  of  triumph,  at  the  whig  vic- 
tory in  the  State  of  AYisconsin  ?  The  free  soil  candidate  of  the  free 
soil  party  was  elected,  and  hence  it  was,  as  one  would  suppose,  a  free 
soil  victory.  But  is  a  whig  victory  a  free  soil  victory  ?  Are  they  one 
and  the  same  thing?  The  gentleman  says  they  are  not  the  same,  but 
very  different  things ;  but  yet  there  is  no  outcry  of  indignation  against 
Missouri,  or  against  Wisconsin  for  these  enormities,  but  much  applause, 
because  a  coalition  has  given  to  whigs  a  share  in  the  distribution  of 
office  and  power.  There  is  little  to  be  urged  against  Ohio,  or  Xew 
York,  or  Georgia,  but  a  great  deal  against  Massachusetts.  And  why  ? 
I  do  not  know,  unless  it  is  because  her  own  sons  contribute  to  heap  im- 
putations of  dishonor  on  Massachusetts,  on  this  floor,  because  the  stab 
from  the  parricidal  hand  rankles  most  sorely,  and  stimulates  the  malig- 
nancy of  strangers  to  follow  up  the  blow  and  add  fresh  venom  to  the 
wound.  I  do  not  know  why  else  she  is  made  to  bear  the  sins  of  all  the 
other  States,  —  why  else  she  is  to  be  the  "  scape-goat  "  for  all  the  other 
coalitions  in  the  United  States.  Are  not  we  in  Massachusetts  at  liberty 
to  judge  of  our  own  political  position,  and  political  course,  as  w^ell  as 


784  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

gentlemen  in  Missouri,  or  Wisconsin,  or  Ohio,  or  in  New  York,  or  any- 
where else  in  the  United  States, — in  Mississippi,  or  Georgia,  or  any 
-other  State  ?  Is  it  so  clear  that  in  any  section  of  the  country,  —  east,  west, 
north,  south,  or  central,  —  is  it,  I  say,  so  clear  that  gentlemen,  who  call 
themselves  by  the  same  party  name,  agree  upon  these  very  questions  ? 
Is  it  so  clear  that,  in  South  Carolina,  or  Alabama,  or  Mississippi,  the 
democrats  all  agree  about  this  fugitive  slave  bill  ?  Do  not  some  of  them 
say  that  it  is  constitutional,  and  others  that  it  is  unconstitutional  ?  Do 
not  some  propose  one  course  of  action,  and  others  precisely  the  opposite 
course  of  action  with  regard  to  it  ?  Yet,  day  after  day,  with  an  inso- 
lence countenanced  by  her  own  sons,  IMassachusetts  is  denounced  upon 
this  floor,  and  no  other  State  but  Massachusetts,  —  a  State  having  a 
right  equal  to  that  of  any  other  sovereign  State  in  this  confederacy,  to 
determine  what  she  considers  right  and  proper,  and  what  course  she 
deems  best  to  pursue  in  her  own  domestic  affairs,  and  for  her  own  good 
government.  Why,  the  gentleman  from  North  Carolina,  (Mr.  Stanly,) 
thinks  he  would  not  go  to  heaven  with  democrats  like  those  of  Massa- 
chusetts, —  he  could  not  bear  to  tread  the  same  path.  Sir,  he  has  not 
trod  our  path  heretofore,  and  we  therefore  had  no  reason  to  expect  his 
company  in  the  strait  and  thorny  way  at  this  time;  but  because  he 
refuses  to  join  us,  we  shall  not  the  less  firmly  press  on,  and  not  the  less 
safely  arrive  at  our  journey's  end. 

Massachusetts,  I  say,  has  the  same  right  to  manage  her  own  political 
affairs,  in  her  own  way,  with  that  of  any  other  State  in  this  Union.  And 
she  has  not  only  the  same  right,  but  she  has  the  same  ability,  energy, 
and  determination  to  maintain  that  right,  with  any  other  State,  and  she 
will  maintain  it,  at  home  and  abroad. 

But  I  am  not  going  to  take  my  stand  behind  the  dignity  of  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  and  say  that  she  does  what  she  pleases,  and  she  will 
not  give  an  account  of  what  she  does.  I  stand  ready  here  to-day,  — 
what  I  have  never  done  before  in  public,  and  what  I  would  not  do  now, 
if  I  did  not  feel  particularly  clear  and  particularly  free  from  doubt  that  I 
am  dolnor  right  in  what  I  am  doing,  —  to  indorse  the  coalition  in  Massa- 
chusetts.  I  believe  I  understand  what  it  was,  and  what  it  did,  thougli  I 
was  not  present  at  the  time  it  was  entered  into.  I  was  in  the  State  of 
Illinois.  But  after  my  return  I  heard  what  had  been  done,  and  I  am 
now  in  the  condition  of  an  impartial  looker-on  ;  and  being  thus  free  to 
take  my  own  course,  I  can  say,  and  do  say,  that  I  think  it  was  eminently 
wise  and  patriotic  in  the  majority  of  the  people  of  that  State  to  take  the 
government  of  the  State  out  of  the  hands  of  the  minority,  however 
unpleasant  to  the  minority  that  proceeding  might  be. 

Before  proceeding  to  discuss  the  propriety  of  that  movement,  and  of 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  785 

the  masterly  combination  by  whicli  it  wa.s  made,  let  me,  however,  inquire 
for  a  moment,  who  it  is  that  makes  the  charge  of  corruption  against  the 
coahtion  in  Massachusetts  ?  My  colleague  from  the  sixth  district  (Mr. 
Davis)  undertakes  to  read  lectures  to  the  democracy  and  free-soil  party 
because  they  act  together  in  Massachusetts.  That  is  all.  He  has  not 
impeached  them  for  their  acts,  but  only  for  their  concurrence  in  those 
acts.  He  has  not  singled  out  any  one  act  of  those  parties,  except  that 
of  acting  together.  That  he  considers  a  violation  of  political  principles. 
I  have  a  right  to  presume  that  all  our  great  measures  w^ere  right,  only 
that  it  was  wrong  for  us  first  to  agree  to  do  right,  and  then  to  do  it.  He 
has  not  accused  us  of  voting  for  any  law  or  any  resolution,  but  he  has 
accused  us  of  appointing  men  to  office.  He  has  not  accused  us  of  ap- 
pointing bad  men.  He  has  not  said  that  the  offices  are  not  better  filled 
now  than  they  were  when  the  whigs  were  in  power.  If  he  had,  T  should 
take  issue  with  him  upon  that  proposition.  He  has  not  designated  one 
single  act  of  these  parties,  but  he  has  designated  this  coalition  itself  and 
jper  se  as  offensive  to  his  political  sensibilities. 

And  now,  what  does  my  friend  from  the  sixth  district  mean  by  charg- 
ing upon  the  democrats  a  breach  of  political  honesty  in  acting  with  those 
who  agree  with  them  upon  certain  particular  points  of  action,  —  in  elect- 
ing the  governor,  lieutenant  governor,  and  other  officers  of  State  admin- 
istration, and  in  passing  certain  measures  of  reform,  in  which  the 
democratic  party  has  been  engaged  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years  past  in 
Massachusetts,  but  which  they  had  not  accomplished,  and  could  not  have 
accomplished,  without  the  aid  which  he  thinks  they  ought  not  to  have 
received,  when  it  w^as  tendered  ?  Does  the  gentleman  from  the  sixth 
district  believe  that  it  is  wrong  for  a  free-soiler  to  act  with  a  whig,  or 
a  whig  with  a  free-soiler  ?  To  make  my  question  more  definite,  and 
more  pertinent  to  his  own  position,  does  he  believe  it  wrong  for  an 
abolitionist  and  a  whig  to  act  together  ?  He  must  have  undergone  a 
transformation  of  heart  and  character  as  sudden,  as  entire,  and  as  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  natural  causes  as  that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  and  that, 
too,  quite  recently,  if  he  does  not  believe  such  common  action  to  be 
honorable  and  justifiable.  Then  why  does  he  attack  this  coalition  so 
furiously  ?  This  is  a  new  thing  compared  with  the  old,  standing  coali- 
tion of  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  in  virtue  of  which  the  whig  party  has 
retained  its  power  for  th^e  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  by  carrying  with 
it  the  votes  of  those  whose  feelings  toward  the  institution  of  slavery  were 
not  of  a  very  favorable  kind.  They  are  the  gentlemen  ;  those  influenced 
by  their  dislike  of  slavery  were  the  gentlemen  who  kept  the  whig  party 
in  power  in  Massachusetts  from  the  time  when  it  came  in  by  the  amal- 
gamation or  coahtion  of  1825,  till  the  time  when  it  went  out  by  the  coali- 

66* 


786  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tioii  of  November,  1850,  continued  in  January,  1851.  If,  then,  it  be 
wrong  for  a  party  opposed  to  the  compromise  to  coalesce  with  a  party  in 
favor  of  the  compromise,  I  tell  this  committee  that  such  a  coalition,  — 
such  in  principle,  for  this  coalition  in  Massachusetts  does  not  date  only 
from  the  passage  of  that  law,  —  I  say  such  a  coalition  has  kept  the 
Avhig  party  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  power  down  to  the  time 
when  they  went  out  of  power.  And  a  pretty  prominent  actor  in  that 
coalition  was  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  (Mr.  Davis,)  who 
charges  the  damning  sin  of  coalition  upon  the  democrats  of  Massachu- 
setts. Now,  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  speaking  in  relation  to  matters  of 
this  kind  without  the  evidence  before  me.  Therefore,  in  order  to  sub- 
stantiate my  charge  of  this  coalition  between  the  whigs  and  abolitionists 
of  Massachusetts,  I  shall  single  out  the  history  of  the  gentleman  from 
the  sixth  district  in  connection  with  this  matter. 

In  1835,  my  colleague  (Mr.  Davis)  was  a  member  of  an  anti-slavery 
convention  of  the  county  of  Franklin,  Massachusetts.  Gentlemen  will 
see  that  I  have  begun  far  enough  back,  so  that  my  colleague  cannot 
complain  that  I  have  not  treated  him  fairly  by  not  exhibiting  his  whole 
course  on  this  subject  in  its  just  connection.  I  will  remark,  that  this  was 
not  a  free-soil  convention,  but  an  abolition  convention.  Some  gentlemen 
may  think  the  distinction  rather  a  nice  one ;  to  those  concerned  it  seems 
■vastly  important.  This  was  a  meeting  of  abolitionists,  for  the  purpose 
©f  organizing  one  of  those  anti-slavery  societies  commonly  called  aboli- 
tion societies.  The  published  account  states,  that  Mr.  George  T.  Davis 
read  the  call  for  the  convention,  and  was  elected  one  of  its  secretaries. 
The  organization  of  the  society  was  proceeded  with.  A  Constitution 
was  adopted,  the  second  article  of  which  defined  the  object  of  the  society, 
which  was  declared  to  be  "  the  entire  removal  of  slavery  from  the  United 
States  !  " 

[Cries  of  "  Read  it!  "  "  Read  it ! "] 

Mr.  R.  I  cannot  undertake  to  read  all  to  which  I  refer,  but  the  com- 
mittee will  be  satisfied  with  extracts,  for  there  will  be  a  large  number 
which  I  shall  read. 

It  was  a  pretty  large  undertaking  for  a  young  man,  but  young  men 
are  always  ambitious  and  sanguine.  But  it  seems  in  1835,  my  colleague 
undertook  the  entire  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
c  a.  I  confess  that  it  is  somewhat  more  than  I  should  have  felt  myself 
called  upon  to  perform  in  the  county  of  Franklin,  in  the  year  1835.  If 
T  had  felt  a  tendency  that  way,  an  inward  call  to  that  mission,  I  should 
have  placed  the  bounds  of  my  ambition  within  decidedly  narrower 
limits. 

The  third  article  of  that  Constitution  pledges  the  members  to  "  labor 


787 

for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  in  the  ter- 
ritories of  the  Union  by  all  constitutional  means."  A  resolution  adopt- 
ed at  that  meeting  declares  that  "  slave-holding,  as  it  exists  in  the  United 
States,  is  sin,  and  ought  at  all  times  to  be  regarded  and  treated  as  such." 
And  another  resolution  declares  what  my  southern  friends  will  be  glad 
to  know  upon  this  high  authority,  that  "  immediate  emancipation  would 
be  without  danger  to  the  white  population."  Of  the  society  thus  formed, 
George  T.  Davis  was  elected  treasurer. 

These  were  the  sentiments  of  my  colleague  in  1835.  In  1838,  on 
Tuesday,  October  2d,  "  a  convention  of  the  young  men  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  are  the  friends  of  immediate  and  universal  emancipation," 
met  at  Brinley  Hall,  AYorccster.  Perhaps  my  friend  from  that  district 
(Mr.  Allen)  imbibed  his  principles  there,  and  on  that  occasion. 

Mr.  Allen.  I  beg  to  say,  that  that  meeting  goes  much  further  than  I 
ever  went  or  am  prepared  to  go. 

Mr.  Eantoul.  Then  the  gentleman  from  Worcester,  it  seems,  did  not 
learn  his  whole  lesson,  as  the  teacher  (Mr.  Davis)  was  then  and  there 
prepared  to  impart  it.  The  proceedings  of  that  meeting,  published  of- 
ficially in  the  Boston  Liberator,  edited  by  Mr.  Garrison,  state  that  Mr, 
George  T.  Davis,  of  Greenfield,  was  elected  president  jt?ro  tempore. 

Then  the  committee  to  nominate  officers  reported  — 

[Cries  of  "  Head  I  "  "  Read  ! "] 

Mr.  11.,  (continuing).  "The  committee  to  nominate  officers  reported, 
and  the  following  gentlemen  were  elected  :  President,  George  T.  Davis, 
of  Greenfield  ; "  and  tlien  follow  the  names  of  ten  vice-presidents,  and 
three  secretaries.  Among  the  resolutions  adopted  at  the  meeting  which 
elected  Mr.  George  T.  Davis  president  of  this  abolition  convention,  were 
the  following :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  man  who  sits  still  in  congress  and  permits  our 
rights  to  be  trampled  upon  and  our  lives  to  be  threatened  by  southern 
slave-drivers,  m  silence,  does  not  faithfully  represent  the  freemen  of  free 
Massachusetts." 

I  rejoice  to  know  this  from  authority  which  cannot  mislead  me,  be- 
cause I  am  in  daily  expectation  of  that  burst  of  eloquence  which  is  to 
carry  out  this  principle,  from  the  gentleman  from  the  sixth  district.  The 
freemen  of  free  Massachusetts  have  at  last  a  representative  now  who 
will  not  represent  them  in  silence.  The  next  resolution  is  in  these 
words :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  senators  of  this  Commonwealth,  Daniel  Webster 
and  John  Davis,  did  so  conduct,  when  that  infamous  threat  of  death  to 
any  abolitionist  who  should  set  foot  in  South  Carolina,  was  uttered  on 
the  floor  of  the  United  States  Senate  j  that  we  regard  their  silence,  on 


788  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  Yv^RITINGS 

that  occasion,  with  the  deepest  indignation  ;  and  that  we  wish  we  could 
say  of  both,  as  we  can  of  one,  " '  distinguished,  but  not  born  in  Massa- 
chusetts.' " 

My  colleague  from  the  sixth  district,  in  the  overflowing  of  his  heart, 
thanked  God  that,  he  was  not  obliged  to  confess  that  Daniel  Webster 
was  a  native  of  his  State.  That  is  the  meaning  of  this  resolution.  He 
wished  he  could  say  of  John  Davis,  as  he  had  of  Webster,  "  distin- 
guished, hut  not  horn  in  Massachusetts."  Here  is  one  count  in  the  bill 
of  indictment  against  a  learned  gentleman  who  occupies  a  seat  in  the 
other  hall  of  this  capitol,  —  that  he  stated  that  Millard  Fillmore  "  had 
better  never  have  been  born  than  to  have  signed  the  fugitive  slave  bill." 
Why  should  the  member  from  the  sixth  district  complain  of  that  expres- 
sion on  the  part  of  the  gentleman  alluded  to,  when  he  thinks  it  a  matter 
of  rejoicing  that  Daniel  Webster  was  not  born  in  Massachusetts  ?  Why, 
if  I  wished  a  man  had  never  been  born  in  Massachusetts,  or  if  I  exulted 
that  a  man  had  not  been  born  in  Massachusetts,  I  would  go  a  little  fur- 
ther, I  think,  and  wdsh  that  he  had  never  been  born  at  all. 

The  next  resolution  is  in  these  words  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  their  represent- 
atives in  congress,  are  morally  bound  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia  and  national  territories,  and  to  prohibit  the  inter-State 
slave-trade." 

•And  another :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  all  legislative  enactments  arraying  the  civil  and  mili- 
tary power  of  the  nation  against  the  slave,  are  an  outrage  on  humanity, 
a  violation  of  morality  and  religion,  and  therefore  null  and  void ;  and 
that  we  will  never  return  a  fugitive  slave  into  bondage,  nor  bear  arms 
to  keep  him  from  his  inalienable  rights." 

I  do  not  know  precisely  what  that  means ;  but  I  should  suppose  it  to 
include  the  idea  that,  in  case  of  domestic  insurrection  in  any  part  of  this 
Union,  these  gentlemen  resolve  they  will  not  take  up  arms  to  aid  in  the 
suppression  of  that  insurrection.  It  asserts,  also,  that  laws  like  the  fu- 
gitive slave  law  are  null  and  void  by  the  higher  law. 

What  comes  next  ? 

^^  Resolved,  That  it  be  recommended  to  the  people  of  this  State  to 
petition  the  United  States  senate,  praying  them  not  to  advise  and  con- 
sent to  the  appointment  of  any  person  as  a  minister  from  this  country 
to  any  foreign  court  who  is  a  slave-holder,  because  such  representatives 
degrade  the  American  name  and  character  abroad,  and  make  republi- 
canism a  hissing  and  a  by-word  before  the  civilized  world." 

This  is  almost  a  fair  offset  for  the  solemn  league  and  covenant  of 
similar   proscription    against    the   non-sustainers  of  the   compromises. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  789 

Well,  Sir,  the  other  proceedings  of  that  meeting  are  somewhat  inter- 
esting, especiallj  the  resolution  which  speaks  of  "  the  visit  of  our  dear 
friend,  George  Thompson,  to  this  country."  And  the  resolution  which 
assures  him  he  shall  "  receive  the  support  and  countenance  of  the  whole 
body  of  the  young  men  of  this  Commonwealth."  I  trust  my  friend  has 
not  escaped  from  that  category,  and  is  still  one  of  the  young  men  of  the 
Commonwealth,  young  enough  to  countenance  our  dear  friend,  George 
Thompson,  —  "  shall  receive  the  support  and  countenance  of  the  wholfe 
body  of  the  young  men  of  the  Commonwealth,  now  represented  in  this 
convention."  The  secretary  was  instructed  to  forward  a  copy  of  these 
resolutions  to  Mr.  Thompson.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  seems  to  have 
taken  a  part  with  Mr.  George  T.  Davis,  in  this  convention.  In  the  next 
year  of  this  strange,  eventful  history,  —  for  I  must  follov/  it  step  by 
step,  —  in  1839,  October  2od,  a  meeting  was  held  of  the  Franklin 
County  Anti-Slavery  Society ;  Elijah  Alvord  was  chosen  president,  and 
George  T.  Davis  one  of  the  vice-presidents ;  and  in  the  afternoon,  the 
president  being  absent,  this  George  T.  Davis  presided.  He  was  also  a 
member  of  the  business  committee,  and  one  of  the  resolutions  adopted 
and  reported  by  that  committee  was  as  follows.  It  goes  rather  strong,  as 
gentlemen  will  observe  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  abolitionists  ought  to  withdraw  all  Christian  fellow- 
ship with  slave-holders." 

That  is  a  denunciation  of  coalitions.  Still  it  is  a  denunciation  confined 
to  matters  ecclesiastical.  The  gentleman's  practice  shows  that  he  had 
not  then  arrived  at  that  sublime  height  of  wisdom  wdience  one  may  look 
down  with  contempt  on  political  coalitions,  —  for  down  to  yesterday  he 
was,  though  a  zealous,  thorough-going,  consistent  abolitionist,  engaged 
in  a  very  close  and  confidential  coalition  with  politicians  who  hold  in 
common  v/ith  him  no  one  of  the  sentiments  quoted  from  his  various  re- 
solutions, as  I  will  by-and-by  show,  if  it  is  indeed  worth  the  while  to 
follow  the  matter  so  far. 

It  was  also,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Boies,  "  Resolved,  That  we  will  vote  for 
no  man  for  congress,  who  is  not  in  favor  of  the  immediate  abolition  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  of  the  internal  slave-trade,  and 
opposed  to  the  admission  of  any  new  slave  State." 

In  the  year  1840,  my  colleague  from  the  sixth  district  was  a  member 
of  the  senate  of  Massachusetts,  and  he  was  chairman  of  the  special  com- 
mittee of  the  senate  of  Massachusetts  which  reported  those  famous  re- 
solves, circulated  over  all  the  country,  and  so  often  quoted  as  showing 
the  opinions  of  the  whigs  of  Massachusetts  upon  the  subject  of  slavery. 
My  colleague,  as  chairman  of  that  committee,  made  an  able  report,  intro- 


790  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AXD  WRITINGS 

ducing  the  resolutions  wliich  were  tlien  adoj^ted.  The  resolutions  were 
as  follows  :  — 

"  AVliereas,  domestic'Slavery  exists  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  under 
the  express  authority  of  Congress,  etc.  —  Resolved,  That  congress 
ought  to  exercise  its  acknowledged  power,  in  the  immediate  suppression 
of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

"  And  whereas,  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  congress 
has  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  between  the 
several  States  of  the  Union,  in  the  exercise  of  which  power  congress  in 
the  year  1808  abolished  the  foreign  slave-trade,  as  unjustifiable  in  prin- 
ciple as  African  slave-trade,  and  scarcely  less  cruel  and  inhuman  in 
practice,  is  now  carried  on  between  the  several  States  :  Therefore, 

''  Resolved,  That  the  domestic  slave-trade  ought  to  be  abolished  by 
congress  without  delay. 

"  Resolved,  That  no  new  State  ought  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union, 
whose  Constitution  shall  tolerate  domestic  slavery." 

"  Resolved,  That  our  senators  in  congress  be  instructed,  and  our  rep- 
resentatives requested,  to  use  their  utmost  efforts  to  give  effect  to  the 
foregoing  resolves." 

And  the  governor  was  directed  to  send  the  resolutions  to  senators,  etc. 

The  report  with  which  the  resolutions  were  introduced  was  signed  by 
Mr.  Davis,  and  I  therefore  conclude  was  written  by  him,  for  I  take  it  he 
is  not  in  the  habit  of  signing  reports  which  he  does  not  write. 

In  that  same  year,  18-40,  a  bill  was  introduced  into  the  senate  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, making  a  change  in  what  is  sometimes  called  the  black  code, 
the  legislation  regulating  the  rights  of  negroes.  That  change  was  repeal 
of  the  preexisting  law,  which  forbade  the  intermarriage  of  whites  with 
mulattoes  and  negroes.  And  that  reform  was  brought  about  by  my  col- 
league from  the  sixth  district,  as  he  was  chairman  of  the  committee  that 
reported  the  bill  providing  for  the  change.  That  bill  became  a  law ; 
and  I  think  I  do  no  more  than  justice  to  the  eloquence  and  talents  of  my 
learned  and  able  colleague,  when  I  say,  that,  in  all  human  probability, 
the  young  white  men  of  Massachusetts  would  have  been  denied  the  pri- 
vilege of  connecting  themselves  with  mulattoes  and  blacks,  (in  that  inter- 
esting relation  which  the  gentleman  from  the  sixth  district  has  opened  to 
them,)  down  to  this  day,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  disinterested  exertions 
of  ray  colleague  from  the  sixth  district. 

.  On  the  9th  day  of  October,  1838,  a  meeting  of  the  Anti-Slavery  So- 
ciety of  Franklin  Comity  was  held,  and  George  T.  Davis  was  reelected 
treasurer  of  that  society.  If  there  was  corruption  at  that  time,  the  fund 
was  in  his  keeping,  and  he  may  therefore  have  had  better  oj)portunities 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  791 

for  understanding  this  question  of  corruption  than  most  of  his  colleagues 
who  have  not  had  the  fortune  to  be  treasurers  of  abolition  societies.  Mr. 
George  T.  Davis  was  reelected  treasurer  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society 
of  Franklin  County  ;  and  among  the  resolutions  passed,  are  some  which 
contain  some  rather  severe  remarks  upon  the  Hon.  Daniel  Webster, 
whose  position  then  was  not  so  far  from  that  of  this  treasurer  of  the 
abolitionists  as  it  has  been  since  ;  as  it  is  now,  when  the  treasurer  thinks 
proper  to  form  a  coalition  with  him. 

Now,  down  to  1840,  I  have  traced  this  history.  Down  to  1850  has 
no  change  come  over  the  spirit  of  the  dream  of  my  colleague  from  the 
sixth  district  ?  No,  Sir  !  No,  Sir  !  Judging  from  all  public  manifesta- 
tions I  was  led  to  suppose  that  the  sentiments  of  my  colleague  from 
the  sixth  district,  remained,  down  to  yesterday,  just  the  same  as  repre- 
sented in  the  series  of  resolutions  I  have  just  read.  If  there  be  any 
public  address  in  any  public  meeting  in  Massachusetts  avowing  a  change 
of  sentiment,  I  have  hot  seen  it,  or  read  it,  or  heard  of  it.  If  there  is 
any  communication  in  any  newspaper,  magazine,  or  elsewhere ;  if  there 
be  any  communication  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts  who  elected  the 
honorable  member,  informing  them  that  he  did  not  entertain,  when  he 
was  last  elected,  the  same  sentiments  entertained  previously  by  him, — 
from  1835  down,  —  I  have  never  heard  a  rumor  of  them.  There  may 
be  such  ;  this  part  of  the  State  is  somewhat  distant  from  my  home,  and 
I  do  not  pretend  to  read  all  that  comes  out  in  the  newspapers.  I  say  I 
never  heard  a  rumor,  or  saw  an  indication  of  any  change  of  sentiment 
on  this  class  of  subjects  upon  the  part  of  my  colleague. 

But  the  convention  that  nominated  my  colleague  for  election  to  this 
place,  ought  certainly  to  know  the  truth  in  reference  to  the  opinions  of 
their  candidate.  They  voted  for  him  upon  the  supposition  that  his 
opinions  coincided  with  their  own,  and  they,  especially,  knew  that  they 
were  voting  for  a  gentleman  so  high-minded  and  chivalrous  that  he  ab- 
hors all  coalitions.  Of  course  he  would  not  receive  the  votes  of  those 
who  differed  from  him.  He  would  spurn  them  with  a  pure  indignation. 
It  must,  then,  be  taken  for  granted  that  his  party  coincides  with  him  in 
his  sentiments.  The  inference  is  stronger  in  his  case  than  that  of  any 
other  man  ;  and  if  I  iind  out  what  were  the  sentiments  of  the  party  who 
sent  him  to  congress  at  the  time  when  they  sent  him,  I  shall  find  what 
his  views  were  presumed  to  be  at  the  time  he  was  sent  here,  and  that, 
too,  by  a  presumption  which  he  at  least  is  estopped  from  denying. 
[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Of  the  effect  produced  by  this  speech  upon  the  house,  it  is 
impossible  to  give  an  adequate  description.     The  member  from 


792  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

District  Number  Six  had  previously  cut,  as  the  hay-makers  say, 
a  pretty  wide  swath  for  a  short-armed  man ;  but  his  time  had 
come  to  be  cut  up  himself,  root  and  branch.  All  who  knew 
the  man  were  surprised  at  his  attacking  Mr.  Rantoul,  as  the 
consequences  were  not  to  be  mistaken.  The  members  gathered 
around  the  speaker  with  the  most  intense  interest,  and  even 
shouts  of  applause,  as  his  blows  fell  fast  and  heavy  in  vindica- 
tion of  his  own  position. 

What  remained  of  the  gentleman  from  Congressional  Dis- 
trict No.  6,  after  Mr.  Rantoul's  reply  to  him,  was  not  certainly 
known  for  the  space  of  about  forty  days,  when  it  appeared, 
that,  by  great  industry,  he  had  sufficiently  replenished  himself 
with  missiles,  suited  to  his  handling,  and  that  the  nimquam  san- 
ahile  vulnus,  the  smarting  result  of  his  previous  onset,  impelled 
him  again  to  hurl,  what  he  had  taken  so  much  pains  to  gather, 
at  the  impenetrable  shield  of  his  opponent.  The  hot  indiscre- 
tion of  this  second  assault  on  Mr.  Rantoul  by  the  representative 
from  District  No.  6,  secured  to  the  latter  but  little  sympathy 
from  his  friends,  who  perceived,  that,  however  distasteful  Mr. 
Rantoul's  opinions  on  slavery  might  be,  he  was  a  man  whom 
it  was  much  safer,  for  their  cause  and  its  advocates,  to  let  alone 
than  to  meet  in  fair  debate  as  an  antagonist.  Mr.  Davis's 
second  speech  delivered  on  the  6th  March,  1852,  was  replied  to 
by  Mr.  Rantoul,  on  the  9th  of  the  same  month,  who  made  a  tri- 
umphant vindication  of  his  opinions,  his  consistency  in  main- 
taining them,  and  of  the  objects  and  character  of  the  coalition 
in  Massachusetts.  In  the  Congressional  Globe  it  was  reported 
as  follows  :  — 

The  House  having  resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  on 
the  state  of  the  Union,  Mr.  Rantoul  said  :  — 

Mr.  CiiAiRMAX,  —  On  the  24th  of  January  last,  I  had  occasion  to  reply 
to  some  gross,  unfounded,  and  unprovoked  aspersions  upon  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  uttered  by  one  of  their  representatives 
upon  this  floor.  The  chairman's  hammer  fell  before  I  had  concluded 
that  reply,  and  I  learned  on  the  next  day  that  it  was  quite  probable  a 
rejoinder  might  follow  what  I  had  already  said.  I  concluded,  therefore, 
to  delay  any  further  remarks  until  that  rejoinder  should  come,  because 
I  supposed  that  the  gentleman  who  had  made  this  assault  upon  the 
people  of  my  Commonwealth,  Avould  follow  one  or  other  of  two  courses  : 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  793 

either  that  he  would  attempt  to  establish  by  evidence  the  charges  he  had 
made  against  the  constituents  of  us  both,  and  the  people  of  the  Common- 
wealth, generally,  —  which  I  knew  he  would  not  undertake,  if  he  was  a 
wise  man,  because  the  evidence  to  support  those  charges  did  not  exist, 
—  or  else,  if,  like  a  prudent  man,  he  avoided  following  up  his  attacks, 
I  thouglit  that  then,  like  an  honest  man,  he  would  stand  up  and  retract 
what  he  had  said  about  the  coalition,  and  boldly  avow  his  own  views.  I 
waited,  that  the  gentleman  might  choose  the  one  or  the  other  line  for 
himself;  and  I  regret  that  I  did  so  wait,  because,  to  my  disappointment, 
the  gentleman  has  done  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

The  gentleman  attacks  the  coalition  in  Massachusetts  as  corrupt  — 
basely  corrupt  —  infamously  corrupt.  It  will  not  do  for  him  to  get  up 
here  and  say  that  he  states  certain  facts,  and  that  other  people  may 
draw  the  inferences  or  not,  as  they  think  proper.  The  gentleman  has 
himself  brought  forward  here  a  charge  of  infamous  corruption  against  a 
majority  of  the  citizens  of  his  own  State.     His  own  terms  are, — 

"  This  great  crime  against  our  institutions,  this  wholesale  corruption^ 
this  monstrous  —  I  had  almost  said  inexplicable  falsehood  to  conscience 
and  to  God,  to  the  heart  of  man,  and  to  the  nature  of  things." 

He  does  not  sustain  that  charge ;  he  does  not  abandon  it.  He  evades 
it;  and  because  I  had  introduced  his  history,  —  not  that  the  country 
might  reproach  him  with  it ;  that  was  not  my  motive,  for  I  dealt  in  no- 
terms  of  opprobrium,  —  but  because  I  had  introduced  his  history  as  an 
illustration  of  the  general  course  of  the  party  to  v/hicli  he  belongs,  he 
evades  the  issue  which  he  himself  had  tendered,  and  dodges  off  to  talk 
about  his  own  consistency,  and  to  make  an  attack  upon  my  consistency. 
"What  does  the  country  care,  —  what  does  the  world  care  about  the  con- 
sistency of  either  of  us  ?  The  issue  tendered  by  the  gentleman  liere 
T>^as,  that  the  coalition  in  Massachusetts  was  corrupt.  I  accepted  that 
issue.  I  said  the  gentleman  had  not  pointed  to  one  act  done  by  that 
coalition,  or  to  one  law  or  resolution  passed  or  attempted  to  be  passed 
by  that  coalition,  which  he  dared  to  assail.  I  said  he  had  not  denied 
that  the  men  put  into  ofiicc  by  that  coalition  were  better  men,  and  would' 
fill  the  offices  better,  than  the  men  that  were  removed  to  make  room 
for  them,  and  that  if  he  denied  it,  I  would  join  issue  with  him  on  tliat 
question.  He  did  not  walk  up  to  either  of  those  issues  in  addressing 
this  house.  The  gentleman  has  not  found  fault  as  yet  with  any  law 
jiassed  or  attempted  to  be  passed  by  that  coalition  which  he  denounces 
as  infamous.  He  has  not  pointed  to  any  one  appointment,  to  any  one 
office  made  by  the  government  created  by  that  coalition,  in  which  the 
appointee  was  not  a  better  man  for  the  place  he  received  than  the 
man  who  was  removed  to  make  room  for  him.     Then,  Sir,  I  take  all 

67 


794  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tliat  for  confessed.  The  coalition  has  been  a  good  coalition  so  far  as  its 
acts  go,  its  laws  go,  its  appointments  go  ;  and  we  come  back  to  the  ori- 
ginal question,  whether  the  act  of  coalition,  without  regard  to  what  the 
parties  did  after  they  combined,  was  in  itself  inftimous  and  corrupt.  If 
it  was,  the  gentleman  stands  justified.  If  it  was  not,  he  may  say  him- 
self how  he  stands.     I  will  not  define  a  position  for  him. 

Inow,  Sir,  for  a  few  moments,  —  though  I  am  aware  it  is  a  very  small 
matter,  and  I  dislike  exceedingly,  personal  explanations,  for  they  take 
up  the  time  of  the  nation,  which  ought  to  be  better  employed,  —  but  still 
for  a  few  moments,  as  I  know  the  house  expects  it  of  me,  let  me  follow 
the  gentleman's  defence  of  his  own  consistency,  and  his  assault  upon  my 
consistency. 

First,  the  gentleman  pleaded  the  statute  of  limitation.  That  was  not 
a  plea  to  the  merits,  as  the  gentleman  knows,  as  well  as  I  do.  But  I 
will  admit  that  plea  to  a  certain  extent,  because  I  wish  to  deal  fiiirly 
with  this  case.  If  there  is  any  harshness  of  language,  —  any  unneces- 
sarily irritating  form  of  expression  in  the  resolutions  which  the  gentle- 
man approved  in  1835,  1838,  and  1840,  —  I  will  admit  the  plea  of  the 
statute  of  limitation,  and  let  that  language  be  softened  down,  —  let  no- 
thing that  is  offensive  in  the  mode  in  which  the  ideas  are  put  forward, 
now  stand.  But  the  ideas  themselves  remain,  and  the  gentleman  tells 
us,  in  his  printed  speech,  though  I  did  not  hear  it  on  this  floor,  that  he 
glories  now  in  substantially  the  same  sentiments  as  he  then  avowed. 
"Why,  then,  does  he  come  forv/ard  and  apologize,  in  a  manner  that  I  do 
not  like  to  witness  in  a  son  of  Massachusetts  ?  Why,  if  he  entertains 
these  opinions,  does  he  not  stand  up  like  a  man  and  say,  there  is  my 
doctrine,  —  that  is  what  I  believe,  —  that  is  what  I  shall  act  upon  ;  and 
why  does  he  not  act  upon  it  ?  He  should  have  done  this,  because  the 
statute  of  limitation  does  not  apply  to  his  case  ;  it  is  only  ex  gratia  — 
that  we  forget  the  mere  form.  Here  is  a  running  account,  —  items 
entered  very  lately.  They  take  the  w^hole  matter  out  of  the  statute,  as 
every  lawyer  very  well  knows.  I  was  about  to  comment  on  those  late 
entries,  when  the  chairman's  hammer  fell ;  and  I  will  proceed  to  notice 
them  now  very  briefly.  I  was  going  on  to  show  my  colleague's  position, 
the  position  on  which  he  came  into  this  house,  what  he  came  here  for, 
what  he  was  sent  here  to  do,  and  he  knows  it  perfectly  well.  Why, 
then,  does  my  colleague  talk  of  the  statute  of  limitation  ?  He  was 
elected  in  1850,  and  the  convention  which  nominated  him,  and  v^^hich 
was  held  at  Northampton,  on  the  M\\  of  October,  passed  the  following 
resolutions  amongst  others  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  while  we  rejoice  that  the  slave-trade  will  no  longer 
be  permitted  to  disgrace  the  capital  of  the  nation,  we  deeply  regret  that 


OF   EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  795 

the  right  of  trial  bj  jury,  so  eloquently  claimed  by  our  own  representa- 
tives for  the  colored  citizen  charged  with  the  crime  of  seeking  his  free- 
dom, should  be  withheld  from  him,  and  that  the  constitutional  clause 
under  which  he  is  claimed,  odious  in  itself,  should  be  rendered  still  more 
odious  and  detestable  by  the  mode  of  its  enforcement. 

"  Resolved,  That  while,  as  good  citizens,  we  cannot  council  open  re- 
sistance to  the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave  act,  we  will  give  every 
possible  legal  aid  and  assistance  to  those  who  may  be  arrested  under  it, 
in  the  assertion  and  maintenance  of  their  rights. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  better  to  insure  the  safety  and  the  rights  of  the 
fugitive,  it  is  expedient  and  desirable,  in  the  opinion  of  this  convention, 
that  the  legislature  of  this  Commonwealth,  at  its  next  session,  should  pass 
an  act  authorizing  the  executive  to  appoint  one  or  more  commissioners 
in  every  county,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  appear  for  any  person  arrested 
as  a  fugitive  under  this  law,  to  protect  his  rights,  and  aid  him  in  estab- 
lishing all  facts  necessary  to  procure  his  discliarge,  and  directing  the  pay- 
ment of  all  expenses  incurred  by  any  person  so  arrested,  in  establishing 
his  rights,  to  be  made  from  the  treasury  of  the  Commonwealth." 

Those  were  some  of  the  resolutions  of  the  convention  which  nominated 
my  colleague,  when  he  was  elected  to  the  seat  which  he  now  occupies. 
Was  this  without  my  colleague's  concurrence  ?  Or  what  did  lie  say  to 
it  ?  I  have  taken  from  the  Boston  Atlas  a  portion  of  his  re])ly  to  the 
letter  asking  him  to  stand  as  a  candidate,  and  I  will  read  it  to  the  house. 
The  letter  was  originally  published  in  the  Springfield  Republican,  and 
was  republished  in  the  Boston  Atlas,  of  November  7th,  —  the  Thursday 
before  the  election.  It  is  dated  November  2d,  and  contains  these 
words  :  — 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  My  opinions,  in  regard  to  the  fugitive  slave  law,  are  in 
accordance  with  the  resolves  adopted  by  the  late  whig  convention  for 
this  congressional  district.  Nothing,  it  seems  to  me,  can  be  more  clear 
than  that  the  right  to  freedom  ought  to  be  guarded  with  a  care  at  least 
as  jealous,  and  as  formal  as  that  which  we  deem  requisite  for  the  legal 
protection  of  property.  No  law  upon  the  subject  ought  to  be  satisfac- 
tory to  our  people,  or  to  remain  upon  the  statute-book,  which  v/ithliolds 
from  the  alleged  fugitive  the  power  to  have  the  question  of  identity  and 
of  freedom  determined  by  a  jury  within  the  county  or  State  where  he 
is  found." 

The  rest  of  the  letter  refers  to  the  question  of  high  tariffs  for  pro- 
tection ;  and  upon  those  two  issues,  and  those  only,  was  my  colleague 
elected  to  the  seat  which  he  now  fills.  He  was  elected,  because  the 
convention  resolved  that  the  clause  of  the  Constitution,  relating 
to  fugitive  slaves,  was  odious  in  itself,  and  that  this  fugitive  slave  law 


796  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

made  it  more  odious  and  detestable  ;  and  because  he,  in  liis  reply,  said 
that  tliose  were  his  sentiments,  and  that  such  a  law  ought  not  to  remain 
on  the  statute-book.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the  question  of  protection 
excited  quite  as  much  interest  in  his  district,  at  this  election,  as  it  has 
done  at  some  other  times.  I  am,  therefore,  of  the  opinion  —  my  col- 
league can  set  me  right  if  I  am  wrong  —  that  the  issue  which  sent  him 
here,  was  his  declaration,  a  week  before  the  election,  that  the  fugitive 
■slave  law  ought  not  to  remain  upon  the  statute-book.  Can  the  gentleman 
prove  to  this  house  that  a  hundred  men  in  that  district  would  have  voted 
for  him,  —  can  he  prove  that  ten  men  in  that  district  would  have  voted 
for  him,  if  they  had  believed  he  would  have  declared  here  that  he  was 
opposed  to  the  repeal  of  a  statute  which,  in  his  letter  accepting  the  nomi- 
nation, he  said  ought  not  to  remain  on  the  statute-book  ?  If  he  can,  let 
him  do  it,  and  give  the  house  their  names.  That  is  a  question  for  the 
gentleman  to  answer. 

I  think  that  the  plea  of  the  statute  of  limitation  hardly  helps  my  col- 
league here  at  all.  There  is  the  ])osition  in  which  he  stands.  I  did  not 
pick  him  out  for  the  purpose  of  holding  him  up  to  reproach  in  this 
house,  for  when  I  spoke  before,  I  believed  the  opinions  he  advanced 
were  the  opinions  which  he  honestly  and  sincerely  maintained,  and  I 
gave  him  a  fair  opportunity  to  get  up  and  defend  himself,  honestly  and 
sincerely,  by  one  or  the  other  of  the  courses  I  have  suggested  ;  but  he 
has  not  chosen  to  embrace  it. 

I  recommend  northern  gentlemen,  Vvdio  present  the  spectacle  to  the 
•country  of  preaching  one  set  of  notions  at  home  and  another  here,  to 
look  a  little  to  the  South  ;  for  we  may  find  some  good  things  there. 
Southern  gentlemen,  who,  finding  themselves  in  a  small  minority,  main- 
taining unpopular  opinions,  do  not,  as  a  general  thing,  so  far  as  I  have 
noticed,  come  here  and  whine  over  it,  and  apologize  for  their  own  past 
history  ;  and  I  hope  that  northern  men  will  stand  up  with  a  little  southern 
spirit  —  if  I  must  be  compelled  to  go  so  far  for  the  right  word  —  and 
•say  what  they  believe,  as  their  brethren  of  the  South  do.  I  hope  the 
sad  fate  of  my  neighbor  of  the  Sixth  District  will  be  a  solemn  warning 
to  other  gentlemen  in  that  quarter,  who  feel  an  inwar-d  working,  prompt- 
ing them  to  lay  their  hands  on  their  mouths,  and  their  mouths  in  the 
dust,  and  cry,  unclean,  when  they  have  been  guilty  of  free  thoughts. 
The  exhibition  is  not  exhilarating. 

Well,  Sir,  I  no  not  know  that  it  is  worth  while  for  me  to  follow  fur- 
ther the  private  history  of  my  learned  brother.  I  pass  from  the  subject 
—  which  it  is  disagreeable  to  me  to  have  had  to  notice  —  to  the  question 
which  has  been  raised  here  in  regard  to  my  own  consistency,  one  which 
I  am  quite  ready  to  meet  here,  or  elsewhere,  whenever  any  man  chooses 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  797 

to  raise  It.  'Why,  the  gentleman  has  called  me  a  modest  man.  I  did 
not  grow  more  modest  while  he  was  making  out  for  me  a  character  for 
consistency,  which  I  think  a  great  many  politicians  would  rejoice  to 
have  made  out  for  them.  The  gentleman  has  shown  me  as  occupying, 
a  great  many  years  ago,  identically  the  same  ground,  on  very  many  im- 
portant questions,  as  I  occupy  now  ;  and  he  has  failed  to  show  that 
during  the  intervening  time  I  have  ever  uttered  one  word  in  any  public 
speech,  or  have  ever  written  a  word  in  any  printed  letter,  or  in  any 
document  intended  to  he  an  expression  of  my  opinions  ;  he  has  not  yet 
found,  altliough  Massachusetts  has  been  dragged  with  a  drag-net  forty- 
two  days  to  find  it,  any  written  word  of  mine  to  convict  me  of  inconsis- 
tency in  public  matters. 

Mr.  Chairman,  what  I  have  done  for  th«  last  ten  years,  has  not  been 
done  in  a  corner.  T  have  spoken  all  over  New  England,  and  in  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Missouri, 
and  I  challenge  any  man,  who  has  heard  any  public  address  of  mine,  to 
come  forward  and  convict  me  of  inconsistency  upon  any  great  national 
question.  That  is  my  challenge  ;  and  I  think  it  is  quite  broad  enough 
to  cover  all  supposable  cases.  But,  Sir,  I  know  perfectly  well  what  I 
am  saying;  and  I  am  quite  willing  that  all  the  other  States  shall  be 
dragged  with  drag-nets,  as  Massachusetts  has  been  ;  for  my  colleague 
has  had  zealous  and  industrious  assistants,  fitted  by  nature  to  be  scaven- 
gers, who  have  dragged  every  corner,  to  see  if  they  could  not  hunt  up 
some  stale  slander  which  could  be  used  against  me.  I  am  quite  willing 
the  other  States  should  be  examined  in  the  same  way,  and  if  I  have 
been  inconsistent  upon  any  one  of  the  great  national  questions,  let  the 
gentleman  show  it.  But,  until  the  gentleman  does  show  some  founda- 
tion for  his  charge,  I  shall  not  think  it  necessary  to  go  very  much  into 
details  of  rumors  to  prove  conversations,  or  supposed  publications,  with 
which  I  had  no  more  to  do  than  my  colleague  himself. 

What  right  has  my  colleague  to  say  of  me,  he  "  made  himself,  at  an 
early  period,  distinctly  understood  upon  both  sides  of  that  as  well  as 
many  other  questions  which  have  been  agitated  in  Massachusetts  for  the 
last  ten  or  fifteen  years  ?  "  I  pronounce  that  simply  and  plainly  to  be 
untrue.  T  have  not  been  upon  both  sides  of  that  question,  or  any  other 
leading  question  before  the  country,  I  do  not  mean  to  accuse  my  col- 
league of  intentionally  falsifying  the  record,  I  do  not  believe  he  would 
do  any  such  thing.  I  mean  to  charge  him  with  simplicity  and  credulity 
in  allowing  himself  to  be  imposed  upon  by  others  craftier  than  himself, 
to  broach  the  calumnies  they  dare  not  utter  in  person.     That  is  all. 

Mr.  Davis.  Will  my  colleague  allow  me  to  say,  that  one  thing  which 
I  had  in  my  mind  was  that  the  gentleman  did  sanction,  in  1828,  a  doc- 

67* 


798  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

trine  of  the  greatest  importance,  —  that  of  interference  with  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery.  I  understood,  also,  that  he  was  a  member  of  a  com- 
mittee who,  in  1848,  reported  a  resolution,  declaring  that  congress  ought 
not  so  to  interfere. 

Mr.  Rantoul.  I  will  ask  my  learned  colleague  whether  he  supposes 
that,  because  I  was  in  a  convention  composed  of  eight  hundred  men,  I 
am  responsible  for  all  that  is  done  in  that  convention  ?  If  I  am  thus  to 
be  held  responsible,  I  will  never  go  to  conventions  again.  I  am  willing 
to  be  responsible  for  all  the  resolutions  that  I  write,  or  all  that  I  sign  as 
president  of  a  convention,  and  for  all  the  resolutions  in  relation  to  which 
I  express  my  approbation  by  speaking  or  writing.  But  if  a  man  is  to 
be  responsible  for  several  columns  of  resolutions  written  by  a  lawyer 
who  does  nothing  but  write  resolutions,  and  passed  by  an  assembly  of 
eight  hundred  men,  there  is  not  a  man  who  attends  our  conventions  who 
could  not  be  proved  to  be  inconsistent  by  such  a  rule.  My  colleague 
alleges,  that,  in  1828,  I  wrote  some  very  bad  poetry.  I  have  written  a 
^ood  deal  of  bad  poetry  in  my  life, — most  of  it  is  burned,  and  the  rest 
x)ught  to  be.  But  if  all  the  bad  poetry  that  I  have  written,  and  twenty 
reams  more  that  I  did  not  write,  w^ere  charged  upon  me  here,  it  should 
not  turn  me  aside  from  the  great  issue  before  me.  It  is  not  a  question 
•whether  a  man  writes  bad  rhymes,  or  how  many  of  them,  or  what  music 
:he  can  make  from  a  hugag.  It  is  a  question  which  concerns  the  great 
interests  of  the  country,  and  upon  which  I  am  willing  that  my  opinions 
shall  be  known.  They  are  to  be  found  written  down  in  plain  prose. 
You  must  not  go  to  anonymous  doggerel  to  find  them.  I  will  begin  with 
1828,  because  the  gentleman  says  that  in  that  year  I  expressed  opinions 
different  from  those  I  now  hold.  In  that  year  the  universal  topic  of  dis- 
cussion in  my  section  of  the  country  was  that  of  a  high  protective  tariff. 
Upon  that  issue  I  stood  then  just  where  I  stand  now.  If  my  colleague 
can  find  a  seam  in  my  armor  which  wall  admit  the  point  of  a  dagger,  let 
him  drive  it  home. 

On  the  day  that  the  news  of  the  passage  of  that  bill  of  abominations, 
the  tariff  of  1828,  arrived  at  the  place  where  I  resided,  I  wrote  and 
published  in  the  newspapers  an  article  predicting  the  fatal  results  of  that 
law, —  predictions  since  verified.  I  showed  that  the  South  was  cruelly 
•oppressed,  and  could  not  be  expected  to  submit  quietly.  I  then  gave 
,my  reasons  for  that  opinion,  and  they  are  reasons  from  which-  I  have 
never  departed  from  that  day  to  this.  That  was  my  position  in  1828, 
and  I  am  willing  to  stand  by  that  position  now. 

In  relation  to  the  great  question  of  internal  improvements,  I  would 
say,  that  in  1830  I  wrote  articles  in  favor  of  the  Maysville  Road  Bill 
weto.     I  am  ready  to  produce  the  original  of  those  articles,  and  the  gen- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  799 

tleman  can  see  whether  I  have  varied  a  hair's  breadth.  I  have  always 
denied  the  constitutional  power  to  make  grants  for  a  general  system  of 
internal  improvements  in  the  States.  I  have  always  admitted  that  un- 
der the  power  to  regulate  commerce,  we  could  build  piers  and  break- 
waters, and  remove  obstructions  in  harbors  ;  and  I  have  always  con- 
tended that  the  same  principles  applied  to  harbors  upon  the  lakes  and 
to  the  rapids  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  great  rivers,  as  to  similar  con- 
structions or  improvements  on  the  seaboard.  That  is  the  doctrine  which 
I  asserted  twenty  years  ago,  and  which  I  assert  now,  and  I  challenge 
any  man  to  show  where  or  when  I  have  asserted  any  thing  else.  So  of 
the  bank.  I  sustained  the  veto  in  1832,  and  did  not  waver  in  1834,  or 
afterwards.  So  of  the  sub-treasury.  I  advocated  it  before  the  admin- 
istration adopted  it,  and  stood  by  it  till  it  came  out  triumphant  at  last. 
As  to  those  great  questions  pertaining  to  the  nature  of  our  institutions, 
I  hold  that  ours  is  not  a  government  of  unlimited  powers,  as  some  would 
treat  it,  —  although  they  do  not  distinctly  profess  that  doctrine.  I  hold 
that  this  is  a  government  with  strictly  limited  powers,  specially  granted, 
and  that  the  great  danger  to  be  apprehended,  is  from  the  invasion  of  the 
rights  of  the  States  by  the  federal  power.  That  is  the  doctrine  which  I 
have  always  held  since  I  was  old  enough  to  hold  opinions.  Any  gentle- 
man who  knows  any  thing  about  my  history,  knows  that  I  have  never 
held  any  other  opinions.  Why,  then,  did  the  gentleman  say  I  stood 
upon  both  sides  of  many  great  public  questions  ?  The  gentleman  makes 
charges  and  does  not  pretend  to  produce,  or  to  possess  the  evidence  to 
sustain  them.  Why,  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps  he  does  not  know. 
Those  who  suggest  the  charges  may  know  that  they  have  no  others 
which  can  be  better  sustained. 

The  gentleman  does  not  attempt  to  assail  my  position,  or  my  course, 
upon  any  of  the  other  great  questions  of  national  importance,  by  saying 
specifically  I  am  on  both  sides  of  it,  —  a  charge  rather  difficult  to  be  made 
out ;  rather  difficult  to  be  attempted  to  be  made  out,  because  there  is 
not  evidence  to  be  found,  to  start  upon  the  undertaking. 

The  gentleman  says  that  when  I  was  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  during 
the  last  winter,  an  article  appeared  in  the  Springfield  Register,  and  he 
insinuates,  what  he  ought  not  to  insinuate,  that  the  handwriting  of  that 
article  resembles  mine.  If  the  gentleman  has  the  article  in  his  posses- 
sion, I  will  thank  him  to  produce  it. 

Mr.  Davis.     I  have  not. 

Mr.  Rantoul.  If  he  has  it  not,  he  must  not  make  the  insinuations  of 
resemblance  of  handwriting  ;  because  he  had  no  cause  for  supposing 
that  I  wrote  an  article  of  that  kind.  Nothing  in  my  history  would  indi- 
cate that  I  was  likely  to  write  such  an  article  ;  and  I  doubt  whether  the 


800  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WRITINGS 

gentleman,  in  tlie  bottom  of  his  heart,  ever  had  any  suspicion  that  I 
wrote  it.  If  he  suspects  it,  let  him  give  the  grounds  for  the  charge  ; 
for  gentlemen  should  not  bring  charges  without  grounds.  I  think  the 
committee  will  perceive  that  I  should  not  have  been  likely  to  have  writ- 
ten that  article,  when  I  have  stated  a  few  facts. 

I  was  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  in  the  month  of  February,  1851,  upon 
business  of  great  importance  to  those  associated  with  me,  and  to  myself 
individually.  I  was  attending  to  that  business,  and  avoiding  politics  as 
far  as  I  could.  Before  I  left  home,  on  the  8th  day  of  October,  1850,  I 
had  been  unanimously  nominated  for  congress  by  a  very  large  demo- 
cratic convention,  which,  even  in  these  days  of  casuistry,  no  one  has  yet 
denied  was  a  democratic  convention.  It  was  fully  attended  by  delegates 
from  the  several  towns  in  the  district,  and  they  nominated  me  for  con- 
gress unanimously.  They  passed  a  resolution  declaring  their  firm  con- 
viction that  the  fugitive  slave  law,  just  passed  on  the  20tli  of  September, 
was  unconstitutional.  I  was  nominated  on  the  8tli  of  October.  The 
election  was  to  come  off  on  the  11th  of  November.  On  the  7th  of  No- 
vember, I  think  it  was,  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  town  of  Beverly,  — 
my  native  town,  in  which  I  now  reside,  and  where  everybody  knows  my 
history  and  opinions.  At  that  meeting,  I  took  up  the  various  leading 
topics  of  the  day,  and,  among  others,  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  I  then 
declared,  in  the  most  distinct  and  unequivocal  terms,  my  entire  convic- 
tion of  the  unconstitutionality  of  that  law.  I  gave  my  reasons  for  that 
conviction.  That,  I  say,  was  on  the  7th  of  November,  and  the  election 
came  off  on  the  11th. 

My  learned  friend  thinks  some  conversation  about  some  resolutions  in 
Boston  convicts  me  of  taking  an  opposite  stand.  All  I  have  to  say 
about  that  is,  that  when  I  talk  to  those  gentlemen  again,  I  think  it  will 
be  in  writing.  My  position  was  as  well  known  then  as  I  could  make  it. 
I  had  addressed  a  meeting  in  the  town  hall  of  Beverly,  —  a  town  of 
some  five  or  six  thousand  inhabitants,  some  eight  hundred  of  whom  were 
present.  I  generally  try  to  talk  so  as  to  be  understood,  and  I  say  those 
eight  hundred  men  understood  me  to  declare  the  fugitive  slave  law  un- 
constitutional, and  for  the  same  reasons  that  I  to-day  declare  it  uncon- 
stitutional. After  that,  does  anybody  suppose  I  went  to  Boston  to  tell 
them  I  was  in  favor  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  ?  I  think,  if  I  had  acted 
in  quite  so  extraordinary  a  manner,  I  should  have  been  locked  up  in  an 
insane  hospital.  Having  made  that  speech  upon  the  7th  of  November, 
and  the  election  having  been  held  on  the  11th  of  the  same  month,  I  went 
to  Boston  every  day  until  about  the  middle  of  December. 

Mr.  Davis.  Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  ask  him,  whether  he 
denies  havinfij  received  those  resolutions  and  looked  over  them  ?     And 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  801 

does  he  deny  having  had  an  interview  with  the  Union  safety  com- 
mittee? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  I  will  answer  the  gentleman  with  great  pleasure.  I 
admit  that  I  had  interviews,  not  only  with  members  of  the  Union  safety 
committee,  but  with  a  large  number  of  the  Webster  men  of  the  city  of 
Boston.  They  were  so  crazy,  just  at  that  time,  that  they  might  well 
misunderstand  any  one  they  met  with.  They  really  imagined  that  they 
had  saved  the  Union.  I  only  say,  that  the  world  may  see  from  the  po- 
sition which  I  took  every  pains  to  make  public,  that  I  did  not  intend  to 
palm  myself  off  upon  Mr.  Vv^cbster's  friends  as  a  supporter  of  the  com- 
promises. 

Mr.  Davis.  I  merely  wished  to  ask  whether  it  is  true  that  the 
honorable  gentleman  took  those  resolves  home  with  him  and  returned  them  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  I  will  answer  the  gentleman.  The  resolves  were 
brought  into  my  office  in  the  afternoon,  before  I  left  Boston  for  Beverly. 
When  I  came  back  I  found  them  upon  my  office  table.  These  gentlemen 
may  have  supposed  that  I  spent  the  whole  night  studying  the  resolu- 
tions. Such  is  not  the  fact.  That  I  have  expressed  myself,  in  the  very 
highest  terms,  in  praise  of  the  intellect  of  Daniel  Webster,  is  perfectly 
true,  and  I  will  furnish  it  to  the  gentleman  in  print,  if  he  wants  to  see 
it.  That  I  have  expressed  regard  for  the  Union,  is  true;  and  I  will  ex- 
press it  again  if  I  have  occasion.  That  I  have  said  I  will  stand  by  the 
Constitution,  is  true  ;  and  I  say  so  now.  A  man  could  hardly  say,  at 
that  time,  that  Mr.  Webster  was  a  man  of  great  intellect,  that  he  was 
in  favor  of  the  Union,  and  that  he  Avould  stand  by  the  Constitution, 
v;ithout  being  considered  a  Webster  man,  and  in  favor  of  his  election  to 
the  presidency.  That  was  the  inference  drawn  at  once;  an  inference 
which  I  did  not  intend  to  be  drawn  in  my  case,  as  the  gentleman  may 
see  from  my  taking  care  to  pronounce  publicly  just  the  opposite  doctrine, 
from  time  to  time,  at  very  short  intervals.  My  position  is  not  an  am- 
biguous one.  But  here  were  gentlemen  looking  for  support  for  Mr. 
Webster,  and  every  man  who  did  not  want  the  Union  dissolved,  was  set 
down  as  almost  certain  for  Mr.  Webster.  I  do  not  want  the  Union  dis- 
solved;  but  I  shall  not  help  make  Mr.  Webster  president,  because  I 
think  the  Union  can  be  saved  without  that  expedient.  If  I  thought 
there  was  no  other  way  of  saving  it,  I  might  go  for  him.  But  the  Union 
was  saved  on  the  7th  day  of  March,  1850,  as  every  gentleman  knows 
as  well  as  I  do,  and  it  has  been  saved  every  three  weeks  since,  and  there 
are  a  great  many  other  gentlemen  anxious  to  save  it  as  often  as  possible, 
for  the  credit  of  the  thin"-. 

Now,  Sir,  I  went  to  Illinois  immediately  after  this,  and  while  there, 
an  article  appeared  in  the  Springfield  (Illinois)  Register.     I  have  here 


802  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

a  letter,  which  states  the  views  taken  of  that  article  by  the  editor  of 
that  paper,  some  months  after  he  published  it.  I  do  not  know  that  it  is 
worth  while  to  read  it  through,  but  my  colleague  (Mr.  Davis)  or  any 
other  gentleman  who  desires,  can  examine  it.  It  is  a  letter  which  says 
that  the  editor  "  had  no  positive  knowledge  of  your  (my)  opinions  on 
the  compromise  measures,  and,  at  the  time,  supposed  he  was  doing  you 
(me)  an  act  of  friendship."  The  writer  says  further :  "  I  never  heard 
you  express  your  views  of  them,  (the  compromises,)  notwithstanding 
they  were  several  times  introduced  (at  Springfield)  for  the  purpose  of 
drawing  you  out." 

That  is  the  explanation  of  the  whole  matter.  Here  was  a  gentleman 
who  imagined  that  the  suspicion  of  opposition  to  the  compromise  might 
do  me  an  injury,  and  being  desirous  of  doing  me  a  f\xvor,  j^ublished  an 
article,  which  I  never  saw  until  many  days  after  it  was  published.  Just 
as  I  was  about  leaving  Springfield,  it  was  pointed  out  to  me,  and  I  im- 
mediately said  it  was  wrong,  —  that  I  had  not  authorized  it  to  be  pub- 
lished, and  that  I  regretted  that  it  was.  Now,  Sir,  I  Avill  allude  to 
another  circumstance.  The  only  article  published  by  me  while  I  was  in 
the  State  of  Illinois,  is  a  letter,  to  which  my  name  is  signed.  I  pub- 
lished nothing  anonymously.  I  deny  not  only  that  production,  but 
everything  else  that  may  be  attributed  to  me  there.  I  wrote,  signed, 
and  published  a  letter  under  my  own  signature.  That  letter,  wJiieh 
was  addressed  to  Hon.  U.  F.  Linder,  a  member  of  the  house  of  dele- 
gates, or  assembly,  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  went  into  a  calculation  of  the 
cost  of  certain  railroads,  concluding  by  summing  up  what  I  supposed 
to  be  the  advantages  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  from  the  construction  of 
the  railroads  then  in  contemplation  ;  I  then  added  "that  the  ad\"anlages 
of  works  like  these  are  not  confined  to  the  State  in  which  they  are 
located.  They  are  common  to  the  country.  A  railroad  connecting  the 
basin  of  the  great  lakes  with  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  running  from  Chicago 
to  Mobile,  will  do  more  to  connect  the  Union  in  enduring  bands,  than  all 
the  windy  declamations  of  all  the  demagogues  that  have  spouted  in  leg- 
islative halls  for  the  last  eighteen  months." 

Now,  I  would  ask  any  man  of  any  sense,  who  will  take  that  letter  and 
read  it,  if  he  thinks  that  the  man  who  wrote  it,  and  signed  his  name  to 
it,  and  published  it,  was  trying  to  pass  himself  off  there  as  a  very  high 
toned  compromise  man  ?  If  there  is  a  man  who  can  believe  that,  I  will 
not  argue  Avith  him,  for  he  is  beyond  the  reach  of  argument.  That  is 
the  position  I  stood  upon.  I  did  not  argue  the  compromise  matters,  and 
even  the  latter  sentence,  probably,  if  I  had  reflected  upon  it,  I  should 
have  thought  it  in  bad  taste,  and  crossed  it  out.  I  did  not  go  to  Illinois 
to  talk  about  the  compromises.     It  so  happened  that  I  wrote  the  last 


OF   EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  803 

sentences  in  a  luiny,  and  signed  my  name  to  it ;  very  fortunately  for 
me,  as  it  turns  out,  for  it  shows  where  I  stood  then,  when  it  did  not 
occur  to  me  that  I  was  writing  a  letter  for  such  a  purpose  as  it  now 
answers. 

Mr.  Davis,  (interrupting).  If  the  gentleman  will  allow  me,  I  desire 
to  ask  him  another  question.  He  stated,  that  on  no  question  can  any 
printed  remarks  be  found,  showing  that  he  ever  stated  any  thing  incon- 
sistent wnth  the  doctrine  of  the  letter  of  1838.  I  ask  him,  wdiether,  in 
the  election  of  1848,  he  did  not  make  speeches  upon  the  stump,  in  which 
he  supported  the  doctrine  of  non-intervention  ? 

Mr.  Raxtoul.  I  answer  the  gentleman  distinctly,  that  I  did  not. 
'Now,  if  the  gentleman  can  prove  to  the  contrary  he  can  have  ample 
time,  and  I  will  aid  him  in  searching  for  materials.  I  supported  General 
Cass,  and  did  it  in  good  faith,  and  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and 
did  all  I  could  to  bring  about  his  election.  On  most  occasions  I  made 
no  allusions  to  his  Xicholson  letter;  but  when  I  did  allude  to  it,  upon 
very  fcu^  occasions,  I  briefly  expressed  my  dissent  from  his  conclusions; 
that  is  all.  I  did  not  make  it  prominent;  and  when  I  thought  it  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  touch  upon  it,  I  took  care  that  my  hearers  should 
know  where  I  stood. 

JSTow,  Sir,  I  am  not  going  through  this  long  catalogue  of  small  matters, 
because  it  is  not  worth  the  time.  The  game  is  not  worth  the  powder. 
If  my  reputation  will  not  take  care  of  itself,  it  is  not  worth  the  trouble 
of  being  taken  care  of.  I  will  risk  it ;  and  I  will  leave  unanswered  all 
the  other  matters  -which  the  gentleman  has  alluded  to,  simply  saying, 
that  if  any  statement  would  warrant  the  fair  and  honest  inference  that 
I  have  been  inconsistent  upon  any  of  the  questions  to  which  the  gentle- 
man has  alluded,  then  that  statement  is  false ;  that  is  all.  I  am  not 
going  into  particulars,  because  there  is  beyond  all  these  a  great  question, 
a  question  vastly  more  important  to  the  country,  and  to  the  world,  than 
the  consistency  of  my  colleague  from  th.e  Sixth  District  or  m3^self.  We 
are  but  insects  which  move  about  upon  the  surface  of  this  globe.  But 
there  are  great  interests,  concerning  all  humanity  for  all  future  ages,  that 
are  agitating  this  nineteenth  century,  and  which  we,  as  members  of  this 
congress,  are  bound  to  meet.  It  is  not  for  the  North,  it  is  not  for  the  South, 
itis  not  for  any  section  of  this  country  to  rise  up,  and  talk  loud  and  angrily 
by  way  of  quieting  agitation.  Agitating  speeches  do  not  mend  the  matt(;r. 
No  section,  no  great  interest,  by  thrusting  its  head  into  the  sand  like  an 
ostrich,  diminishes  the  danger  which  it  declines  to  look  in  the  face.  Here 
are  certain  great  interesting  questions  which  must  have  an  issue  some- 
how. How,  as  yet,  God  only  knows  ;  but  it  is  for  us,  as  men,  to  look 
them  in  the  face,  and  to  determine  what  are  the  principles  upon  wdiich 


804  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES,   AND   WRITINGS 

tliey  are  to  be  settled,  —  not  to  try  to  make  each  other  angry.  I  do  not 
respect  tliat  man  who  tries  to  make  me  angry  when  he  should  ai-gae, 
•because  it  puts  an  end  to  all  fair  argument,  all  prospect  of  our  coming 
to  an  understanding  to  the  end  of  time.  But  let  us,  with  a  common 
desire  to  see  how  these  questions  may  be  met,  mutually  tolerate  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  and  allow  every  man  to  speak  out  frankly  what  he 
believes,  and  then  respect  him  the  more,  the  more  frankly  he  expresse 
his  opinions.  That  is  my  feeling ;  and  I  hope  it  will  be  met  with  the 
same  feeling  on  the  part  of  others. 

But,  Sir,  before  I  touch  upon  this,  let  me  say  a  word  or  two  about 
this  coalition  in  Massachusetts,  because  the  gentleman  originally  Hung 
his  gauntlet  down  upon  that  matter.  He  says  it  was  a  corrupt  coalition. 
Now,  Sir,  in  Massachusetts  there  were,  and  have  been  for  many  years, 
three  parties.  The  law  and  Constitution  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
required  a  majority  to  elect  to  any  office.  No  one  of  the  three  parties 
was  strong  enough  to  establish  a  govei-nment.  One  of  two  things  was  to  be 
done,  then.  And  I  ask  this  house,  and  every  man  in  it,  which  we  should 
choose  ?  Either  there  could  be  no  government  for  Massachusetts,  or  else 
there  must  be  a  combination  of  two  parties.  Which  ought  we,  as  patriots, 
to  have  done?  Have  no  government  ?  No.  If  we  were  to  have  a  govern- 
ment, a  combination  was  to  have  been  made  somewhere.  Three  coalitions 
were  possible  ;  whigs  and  free  sellers,  whigs  and  democrats,  democrats  and 
free  sellers.  There  can  be  no  other.  Which  does  the  gentleman  prefer? 
That  is  quite  plain.  The  house  may  see  where  the  shoe  pinches.  The 
gentleman  and  his  patriotic  friends,  whose  souls  sicken  at  thought  of  the 
new  coalition,  had  made  a  combination  betvv'een  whigs  and  abolitionists, 
and  had  coiitrolled  the  State  by  that  means.  I  understand  whig  ethics, 
and  the  ruling  principle  is,  what  puts  us  in  is  right,  what  puts  us  out  is 
wrong.  Now  these  very  same  gentlemen  who  formed  a  coalition,  and 
carried  it  out  for  eighteen  years,  all  at  once  saw  themselves  ejected  from 
power.  Oh,  it  is  horrible,  it  is  corrupt,  it  is  infamous  !  They  blush  for 
their  own  State  when  they  find  other  men  doing  for  good  and  patriotic 
reasons,  that  which  they  have  done  for  no  reason  at  all,  except  to  share 
the  spoils  of  office,  and  to  carry  out  a  system  of  class  legislation,  out  of 
which  they  filled  the  pockets  of  the  managers  of  this  machinery.  That 
has  been  done  for  years,  until  at  last  the  people  of  Massachusetts  could 
stand  it  no  longer.  They  determined  they  would  not  be  ruled  in  that 
manner  any  longer.  They  rejected  all  these  gentlemen  ;  and  when  the 
whig  party  was  suddenly  choked  off  from  the  great  meat  platter  which 
the  gentleman  saw  in  apocalyptic  vision,  it  set  up  a  howl  that  might  be 
heard  through  Tartarus.  At  that  I  do  not  wonder.  What  I  wonder  at 
is,  that  there  are  democrats  in  other  parts  of  the  country  greeu  enough 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  „  805 

to  send  back  an  echo  to  that  howl ;  who  sympathize  with  whigs  who 
have  been  in  office  for  the  best  part  of  half  a  century,  and  think  it  infa- 
mous to  turn  them  out.  This  is  what  I  wonder  at,  and  I  have  noC 
ceased  to  wonder  to  this  day.  Why,  Sir,  a  combination  was  necessary. 
No  man  will  deny  that.  The  only  question  was  what  combination 
should  be  made.  Only  three  combinations  are  possible ;  the  whigs  and 
free  soilers,  the  democrats  and  free  soilers,  and  the  whigs  and  democrats. 
No  system  of  mathematics  can  make  more  than  these  three.  The  whigs 
and  free  soilers  had  been  united  for  sixteen  or  eighteen  years.  The 
whigs  had  all  that  time  been  professing  to  believe  various  matters  which 
they  did  not  believe,  or  else  their  acts  belied  their  belief,  one  or  the 
other.  They  have  been,  under  false  pretences,  obtaining  goods  which 
did  not  belong  to  them,  for  ^eighteen  years.  The  free  soil  party  became 
sick  of  frauds  of  that  sort,  and  upon  so  large  a  scale.  They  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  They  determined  that  they  would  no  longer  coalesce  with 
the  whigs  upon  any  pretence  whatever.  Should  the  whigs  and  the  dem- 
ocrats have  coalesced  ?  In  other  parts  of  the  country,  I  see  the  effect 
of  whig  and  democratic  coalescence.  With  a  little  more  of  it,  you  will 
have  a  whig  majority  in  the  senate.  I  find  gentlemen  rising  up  here, 
gentlemen  from  southern  States  coming  here,  and  publicly  announcing 
that  they  came  determined  to  vote  with  either  party  that  will  go  furthest 
in  a  certain  direction,  —  gentlemen  whom  I  supposed  to  be  whigs,  and 
to  hold  whig  principles,  but  who  have  no  objection  to  turn  democrats  all 
at  once,  as  a  black  lobster  turns  red  by  boiling ;  that  is,  the  whigs,  will 
turn  sound,  consistent  democrats,  if  the  democratic  party  will  eat  more 
southern  dirt  than  the  whig  party  will.  That  is  the  proposition,  and  it 
is  made  unblushingly  here ;  and  the  people  who  mal^e  it  come  here  an(5 
ask  the  two  great  parties  to  put  up  their  principles  for  sale,  to  be 
knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder.  And  they  have  the  impudence  to. 
talk  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts  about  an  unprincipled  coalition. 

I  should  like  to  see  the  want  of  principle  shown  in  our  coalition^ 
shown  by  some  of  those  gentlemen  who  come  here  and  say  they  are  wil- 
ling to  join  either  party,  —  either  party,  provided  it  is  a  party  of  pro- 
found and  thorough  sectionalism,  —  ignoring  all  inhabited  regions  north 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  ;  provided  it  is  a  party  not  having  a  national 
idea  in  the  head  of  any  man  belonging  to  it ;  provided  it  is  a  party  that 
believes  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  created  to.perpetuate- 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  slavery  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  and 
for  no  other  purpose  ;  provided  it  is  a  party  of  one  idea,  —  they  do  not 
care  whether  it  is  democratic  or  whig,  they  will  go  for  it.  That  is  the 
kind  of  doctrine  advanced  upon  this  floor.  And  then  the  men  who 
advance  it  turn  around  and  berate  the  men  of  Massachusetts,  and  call 

68 


806  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  creation  of  a  government  an  infamous  coalition.  Of  that  I  do  not 
complain  so  much  as  that  a  native  son  of  Massachusetts  should  indorse 
all  these  miserable  slanders.  It  is  of  that  I  complain.  The  coalition,  I 
say,  in  Massachusetts  must  needs  be  of  whigs  and  free  soilers,  whigs 
and  democrats,  or  democrats  and  free  soilers.  Now  I,  as  a  democrat, 
had  no  idea  of  coalescing  with  the  whigs.  I  had  fought  them  all  my  life 
long.  The  gentleman  from  Florida  (Mr.  Cabell)  does  not  see  any  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  parties.  I  have  seen  a  distinction,  —  a  broad 
gulf,  —  a  gulf  like  that  between  Dives  and  Lazarus,  and  I  could  not  leap 
over  it  in  a  single  bound.  I  supposed  that  there  was  a  principle  at  the 
bottom  of  all  this.  If  I  have  been  mistaken,  it  is  a  mistake  of  which  I 
do  not  wish  to  be  relieved.  I  wish  to  be  suffered  still  to  suppose  that 
there  is  a  little  principle  in  the  world,  instead  of  thinking  that  all  parties 
are  aggregations  of  rogues.  I  think  there  was  a  principle  at  the  bottom 
of  the  division  between  democrats  and  whigs  ;  and  I  could  not,  as  a 
democrat,  coalesce  with  the  whigs.  You  then  ask,  How  did  the  demo- 
crats coalesce  with  the  free  soilers  ?  Was  not  there  a  broad  distinction 
between  them  ?  I  will  show  gentlemen  how  broad,  for  it  is  best  that 
these  things  should  be  understood.  You  will  have  to  understand  them 
by  and  by  ;  and  what  is  the  benefit  of  talking  nonsense  in  hours  together, 
when  we  can  get  at  the  plain  facts,  if  w^e  choose  to  do  so  ;  and  when, 
having  got  at  the  plain  facts,  we  can  judge  better  how  to  conduct  our- 
selves than  by  the  impositions  palmed  off  here  day  after  day  in  order  to 
influence  the  country.  I  will  show  gentlemen  how  far  the  democratic 
party  and  the  free  soil  party  were  from  each  other  at  the  time  the  coali- 
tion was  formed.  The  gentleman  knows  very  well,  although  the  house 
may  not,  that  the  coalition  was  formed  in  the  fall  of  the  year  1849,  and 
not,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  fall  of  1850.  It  was  formed  in  the  fall  of 
1819,  and  attempted  to  take  the  power  out  of  the  hands  of  the  whigs, 
but  did  not  succeed.  It  came  very  near  success,  but  it  did  not  succeed. 
In  1850,  they  made  a  second  trial,  and  succeeded.  In  1851,  they  made 
a  third  trial,  and  succeeded  again.  Three  times  has  this  coalition  been 
in  operation  ;  the  first  time  a  failure,  and  the  last  two  times  successful. 
Now,  before  the  coalition  was  made,  of  course  those  democrats  who  came 
the  nearest  to  the  peculiar  opinions  of  the  free  soilers  had  no  difliculty, 
and  felt  no  repugnance.  The  repugnance  must  have  been  on  the  part 
of  those  who  were  furthest  from  the  free  soilers,  and  I  propose  to  show 
where  they  stood.  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  resolutions  reported  by  the 
Hon.  Benjamin  F.  Hallett,  September  19,  1849,  the  week  the  coalition 
was  formed  ;  and  gentlemen  will  see  how  far  Mr.  Hallett  and  those  who 
thought  with  him  had  lo  go  before  they  could  act  without  repugnance 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  807 

with  the  free  soil  party.  The  following  is  one  of  the  resolutions  reported 
by  Mr.  ILilIett :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  slavery  in  any  form  and  color, 
and  in  favor  of  freedom  and  free  soil,  wherever  man  lives  throughout 
God's  heritage." 

That  is  one  of  the  resolutions  ;  here  is  another  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  to  free 
territories,  and  in  favor  of  the  exercise  of  all  constitutional  and  necessary 
means  to  restrict  it  to  the  limits  within  which  it  does  or  may  exist  by  the 
local  laws  of  the  State."* 

Now,  gentlemen  will  ask  me,  what  is  the  vote  upon  these  resolutions 
of  Mr.  Hallett?  It  was  a  very  full  democratic  convention,  and  the  vote 
in  favor  of  these  resolutions  was  a  unanimous  one,  on  the  19th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1849.  Gentlemen  who  write  one  kind  of  resolutions  for  the 
newspapers,  unanimously  adopted,  circulating  them  throughout  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  in  a  printed  form,  for  effect,  and  who  will  write 
another  kind  of  doctrine  in  private  letters  to  members  upon  this  floor, 
must  submit  to  have  their  two  systems  compared.  I  say  here  what  I 
have  said  in  Massachusetts.  Print  them  in  parallel  columns,  and  you  will 
find  no  difference.  If  the  gentlemen  wish  to  make  the  North  all  hypo- 
crites; if  they  wish  every  man  at  the  North  who  entertains  sentiments 


*  The  following  resolves  —  and  tliey  arc  all  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  that  were 
reported  by  Mr.  Hallett  —  -were  adopted  by  the  democratic  convention,  holden  at 
Springfield,  September  19,  1849  :  — 

1.  Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  slavery  in  every  form  and  color,  and  in  favor 
of  freedom  and  free  soil  wherever  man  lives  throughout  God's  heritage. 

2.  Resolved,  That  by  common  law  and  common  sense,  as  well  as  by  the  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  (in  Trigg  r.  Pennsylvania,  IG  Peters,)  "  the 
state  of  slaver}^  is  a  mere  municipal  regulation,  founded  upon  and  limited  to  the  verge 
of  the  territorial  law,"  that  is,  the  limits  of  the  State  creating  it. 

3.  Resolved,  Therefore,  that  as  slavery  does  exist  by  any  municipal  law  in  the  new 
territories,  and  congress  has  no  power  to  institute  it,  the  local  laws  of  any  State 
authorizing  slavery  can  never  be  transported  there,  nor  can  slavery  exist  there  but  by 
a  local  law  of  the  territories  sanctioned  by  congress,  or  the  legislative  act  of  a  State 
in  its  sovereign  capacity. 

4.  Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  to  free  territories,  and 
in  favor  of  the  exercise  of  all  constitutional  and  necessary  means  to  restrict  it  to  the 
limits  within  which  it  docs  or  may  exist  by  the  local  laws  of  the  States  ;  but 

5.  Resolved,  That  these  sentiments  are  so  universal  at  the  North  as  to  belong  to  no 
party,  being  held  in  common  by  all  men  north  of  a  sectional  line,  while  they  are  re- 
pudiated by  most  men  south  of  that  line  ;  and  tlierefore  they  cannot  be  made  a 
national  party  test. 

Mr.  Rantoul  quoted  the  first  and  fowth  resolutions.  Xow,  what  is  the  purport  of 
each  of  the  others  ? 


808  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

that  are  not  perfectly  palatable  in  high  southern  latitudes  should  falsify 
his  own  record  and  pretend  to  love  that  which  in  his  heart  he  abhors ; 
if  gentlemen  desire  that ;  why,  there  is  a  way  to  make  some  men  do 
that,  but  there  is  no  way  to  make  all  men  do  so.  The  thing  is  impossible. 
I  think  too  well  not  only  of  the  people,  of  the  freemen,  of  Massachusetts, 
but  I  think,  thank  God,  I  am  able  to  say,  too  well  of  the  freemen  of  the 
United  States,  I  think  too  well  of  human  nature  all  over  the  world,  to 
believe  that  a  universal  system  of  hypocrisy  upon  the  subject  of  slavery, 
or  any  other  subject,  is  possible  now,  or  will  be  at  any  future  day.  You 
may  succeed  in  making 

Mr.  Cabell.  Will  the  gentleman  permit  me  to  ask  him  a  single 
question  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  I  have  not  time.  The  gentleman  can  speak  after  me 
for  an  hour. 

Mr.  Cabell.  I  only  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman,  if  the  person  of 
whom  he  is  speaking  is  the  same  one  who  is  chairman  of  the  democratic 
committee  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  It  is  the  same  man,  —  what  is  called  at  the  North,  a 
hunker  democrat.  Now,  Sir,  I  was  saying,  and  I  cannot  go  over  the 
matter  that  I  had  intended  to  pass  over,  that  this  issue  of  slavery  is  a 
great  national  issue,  to  be  met  with  national,  constitutional  principles. 
We  have  got  to  see  what  is  to  be  done  with  it.  I  say  it  is  we  ;  I  say 
that  it  is  not  one  third  of  the  Union  that  is  to  settle  this  subject,  if  the 
United  States  government  take  it  up.  It  will  be  settled  by  two  thirds 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  not  by  one  third.  Yes,  Sir ; 
gentlemen  should  remember  that  the  State  of  Massachusetts  has  a 
greater  white  population  than  any  State  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line,  and  yet  Massachusetts  is  a  small  State  at  the  North.  Are  these 
States  that  contain  one  third  part  of  the  white  population,  to  say  that 
the  general  government  shall  take  hold  of  this  subject  ?  That  is  the  first 
proposition.  Second  :  When  they  take  hold  of  it,  are  they  to  do  what 
they  demand, —  they  being  one  third  of  the  people,  and  we,  the  other 
two  thirds,  shall  humbly  submit  to  it  to  the  end  of  our  days.  They  will 
make  that  demand,  but  it  will  not  be  granted  ;  that  is  all.  Is  it  wise  to 
make  it  ?  Is  it  not  better  to  look  about  a  little,  and  see  what  you  can 
do,  before  you  embark  in  an  enterprise  of  that  kind  ?  I  see  but  three 
issues  to  this  great  question  of  slavery.  I  will  propound  them  in  a  few 
words,  for  I  see  my  time  is  very  short.  There  are  three  issues  I  say. 
It  may  result  in  civil  war  and  anarchy.  I  say  that  is  possible  ;  but,  in 
my  opinion,  it  is  a  mere  possibility.  But  it  is  a  possibility  that  prudent 
men  ought  to  look  at,  because  bad  management  may  drive  the  chariot 
off  the  precipice,  when,  with  the  slightest  degree  of  prudence  and  skill, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  809 

the  course  would  be  perfectly  safe.  It  may  result  in  civil  war,  if  badly 
managed  indeed,  without  any  sort  of  prudence.  Then,  wliat  are  tlie  two 
other  issues  in  which  it  may  result  ?  Why,  there  is  a  federal,  and  there 
is  a  democratic  issue.  Shivery  will  not  last  forever,  for  the  seeds  of  its 
death  are  within  itself.  Now,  almost  the  whole  civilized  world  have  got 
rid  of  it ;  and  that  portion  of  the  civilized  world  of  which  I  speak,  —  for 
I  say  nothing  of  the  barbarians,  —  which  still  retains  this  institution,  re- 
tains a  temporary  institution,  and  it  must  look  about  to  see  how,  with 
the  least  inconvenience  and  suffering  to  itself,  that  temporary  institution 
is  to  come  to  an  end.  That  is  the  great  question  for  southern  men  ;  and 
if  it  is  to  be  pressed  upon  this  government,  —  and  I  think  it  ought  not  to 
be, —  then  it  is  the  great  question  for  northern  men.  And  I  say  there 
are  two  issues,  —  a  federal  issue  and  a  democratic  issue  !  What  is  the 
federal  issue  ?  That  the  federal  government  be  forced  day  after  day  to 
take  more  and  more  interest  in  this  subject  of  slavery,  and  to  interfere 
more  and  more  with  it,  by  at  one  time  making  a  fugitive  slave  law,  to 
compel  all  of  my  constituents  to  be  the  catchers  of  runaway  negroes, 
which  is  repugnant  to  my  people.  They  do  not  like  it.  Or,  by  an 
arrangement  which  they  say  is  constitutional,  and  to  give  the  great  capi- 
talists of  the  North  an  opportunity  to  raise  an  amount  sufficient  for  the 
exigency,  either  by  taking  the  national  lands,  or  making  a  great  national 
loan,  to  build  up  a  great  national  debt,  greater  than  that  of  Great  Britain, 
which  they  would  delight  to  do,  to  buy  up  the  negroes  of  the  South. 
That  is  the  federal  issue.  Towards  it  you  are  tending  now.  By  and  by, 
gentlemen  will  see  this  tendency  more  strongly  developing  itself.  It  is  of 
no  avail  for  gentlemen  to  try  to  shut  their  eyes  to  it.  When  the  federal 
party  see  that  slavery  must  come  to  an  end,  they  will  endea\  or  to  pre- 
vail upon  the  general  government  to  buy  it  up.  Against  that  I  protest 
beforehand.  When  that  is  done,  it  makes  a  complete  revolution  in  the 
whole  nature  of  the  government.  It  builds  up  a  debt  as  great  as  that  of 
England.  It  gives  the  president  a  power  which  makes  the  republican 
empire,  even  though  your  forms  remain  unchanged,  as  France  has  been 
transformed  into  an  empire,  from  the  great  patronage  existing  in  the 
hands  of  one  magistrate.  But  what  is  the  other  issue?  The  democratic 
issue  is,  that  you  take  your  stand  sternly  upon  the  Constitution,  and  say 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not  allow,  —  does  not 
justify  the  federal  government  in  touching  the  institution  of  slavery  in 
the  States.  Slavery,  and  the  extradition  of  slaves,  must  he  left  to  the 
States.  That  is  the  doctrine  I  maintain  at  home.  It  is  the  only  doctrine 
upon  which  this  question  can  be  settled,  without  one  or  the  other  of  two 
results,  —  either  civil  war,  or  else  the  building  up  of  a  debt  which  would 
crush  the  freedom  of  the  United  States  forever.    I  say,  then,  stand  upon 

68* 


810  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

State  rights,  and  say,  sternly  and  inflexibly,  that  the  general  government 
shall  not  meddle  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States  ;  and  I  ask 
gentlemen  to  look,  to  see  if  they  have  not  made  a  fatal  mistake  in  mis- 
construing a  clause  of  the  Constitution  with  regard  to  fugitives  from 
labor.  That  clause  no  more  allows  the  United  States  government  to 
enact  a  law  for  the  rendition  of  runaway  slaves,  to  employ  its  officers 
for  the  rendition  of  slaves,  than  it  would  allow  this  congress  to  enact 
a  law  to  send  its  officers  into  the  port  of  Charleston  to  rescue  free  men 
of  color  seized  there,  and  sold  as  slaves,  because  they  cannot  pay 
their  jail  fees.  I  ask  gentlemen  if  they  would  think  that  was  con- 
stitutional ?  I  can  make  out  as  strong  a  case  of  constitutionality  for 
that,  as  any  gentleman  has  yet  done  for  the  other.  The  principles 
you  adopt  in  the  one  case  must  cover  the  other.  I  say,  then,  if  you  have 
already  infringed  upon  the  Constitution,  —  if  you  have  already  violated 
it,  —  hereafter  cease  to  do  so.  You  have  already  entered  the  point  of  the 
wedge.  Do  not  drive  it  home,  by  a  continual  urging  upon  congress  this 
question  of  slavery.  What  have  we  heard  all  of  this  session  ?  "  Quiet 
agitation  ; "  and  quieting  agitation  is  the  noisiest  business  we  have,  — 
the  very  noisiest ;  and  also  the  most  irritating.  Sir,  agitation  is  not  to 
be  quieted  by  hard  words.  Hard  words  will  have  very  little  success  on 
either  side.  This  question  of  slavery  can  be  quieted  only  in  two  ways. 
One  way  will  be  for  the  South  to  let  it  alone ;  and  then  if  everybody  at 
the  North  would  let  it  alone,  which  no  man  can  promise,  it  would  be 
quieted.  The  other  would  be  to  talk  about  it  like  reasonable  men. 
Take  it  up  as  you  take  up  any  other  great  national  interest,  and  try  to 
get  at  the  merits  of  it.  When  you  do  that,  it  will  be  then  as  quietly 
approached  and  treated  as  any  other  subject ;  and  by  the  blessing  of 
Providence  on  your  honest  endeavors,  a  way' will  be  found  to  pass 
through  that  transition  of  social  system,  through  which  most  of  the 
nations  of  Europe  have  passed  within  a  comparatively  recent  period. 
[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 


THE    BALTIMORE    CONVEISTION. 

The  national  Democratic  Convention  of  delegates  from  the 
people,  assembled  at  Baltimore,  June  1,  1852,  for  the  nomina- 
tion of  president  and  vice-president  of  the  United  States.  To 
ihis  convention  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  was,  on  the  20th  of  No- 
vember, 1851,  unanimously  chosen  delegate  on  the  first  ballot, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  811 

in  a  convention  of  the  regularly  constituted  organs  and  repre- 
sentatives of  the  democracy  of  the  difTerent  towns  of  District 
Number  Two,  and  in  accordance  with  the  uniform  usage  of  the 
democratic  party  in  that  district.  His  seat  was  contested  by 
N.  J.  Lord,  chosen  by  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  persons,  at  an 
informal  meeting,  without  the  shadow  of  claim  to  be  consid- 
ered democratic,  either  in  its  call,  the  character  of  the  few  in- 
dividuals composing  it,  or  of  the  candidate  selected, — the  lat- 
ter person  having  run  for  congress  in  opposition  to  the  regularly 
nominated  candidate,  Mr.  Rantoul,  April  7,  1851,  with  the  fol- 
lowing result.     For  R.  Rantoul,  Jr.,  3,152  ;  N.  J.  Lord,  48. 

Notwithstanding  the  perfect  regularity  of  the  numerous  and 
highly  respectable  convention  at  South  Danvers,  of  the  duly 
appointed  organs  of  the  democratic  party  of  District  Number 
Two,  by  whom  Mr.  Rantoul  was  unanimously  chosen,  on  the 
first  ballot,  a  delegate  to  the  Baltimore  Democratic  Convention, 
and  notwithstanding  the  report  of  a  committee  chosen  by  the 
Massachusetts  delegation  in  that  convention  to  examine  all  the 
facts  in  the  case  reported  in  his  favor,  yet,  the  committee  on 
credentials,  in  the  general  convention,  reported  against  his  tak- 
ing the  seat  to  which  he  had  been  regularly  chosen  in  that  body  ; 
and  this  report,  fraught  with  atrocious  injustice,  was  sustained 
by  a  vote  of  194  to  83.  It  was  forced  through  the  convention 
in  face  of  the  clearest  facts  in  Mr.  Rantoul's  favor,  in  direct 
outrage  of  the  just  and  decided  sentiments  of  five  thousand 
democrats  of  his  district,  and  of  forty-five  thousand  in  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  who  will  not  soon  forget  the  misrepresenta- 
tions and  the  malignant  cooperation  of  certain  individuals  from 
the  North  against  him.  Their  subserviency  to  the  slave  power, 
rnd  their  subsequent  history,  may  prove  that  "thrift"  may 
"  follow  fawning,"  but  never,  that  their  crime  against  liberty 
and  instice  is  either  forgotten  or  forgiven  by  the  democrats  of 
the  free  States.  The  time  will  come,  and  is  near,  when  their 
very  names,  if  not  buried  in  deep  and  damning  oblivion,  will 
be  a  hissing  and  a  scorn  to  the  free  millions  of  the  North,  while 
that  of  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  shall  be  the  rallying  cry  of  the 
democracy  and  their  pride  for  generations  to  come. 

But  how  does  it  happen  that  appeals  to  southern  sectional 
prejudice  have  such  power  in  a  convention,  called  to  nominate, 


812  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND   WRITINGS 

for  the  highest  offices,  Ihe  candidates  of  the  democratic  party? 
The  answer  is  plain.  The  suffrages  of  the  free  States  being 
divided,  the  solid  phalanx  of  the  slave  interest  holds  the  balance 
of  power.  The  base  truckling  of  the  whigs  to  that  interest, 
woold,  it  was  imagined,  unless  met  by  an  equally  base  sub- 
serviency on  the  part  of  the  democrats,  result  in  the  success  of 
the  whig  candidate.  What  a  spectacle  was  presented  at  Balti- 
more! Two  great  conventions  of  delegates  from  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  kneeling,  begging  the  vote  of  a  part  of  the 
other  third  for  their  respective  candidates,  —  slavery  holding  the 
balance  of  power!  But  this  state  of  things  has,  probably, 
been  witnessed  for  the  last  time.  The  day  is  near  when  one 
sentiment  of  reverence  for  the  Constitution,  and  for  the  princi- 
ples of  its  glorious  founders,  will  bind  together  a  vast  majority 
of  the  citizens  of  the  Union  in  the  holy  and  indestructible  love 
of  liberty. 

The  treatment  which  Mr.  Rantoul  and  the  five  thousand 
democrats  of  District  Number  Two,  received  at  the  hands  of 
the  Baltimore  Convention,  was  regarded  with  astonishment  and 
indignation  throughout  the  country, — indignation  mingled  with 
grief  to  which  his  death,  in  August  following,  gave  an  inten- 
sity, which  the  eloquent  tongue  of  no  man  living  could  have 
imparted.  A  convention,  claiming  to  be  democratic,  ruthlessly 
violates,  in  the  person  of  one  of  its  regularly  and  unanimously 
elected  members,  the  settled  usages  and  long  established  prin- 
ciples of  the  democratic  party !  See,  excluded  from  it,  a  man 
who  had  done  as  good  service  in  support  of  those  principles, 
which  he  still  held,  as  any  man  of  his  age  in  the  United  States, 
—  one  of  the  most  learned  and  accomplished  of  orators ;  an  in- 
defatigable laborer  for  the  success  of  the  candidates  of  the  party, 
and  who,  notwithstanding  the  outrage  of  his  ostracism  by  the 
convention,  still  supported  its  candidates.  Why  this  astound- 
ing and  unparalleled  injustice  to  that  champion  of  democratic 
truth,  who,  in  1844  and  1848,  was  an  honored  and  efficient 
member  of  the  conventions  of  those  years,  and  who,  with 
greater  power  and  effect  than  any  other  man  in  the  country, 
could  have  wielded,  because  no  one  had,  at  the  same  time,  his 
information  and  his  eloquence,  supported,  with  all  his  might, 
the  nominees  of  those  conventions  by  able  speeches  in  nearly 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  813 

half  the  States  of  the  Union  ;  —  why  was  he  singled  out  as  the 
especial  object  of  attack  and  denunciation  by  a  set  of  men  too, 
Sonne  of  whom  were  members  of  that  convention  only  by  the 
mere  sufferance  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  personal  friends  ?  Was  he 
the  only  democratic  member  elected  by  the  coalition  of  differ- 
ent classes  of  voters  in  opposition  to  whig  rule?  No!  The 
constituency  of  District  then  Number  Five  of  Massachusetts, 
and  the  constituencies  of  a  great  part  of  the  delegations  of 
New  York,  Ohio,  and  other  States,  like  the  men  who  elected 
Mr.  Rantoul,  were  determined  opponents  of  subserviency  to 
slave-holding  despotism.  No !  Mr.  Rantoul  was  sacrificed  to 
secure  to  envious  and  malignant  personal  enemies,  the  benefit 
of  southern  influence  and  patronage.  Not  one  true  thought  of 
freedom,  of  right,  or  of  justice  to  him,  mingled  with  their  hos- 
tility. And  never  did  a  Jewish  Sanhedrim  of  old  decree  that 
one  man  should  unjustly  die  for  the  people,  or  a  Spanish  Inqui- 
sition consign  to  the  flames  one  that  dared  to  do  his  own  think- 
ing with  more  hot  haste  and  unrighteousness,  than  the  demo- 
cratic convention  at  Baltimore  excluded  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr. 
from  his  seat  in  that  body.  By  the  God  in  whose  hands  are 
the  destinies  of  nations,  the  fathers  of  the  republic  swore  they 
would  be  free.  What  was  the  boon  of  liberty  allowed  Mr. 
Rantoul,  one  of  the  most  worthy  and  distinguished  of  their 
descendants  ?  Not  even  to  speak  in  his  own  cause,  not  even  to 
do  his  own  thinking.  Asked  if  he  would,  beforehand,  agree  to 
support  such  resolutions  as  the  convention  might  adopt,  he  re- 
plied that  "  he  did  his  own  thinking,  and  did  not  leave  it  to  be 
done  for  him  by  conventions."  This  could  not  be  tolerated. 
An  end  must  be  put  to  freedom  of  political  opinion.  The  self- 
constituted,  infallible,  democratic  (?)  church  at  Baltimore,  de- 
mands submission  to  its  decrees  before  they  are  promulgated, 
or  even  formed.  It  is  not  enough  that  three  millions  of  blacks 
are  in  chaiils,  that  northern  court-houses  are  in  chains,  but 
northern  minds  must  be  shackled,  and  northern  lips  be  pad- 
locked and  the  keys  carefully  laid  away  in  the  archives  of  the 
United  States  democratic  convention  !  Mr.  Rantoul  in  a  few 
remarks  which  he  was  denied  the  right  and  opportunity  to 
make  to  the  convention,  but  which  are  published  in  an  account 
of  its  doings,  said :  "  I  cannot  look  at  this  attempt  except  as 


814  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

another  experiment  to  measure  the  extent  of  northern  servility; 
to  see  how  far  the  North  will  cower  before  an  insolent  demand 
to  make  independence  of  opinion,  on  questions  upon  which  we 
always  d'flered,  a  ground  of  proscription."  Yes!  It  is  this 
proscription  of  freedom  of  opinion,  which  consigns  the  doings 
of  the  Baltimore  Convention  in  Mr.  Rantoul's  case  to  eternal 
infamy,  —  infamy  black  as  Erebus,  —  while  to  be  a  martyr  in 
such  a  cause  is  immortal  honor.  To  that  very  liberty  of  which 
he  had  so  often  and  so  gloriously  vindicated  the  rights  of  others, 
he  fell  a  sacrifice.  He,  who  in  1832  supported  the  veto  of  the 
United  States  Bank  ;  in  183-J  and  1831,  the  removal  of  the  de- 
posits; in  1835,  and  on  through  four  years  of  the  most  active, 
laborious,  and  brilliant  service  in  the  democratic  cause,  as  a 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  —  a  service  marked 
by  a  series  of  victories  from  first  to  last,  over  the  most  disheart- 
ening opposition,  which  no  other  man  there  could  have  con- 
quered,—  dared  defend  the  rights  of  man  against  the  tyrannical 
usurpations  and  encroachments  of  corporations  ;  and  the  rights 
of  the  Catholics  to  the  protection  of  the  laws  of  the  country 
to  which  they  bear  true  faith  and  allegiance,  and  eloquently 
vindicated  entire  freedom  of  religious  opinion  ;  he  who,  against 
the  monopolizing  spirit  of  his  own  profession,  fearlessly  advo- 
cated the  principle  of  "no  law  but  written  law,"  strenuously 
urged  the  codification  of  the  common  law,  the  revision  of  the 
statutes,  and  the  relinquishment  of  bar  rules  ;  who  upheld  the 
right  of  freemen  to  a  specie  currency,  untaxed  and  uncontrollable 
by  banking  corporations,  and  insisted  with  earnestness  on  the 
prohibition  of  small  bills  as  a  circulating  medium  ;  who  advo- 
cated most  ably  and  perse veringly  the  sub-treasury  system,  and 
the  reduction  of  the  revenue  to  the  economical  wants  of  the 
government,  long  before  either  of  these  measures  was  adopted 
by  a  democratic  congrcw-^s;  he  who,  at  the  hazard  of  personal 
reputation,  in  a  State  where  he  had  to  encounter  the  bigotry  of 
the  common  law,  as  well  as  the  bigotry  of  theology,  boldly  and 
nobly  defended  the  right  to  testify  in  courts  of  justice  and  else- 
where without  hindrance  for  opinions  on  religion,  as  a  right 
essential  to  justice  and  freedom,  the  end  of  all  law  ;  he  who, 
against  the  hereditary  ignorance,  and  prejudice,  and  cruelty, 
which  laws  too  often  but  serve  to  perpetuate,  advocated,  with 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  815 

triumphant  power,  the  repeal  of  barbarous  enactments  and  use- 
less blood-stains  upon  civilized  legislation,  and  the  adoption  of 
humane  reforms,  which  make  justice  strong  by  tempering  it 
with  mercy;  he,  in  short,  who,  in  the  legislature  and  out  of  it, 
there  and  everywhere  was  always  true  to  humanity,  faithful  to 
the  cause  of  reform,  progress,  and  liberty,  as  ever  was  Thomas 
Jefferson  or  Samuel  Adams  ;  he,  having  sworn  in  the  halls  of  con- 
gress both  as  United  States  senator  and  representative,  fidelity  to 
the  Constitution,  fell  at  Baltimore  a  victim  to  fanaticism,  —  the 
fanaticism  of  slave-holding  tyranny,  controlling  the  action  and 
the  votes  of  a  convention  called  democratic!  Can  the  black 
and  atrocious  act  of  excluding  him  from  that  convention  annul 
his  past  services  ?  Can  it  chain  the  hands  or  seal  the  lips  of 
the  five  thousand  democrats  of  his  district,  as  well  informed,  as 
thoroughly  united,  and  as  truly  republican  as  any  constituency 
on  earth  ?  Will  the  citizens  of  the  free  States  submit  to  be,  by 
sections  and  districts,  disfranchised,  for  daring  to  hold  or  utter 
opinions  adverse  to  the  fugitive  slave  law  ?  IMay  they  not  even 
inquire  by  what  right,  by  what  grant  of  power,  congress  has 
presumed  to  constitute  every  free  citizen  of  republican  America  a 
slave  catcher^  for  southern  taskmasters  ?  We  shall  see  I  We 
already  see  the  vote  for  delegates  to  the  constitutional  conven- 
tion of  the  sovereign  State  of  Massachusetts,  in  which  men  of 
the  same  political  opinions  which  distinguished  Mr.  Rantoul, 
have  a  cle  ir  n  ajority  of  at  least  one  hundred  votes.  We  shall 
see,  too,  how  New  York  and  the  great  States  of  the  west,  where 
his  voice,  ever  eloquent  in  the  cause  of  the  people,  had  often 
been  heard  with  patriotic  cheers  and  acclamations  o  delight, 
will  look  upon  his  martyrdom  to  freedom  of  opinion,  the  right, 
as  he  termed  it,  to  do  his  own  thinking.  Not  Baltimore  con- 
ventions, called  democratic  ;  not  the  president  of  the  United 
States,  if  armed  with  a  thousand  times  more  power  than  any 
president  ever  yet  dreamed  of;  not  congress,  with  all  its  uncon- 
stitutional assumptions,  nor  the  whole  force  of  the  government 
united,  with  the  mines  of  California  and  Australia  to  back  it, 
can  prevent  the  consequences  of  that  one  act  of  tyranny  at  Bal- 
timore from  defeating  its  own  object.  Millions  of  hearts,  for 
that,  shall  throb  with  newly  awakened  sentiments  of  liberty, 
and  a  new  love  of  freedom  of  discussion.    What  is  the  character 


816  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

of  a  government  which  allows  not  liberty  of  opinion — what  but 
a  tyranny  ?  Shall,  then,  the  last  sanctuary  of  liberty,  the  mind, 
be  invaded  with  chains  and  fetters  ?  Before  the  republicans  of 
America  bow  their  necks  to  such  a  power,  opinions  will  be  ex- 
pressed, w^ords  will  be  heard,  aye,  and  be  turned  to  blows,  and 
the  blood  of  freemen  wash  out  the  landmarks  of  every  State  in 
the  Union. 

Be  it  remembered,  countrymen  of  Franklin,  of  Washington, 
of  Jefferson,  that  the  question  at  Baltimore  was  one  only  of  free 
thought  and  free  speech.  For  claiming  this  freedom,  Mr.  Ran- 
toul  and  his  five  thousand  constituents  were  denied  a  hearing 
and  a  voice  in  a  democratic  (?)  convention.  Let  the  record  of 
this  execrable  outrage  on  the  rights  of  freemen  be  read  in  the 
following  proceedings  of  the  Democratic  National  Convention, 
relative  to  the  Massachusetts  contested  election  :  — 


MASSACHUSETTS  CONTESTED  ELECTION   CASE. 

Baltimore,  Wednesday,  June  2,  1852. 

Hon.  Edmund  Burke,  of  New  Hampshire,  submitted  a  report  from 
the  committee  on  credentials,  which  was  read. 

The  report  says  that  all  the  States  have  elected  delegates,  with  the 
exception  of  South  Carolina.  As  to  the  contested  seats  from  Georgia, 
the  committee  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolutions :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  democratic  delegation  from  Georgia,  represented 
by  Mr.  Cohen,  consisting  of  twenty-one  members,  are  the  legitimate 
representatives  of  the  democracy  of  Georgia,  and  are  entitled  to  their 
seats. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  delegation  represented  by  Mr.  Jackson,  consist- 
ing of  twelve  members,  are  democrats  in  principle,  and  reflect  the  sen- 
timents of  a  portion  of  the  democracy  of  Georgia,  and  shall  be  admit- 
ted to  seats  in  the  convention ;  and  the  said  delegations,  thus  united, 
shall  cast  the  votes  of  the  State." 

They  decide  that  George  P.  Moore  is  entitled  to  the  seat  for  the  third 
district  of  Maine,  and  not  J.  S.  Dickinson  ;  and  from  the  second  district 
of  Massachusetts,  N.  J.  Lord,  and  not  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.  From  the 
first  district  of  Vermont,  Merritt  Clark  is  entitled  to  the  seat  in  the  con- 
vention. 

In  relation  to  South  Carolina,  the  committee  say  that  documents  were 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  817 

presented  to  them,  showing  the  proceedings  of  fifty  citizens  of  that  State, 
who  sent  hither  General  James  M.  Commander  as  a  delegate.  As  it 
did  not  appear  that  he  represented  any  district  of  the  State,  the  commit- 
tee decided  that  the  paper  was  not  such  a  document  as  entitled  General 
Commander  to  a  seat  in  the  convention. 

Mr.  James  W.  Nye,  of  New  York,  submitted  the  following,  as  a 
minority  report  from  the  same  committee,  in  reference  to  the  con- 
tested seat  in  the  Second  Congressional  District  of  Massachusetts, 
namely :  — 

It  appears  — 

1st,  That,  Xovember  20,  1851,  the  democratic  convention  for  said  district  met  at 
South  Danvcrs.  One  hundred  and  sixty  delegates,  representing  the  democracy  of 
the  different  towns,  were  present.  They  voted  by  ballot.  On  the  first  ballot,  E. 
Rantoul,  Jr.,  was  unanimously  chosen  delegate. 

This  fact  appears,  by  the  proceedings  of  said  convention,  attested  by  the  signa- 
tures of  W.  C.  Prescott,  president,  and  Charles  J.  Thorndike  and  James  M.  Sargent, 
secretaries,  which  document  is  admitted  to  be  genuine. 

2d.  The  above  convention  was  called  as  a  convention  of  the  democratic  party,  by 
the  democratic  district  committee,  appointed  unanimously,  October  8, 1850,  at  a  regu- 
lar convention  of  the  whole  party,  —  admitted  to  be  so  by  the  contesting  party,  in  his 
printed  statement. 

The  regularity  of  this  convention  is  admitted  in  the  following  extract  from  the 
statement  presented  by  Mr.  Lord  :  — 

"At  the  district  convention  in  October,  1850,  the  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  was 
nominated  as  the  candidate  of  the  democratic  party,  and  accepted  the  nomination. 
At  the  same  time,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  party  in  this  State,  a  district  com- 
mittee was  chosen,  whose  duty  it  was  to  call  all  future  conventions  of  the  party, 
whenever  such  conventions  should  become  necessary,  during  the  time  of  their  con- 
tinuance in  office." 

3d.  N.  J.  Lord  w^as  chosen  by  a  party  fii'st  organized  under  a  call,  in  May,  1851, 
to  those  democrats  "  opposed  to  the  election  of  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  to  congress,"  as 
appears  by  the  following  notice,  issued  at  that  time  for  the  organization  of  a  party  on 
special  principles :  — 

"Democratic  Convention,  —  The  democratic  electors  of  Congressional  District 
Number  Two,  who  are  in  fnxov  of  the  compromise  measures  of  the  late  congress,  and 
opposed  to  the  further  agitation  of  the  slavery  question,  and  who  are,  therefore,  op- 
jjosed  to  the  election  of  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  or  Charles  W.  Upham,  to  congress,  arc 
requested  to  send  delegates  to  a  convention  to  be  held  at  the  Town  Hall,  in  Salem, 
on  the  19th  instant,  at  10  1-2  o'clock,  A.  M.,  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  demo- 
cratic candidate. 

"  Each  town  is  requested  to  send  three  delegates  for  each  representative  said  town 
is  entitled  to  send  to  the  legislature." 

This  call  was  signed  by  several  gentlemen,  but  by  no  committee  previously  ap- 
pointed. 

4th.  Under  this  call,  a  meeting  assembled  on  the  19th  of  May,  and  organized  a 
new  party.     The  relative  numbers  of  the  old  democratic  party,  and  those  who  thus 

C9 


818  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITIKGS 

assumed  to  organize  a  new  party,  as  cast  at  the  next  preceding  election,  on  the  7th  of 
April,  1851,  in  the  election  for  congress  in  that  district,  was  as  follows,  omitting  the 
whig  party  vote  :  — 

E.  Rantoul,  Jr., 3,151 

N.  J.  Lord, 48 

B.  r.  Browne, 152 

Samuel  E.  Sewall,  (F.  S.) 1,775 

The  numher  of  democrats,  it  will  be  seen,  who  voted  for  Mr.  Rantoul,  was  3,151. 
The  number  of  democrats  who  voted  against  him  was  200. 

The  democratic  delegates  to  this  convention  from  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
whose  seats  are  not  disputed,  have  had  this  subject  under  consideration,  and  acted 
upon  it,  as  appears  from  the  following  record  of  their  proceedings  :  —  , 

"  At  a  meeting  of  the  delegation  from  Massachusetts,  it  was  voted  that  Messrs. 
AVliitney  and  Ackley  be  a  committee  to  ascertain  if  there  is  any  contested  seat  in  this 
delegation  ;  and  if  so,  to  confer  with  the  contestors,  and  propose  to  them  to  refer  the 
respective  claims  to  this  delegation,  to  report  thereon  to  the  committee  on  credentials, 
or  to  receive  any  other  proposition  for  adjusting  said  contest. 

Attest :  R.  Fkothixgiiam,  Jr.,  Secretary." 

"  The  undersigned  committee,  appointed  by  the  foregoing  vote,  respectfully  submit 
the  following  report,  to  wit :  The  right  to  a  seat  in  the  convention  of  the  Hon.  Robert 
Rantoul,  Jr.,  delegate  from  District  Number  Two,  will  be  contested  by  N.  J.  Lord, 
Esq.  As  a  committee,  we  waited  upon  each  of  the  claimants,  and  make  report  that 
we  could  suggest  no  arrangement  that  would  satisfy  both  parties.  If  we  understand 
the  question,  the  claim  of  Mr.  Lord  grows  out  of  the  alleged  private  opinions  of  Mr. 
Rantoul,  and  in  our  opinion,  cannot  affect  the  rights  of  the  democratic  party  in  Con- 
gressional District  Number  Two,  to  be  represented  by  the  delegate  of  their  own  choice 
at  the  Baltimore  Convention.  We  therefore  recommend  that  the  seat  in  District 
Number  Two  be  given  to  the  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr. 

James  S.  "VYiiitney, 


.     -r      A  ^  (  Committee. 

A.  L.  Ackley,  ) 

Baltimore,  June  1,  1852." 

The  undersigned  consider  these  facts  to  be  established  :  — 

1.  That  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  was  chosen  a  delegate  by  the  democratic  convention 
assembled  in  pursuance  of  the  regular  call  of  the  democratic  committee  of  the  dis- 
trict, in  accordance  Avith  the  uniform  usage  of  the  democratic  party  in  that  district. 

2.  That  N.  J.  Lord  was  chosen  by  a  body  of  democrats  irregularly  organized  upon 
special  and  personal  grounds. 

And  the  undersigned  submit  as  a  substitute,  that  the  following  resolution  be 
adopted  by  the  convention,  instead  of  the  proposition  recommended  by  a  majority  of 
the  committee :  — 

Resolved,  That  Robert  Rantotil,  Jr.,  be  admitted  to  a  seat  in  this  convention,  to 
represent  the  Second  Congressional  District  of  Massachusetts. 

Mr.  Nye  said:  The  minority  report,  which  has  just  been  read,  has 
been  submitted  with  an  honest  conviction  that  the  statements  it  contains 
will  be  found  entirely  truthful  when  tested  by  the  strictest  scrutiny.  I 
desire  that  it  shall  receive,  at  the  hands  of  the  convention,  that  calm  and 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  819 

deliberate  consideration  which  is  due  to  a  subject  fraught  with  so  much 
consequence.  In  my  opinion,  it  involves  no  more  nor  less  than  whether 
the  voice  of  three  thousand  democrats  of  Massachusetts  shall  be 
heard  through  the  organ  that  they  have  selected  to  speak  for  them  in 
this  assembly.  In  order  that  it  may  have  that  deliberation,  I  will  move 
to  postpone  the  consideration  of  that  portion  of  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee till  to-morrow  morning,  and  that  the  minority  report  be  printed. 

Mr.  C.  G.  Greene,  of  Massachusetts,  said  :  A  statement  is  made  in 
the  minority  report  which  is  not  correct.  It  is  stated  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts delegation  appointed  a  committee  of  two  to  investigate  the 
claims  of  these  two  gentlemen,  and  report  the  result  to  the  committee  on 
credentials.  No  such  resolution  was  ever  passed  by  the  Massachusetts 
delegation.  The}^  did  appoint  a  committee  of  two  to  wait  upon  the  con- 
testants, and  inquire  if  they  were  willing  to  submit  their  claims  to  the 
Massachusetts  delegation,  and  abide  by  the  decision  of  that  delegation. 
That  committee  was  understood  to  have  performed  its  duty,  and  reported 
that  one  of  the  "-entlemen  was  unwillino^  to  submit  his  claims  to  the  dele- 
gation,  and  there  the  matter  ended.  Before  the  motion  to  print  is  put,  I 
move  that  the  minority  report  be  corrected,  so  as  to  make  it  conform  to 
the  facts. 

Mr.  Nye.  The  only  evidence  I  had  in  drafting  that  report  was  the 
authority  conferred  upon  the  committee  by  the  Massachusetts  delegation, 
wdiich  is  in  these  words  :  — 

"  At  a  meeting  of  the  delegation  of  Massachusetts,  it  was  voted  that  Messrs.  "Whit- 
ney and  Ackley  be  a  committee  to  ascertain  if  there  is  any  contested  seat  in  the  dele- 
gation ;  and  if  so,  to  confer  Avith  the  contestors,  and  propose  to  them  to  refer  their 
respective  claims  to  tlie  delegation,  to  report  thereon  to  the  committee  on  credentials, 
or  ref-eive  any  other  proposition  for  adjusting  said  contest. 

Attest:  R.  YROTiin^GUAM,  Jv.,  Secretar)/," 

That  is  the  authority  upon  which  the  statement  in  the  minority  report 
is  based.  The  comm.ittee  themselves  gave  to  it  the  same  interpretation 
as  is  given  to  it  in  the  minority  report,  and  I  think  it  can  bear  no  other. 
I  hope  that  the  minority  report  will  stand  as  it  is  until  the  matter  comes 
up  for  discussion  ;  when,  if  it  be  not  truthful,  the  gentlemen  from  Mas- 
sachusetts will  correct  it,  and  the  convention  will  correct  it.  I  object  to 
its  being  mutilated  now. 

Mr.  Greene.  If  I  understand  the  language  of  the  minority  report, 
it  states  that  the  Massachusetts  delegation  have  conceded  that  the  seat 
belongs  to  Mr.  Rantoul. 

Mr.  Nye.     Oh,  no,  it  does  not  say  that. 

Mr.  Greene.'    We  claim  that  the  committee  appointed  by  us  mistook 


820  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

and  exceeded  their  duty  in  making  the  report  to  the  committee  on  cre- 
dentials, on  which  this  minority  report  is  based.  The  minority  report  is, 
therefore,  based  on  error,  and  I  hold  that  it  ought  to  fall. 

Mr.  AYiiiTNEY,  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  due  to  myself  and  the  dele- 
gation of  Massachusetts,  that  I  should  make  a  statement.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  this  second  district  of  Massachusetts  is  to  take  up  much  of  the 
time  of  the  convention,  but  I  am  attacked  here  on  a  point  of  veracity. 
I  drew  up  the  report  of  the  Massachusetts  committee  in  the  identical 
language  of  the  written  document  given  to  me  by  the  clerk  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts delegation ;  and  upon  the  strength  of  that  document  I  re- 
ported, in  precise  accordance  with  the  authority  given  to  us,  and 
upon  which  we  acted.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  committee  on  creden- 
tials are  abundantly  able  to  judge  whether  we  have  exceeded  our  au- 
thority, for  we  reported  to  them  not  only  the  result  of  our  action,  but 
the  original  action  of  the  Massachusetts  delegation  appointing  the  com- 
mittee. I  for  one,  and  I  doubt  not  the  whole  Massachusetts  delegation, 
will  defer  to  the  judgment  of  the  committee  on  credentials,  as  to  whether 
or  not  we  have  exceeded  our  authority.  I  therefore  unite  my  prayer 
with  the  gentleman  from  New  York,  (Mr.  Nye,)  that  the  report  of  the 
minority  may  not  be  mutilated,  but,  with  the  identical  document  as  it 
came  from  the  hands  of  the  clerk  of  the  delegation,  may  be  printed,  and 
then,  not  only  the  committee,  but  every  member  of  this  convention  can 
examine  and  judge  for  themselves  as  to  whether  the  Massachusetts 
committee  have  exceeded  their  authority. 

The  motion  to  postpone  was  then  put  and  agreed  to. 

Thursday^  June  3,  1852. 

The  Pkesidext  stated  the  question  to  be  upon  agreeing  to  the  reso- 
lution of  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee,  as  modified,  so  as  to  read  that 
the  convention  will  proceed  to  the  nomination  of  candidates  at  5  o'clock 
this  afternoon. 

General  Ward,  of  New  York,  moved  to  amend  the  resolution  so  as 
to  make  it  read  that  the  convention  will  now  proceed,  etc. 

The  amendment  Avas  agreed  to  amidst  general  applause. 

Mr.  Bradley,  of  Iowa,  here  suggested,  that  before  proceeding  to 
ballot  for  candidates,  the  convention  ought  to  decide  on  the  Massachu- 
setts contested  election  case. 

The  President  decided,  that  that  being  a  question  of  privilege,  it 
would  take  precedence  of  the  resolution  offered  by  Mr.  Cave  Johnson, 
and  stated  that  the  first  question  would  be  upon  the  amendment  pro- 
posed by  the  minority  of  the  committee  on  credentials  to  the  report  of  the 
majority. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,^JR.  821 

Mr.  Saunders,  of  North  Carolina.  They  do  not  offer  it  as  an 
amendment,  but  as  a  separate  resolution. 

The  President.  Then  the  first  question  will  be  on  concurring  in 
the  report  of  the  committee. 

Mr.  Saunders.     I  ask  for  the  previous  question. 

Mr.  Nye,  of  New  York.  I  hope  the  gentleman  will  not  do  that.  I 
w^ant  a  vote  upon  both  the  resolutions. 

Mr.  Saunders.  You  can  have  a  vote  on  the  minority  resolution,  if 
the  majority  report  is  not  concurred  in. 

Mr.  Nye.  I  appeal  to  the  magnanimity  of  the  gentleman  from 
North  Carolina,  not  to  insist  on  the  demand  for  the  previous  question. 

Mr.  Saunders.  I  want  no  unf[iir  advantage,  but  I  desire  to  see  this 
question  settled  one  way  or  the  other. 

Mr.  Nye.     So  do  I,  but  I  want  to  see  it  settled  rightly. 

Mr.  Rantoul  demanded  to  be  heard. 

The  previous  question  was  seconded,  and  the  main  question  was  or- 
dered to  be  now  put. 

Mr.  Nye.  There  is  a  mistake.  I  offered  that  resolution  as  an  amend-' 
ment  to  the  majority  report. 

The  President.     Debate  is  not  in  order. 

The  Ohio  Delegation  demanded  that  the  vote  on  concurring  in  the 
report  of  the  committee  on  credentials  be  taken  by  States.  The  roll 
was  accordingly  called,  with  the  following  result :  — 

Teas.  —  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Connecti- 
cut, New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Kentucky,  Tennes- 
see, Indiana,  Illinois,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Michigan,  Florida,  Texas,  and 
California — 194. 

Naya.  —  Maine,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois.  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin  —  83. 

So  the  report  of  the  committee  was  concurred  in.- 

The  announcement  of  this  result  was  received  with  vehement  and 
protracted  applause. 

Mr.  Nye,  of  New  York,  immediately  rose  and  said :  I  voted  with  the 
majority  to  sustain  the  report  of  the  committee,  and  I  now  move  to  re- 
consider the  vote  first  taken,  and  upon  that  I  desire  to  be  heard.  I 
make  that  motion  because  I  am  conscious  that  the  convention,  in  voting 
upon  that  important  resolution  in  the  hurried  manner  in  which  the  vote 
was  forced  upon  us,  could  not  have  understood  the  merits  upon  which 
this  question  rests.  Sir,  I  have  no  tenacity  for  the  man  who  claims  a 
seat  upon  the  floor  of  this  convention  from  the  second  district  of  Mas- 
sachusetts.    I  never  saw  him  until  yesterday,  and  it  is  not  tenacity  for 

69* 


822  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

the  man ;  but  I  thank  God  I  have  an  innate  love  of  justice  that  compels 
me  to  the  position  which  I  have  taken  upon  this  question.  Sir,  I  honor 
and  respect  every  constituency  that  has  sent  up  any  individual  to  this 
convention  ;  and  I  am  not  for  stepping  behind  their  doings  to  question  the 
political  standing  of  any  delegate.  I  will  not  impeach  the  high  charac- 
ter for  intelligence  and  integrity  of  any  constituency  within  the  limits  of 
this  vast  and  broad  domain.  No,  Sir  ;  the  edict  that  sends  any  gentle- 
man to  this  convention  is  to  me  as  imperative  and  as  obhgatory  as  the 
fiat  of  the  Creator  himself. 

I  had  the  honor,  yesterday,  to  submit  this  minority  report,  and  I  chal- 
lenge an  investigation  of  its  truth.  It  was  questioned  yesterday,  and  the 
facts  which  came  to  us  from  under  the  hand  of  the  Massachusetts  dele- 
gation itself  came  back  upon  them  like  a  whirlwind. 

Mr.  Greene,  of  Massachusetts.  Will  the  gentleman  give  way  for 
explanation  ? 

Mr.  Nye.  No,  Sir  ;  I  am  afraid  to  give  \vay.  I  appeal,  therefore,  to 
the  justice  and  magnanimity  of  this  convention  to  reconsider  the  vote  it 
has  just  pronounced.  I  had  the  honor  to  be  an  humble  member  of  the 
convention  which  passed  upon  these  credentials,  and  I  desire,  here  and 
everywhere,  to  bear  the  highest  testimony  to  the  good  feeling  that  existed 
among  the  gentlemen  w^ith  whom  I  was  associated.  They  acted  like 
men.  And  in  making  this  motion,  it  is  with  no  desire  or  design  to  im- 
peach, in  the  least  degree,  the  honest  intention  of  any  member  of  that 
convention.  But  the  facts  in  this  case  are  these,  and  upon  the  facts  I 
rely.  On  the  20th  day  of  November,  1851,  a  democratic  convention, — 
listen  to  the  words,  —  a  democratic  convention^  for  there  is  harmony  in 
that  sound  to  this  convention,  met  at  South  Danvers,  a  place  illustrious 
in  the  history  of  Massachusetts.  One  hundred  and  sixty  delegates  were 
there  present,  from  the  vales  and  mountains  of  that  district,  represent- 
ing the  voice,  as  it  stood,  of  the  assembled  district,  wherein  dwell  five 
thousand  as  pure  democrats  as  ever  breathed  God's  free  air.  That  voice 
is,  by  the  vote  which  has  just  been  taken,  hushed  into  silence.  Sir,  I 
am  afraid  of  its  consequences.  There  is  something  in  the  formation, 
the  creation,  and  existence  of  the  mind,  that  will  feel  indignant  at  op- 
pression, and  especially  in  a  democratic  convention.  I  know  that  the  free 
thinking  mind  of  Massachusetts  runs  with  rapid  strides  around  the 
region  where  this  applicant  resides,  and  where  he  who  opposes  him  re- 
sides. Mind  runs  with  the  force  and  power  of  electricity.  Men  will 
think.  They  will  act  in  Massachusetts.  Though  she  may  be  a  State  in 
a  minority,  yet  I  trust  this  convention  will  not  stand  by  and  see  injustice 
done  to  a  single  democrat  from  California  to  Maine.  Sir,  I  am  proud  to 
declare  to  this  convention  that  Mr.  Rantoul  stands  before  us,  —  I  will 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  823 

say  without  any  sacrilege,  —  with  the  seal  of  apostolic  descent  upon  him. 
He  is  sent  here  by  an  organization  as  old  as  the  party,  and  that  is  hon- 
orable for  its  antiquity,  and  honorable  for  its  truthfulness. 

In  obedience  to  that  voice,  he  has  come  from  the  heavy  surges  of  the 
Atlantic  waves,  from  old  Cape  Ann,  to  Baltimore,  to  mingle  in  the  doings 
of  this  convention.  I  have  heard  much,  in  democratic  conventions,  of 
the  great  power  of  the  principle  of  regularity.  It  is  the  anchorage  of 
democracy.  When  you  pass  by  it  to  gratify  the  whim  of  any  man  or 
set  of  men,  you  set  afloat  the  great  principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  the 
democracy,  which  makes  it  honorable  and  powerful  in  its  results. 

Sir,  I  appeal  to  the  magnanimity  of  this  convention,  to  examine  well 
this  case,  and  not  step  behind  the  credentials,  for  I  deny  the  right  of  this 
convention,  when  the  credentials  are  pronounced  regular,  to  say  who 
shall  or  shall  not  represent  the  district,  save  the  person  who  comes 
stamped  with  regularity.  The  fact  of  regularity  in  this  case  is  not  ques- 
tioned. I  appeal  to  every  gentleman  with  whom  I  had  the  honor  to  act 
upon  that  committee,  to  say  if  the  question  of  regularity  was  brought 
up  ?  It  follows,  then,  from  this  evidence,  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  is 
the  delegate  who  is  entitled  to  a  seat  in  the  convention  from  that 
district. 

Does  this  convention  need  anymore  evidence?  If  so,  I  refer  with 
pride  to  the  action  of  the  jNIassachusetts  delegation  itself.  The  commit- 
tee to  which  this  case  was  referred,  reported  that,  in  their  opinion,  Rob- 
ert Rantoul,  Jr.,  was  entitled  to  a  seat  in  this  body.  Why  does  not 
Massachusetts  abide  by  her  ai'bitration?  She  has  selected  her  own 
judges,  and  confided  the  matter  to  them  ;  and  out  of  their  mouths  I  but 
echo  the  sound  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  is  entitled  to  a  seat  in  this  con- 
vention. Mr.  President,  that  is  not  all.  The  gentleman  who  contests 
the  seat  of  Mr.  Rantoul,  has  tried  his  hand  at  home,  in  his  district,  with 
Mr.  Rantoul.  In  April,  1851,  the  voice  of  that  district  was  heard,  and  it 
gave  forth  this  language  :  For  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  o,151 ;  while  N.  J. 
Lord,  his  contestant,  who  ran  for  congress  against  him,  received  the 
enormous  vote  of  48  !  Sir,  I  can  but  echo  the  voice  of  the  district. 
My  voice  is  that  of  3,151  freemen,  shouting  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  is 
their  choice.  Will  this  convention,  I  ask,  when  he  comes  sealed  with 
the  seal  of  regularity,  when  he  comes  backed  by  that  potent  majority, 
dare  to  say  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  shall  be  offered  up  here,  a  martyr? 
I  care  not  for  him  ;  but  the  voices  of  3,151  freemen  ring  in  my  ears,  and 
it  is  their  voice  that  I  echo.  The  voice  that  sent  N.  J.  Lord  here,  came 
forth  in  this  way :  A  convention  was  called  of  all  who  were  opposed  to 
the  election  of  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  to  congress.  That  call  was  as  broad 
as  a  scoop  net,  and  about  as  easily  run  through  as  the  meshes  of  a  stur- 


824  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES,  AND  WRITINGS 

geon  net.  It  was  called  of  all  persons,  black  and  white,  ring-streaked 
and  gray,  who  were  opposed  to  the  election  of  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.  Out 
of  that  call  came  the  committee  that  called  the  convention  that  sent  N. 
J.  Lord  here.  Sir,  I  love  regularity.  It  was  born  with  democracy ; 
and  when  it  dies,  democracy  will  die  too  ;  for  democracy  is  truth,  and 
truth  is  always  regular.  I  appeal,  then,  to  gentlemen  whose  regularity 
binds  them  to  stand  by  this  motion  to  reconsider.  What  is  lost  by  it  ? 
Nothing.  What  is  gained  by  it?  The  omnipotent  voice  of  more  than 
.three  thousand  democrats.  I  have  now  stated  the  principal  facts  upon 
which  I  have  based  this  minority  report.  Sir,  who  is  the  man  that  this 
convention  is  about  to  ostracize  ?  Is  it  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  whose 
eloquent  tongue  has  aroused  the  sleeping  energies  of  Massachusetts 
democracy  ?  Is  it  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  who,  in  that  awfully-trying 
canvass  of  1844,  electrified  New  England  by  his  eloquent  appeals  for  a 
son  of  the  South  ?  Is  it  that  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  whose  learning,  elo- 
quence, and  principles,  have  bound  him  to  the  bosoms  of  3,151  demo- 
crats in  his  district  ?  I  appeal  to  gentlemen  not  to  silence  that  eloquent 
tongue  in  this  canvass.  Silence  it  not.  He  comes  here  clothed  with  as 
much  authority  as  any  gentleman  upon  this  floor.  One  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts delegation  (Mr.  Davis)  who  has  signed  this  report,  says  that 
unless  Mr.  Rantoul  is  here  regularly,  he  (Davis)  is  not.  They  may 
talk  about  a  coalition  that  was  formed  in  Massachusetts,  but  Robert 
Rantoul,  Jr.,  was  not  its  founder.  Show  me  a  democrat  in  Massachu- 
setts that  has  not  been  in  that  coalition!  Why,  Sir,  you  would  have  to 
take  Governor  Boutwell  out  of  his  chair.  You  would  have  to  take  the 
democratic  judges  out  of  their  places.  Ah,  Sir,  Massachusetts  has 
shown  the  resurrection  and  power  of  democracy.  She  has  shaven  off 
her  old  yoke  of  federalism.  She  stands  forth  clothed  in  the  full  beauty 
of  progressive  democracy.  But,  Sir,  I  have  detained  the  convention 
too  long.  The  earnestness  of  the  appeal  I  have  made  is  occasioned  by 
the  conviction  that  the  cause  I  advocate  is  right. 

The  Hon.  Cave  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  moved  to  lay  the  motion  to 
reconsider  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Rantoul  again  and  repeatedly  demanded  to  be  heard. 

The  President  put  the  question  to  the  convention,  and  declared  that 
it  was  carried  in  the  affirmative,  and  that  the  motion  to  reconsider  was 
laid  upon  the  table. 

The  Ohio  delegation  demanded  that  the  vote  be  taken  by  States  ;  but 

The  President  decided  that  the  demand  came  too  late. 

Mr.  Rantoul  handed  to  the  reporter  the  following  sketch  of  the  re- 
marks which  he  desired  to  have  made,  when  the  convention  cut  off  all 
debate  by  adopting  the  previous  question. 


OF   ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  825 

Mr.  President,  in  the  name  of  the  five  thousand  democratic  voters  of 
my  district,  and  the  forty-five  thousand  in  Massachusetts,  I  demand  to  be 
heard,  before  the  outrage  proposed  by  the  committee  on  credentials  is 
consummated. 

I  stand  here  unanimously  elected  by  ballot,  and  on  the  first  ballot,  at 
an  unusually  full  convention  of  delegates  from  the  towns  in  my  district, 
■which  is  the  only  democratic  district  in  Massachusetts,  which  conven- 
tion was  called  together  according  to  the  uniform  usage  of  the  democ- 
racy of  the  State,  by  a  committee  unanimously  chosen  in  October,  1850, 
at  a  convention,  regular,  full,  and  undisputed,  and  tracing  its  title  back 
by  the  unbroken,  apostolical,  and  orthodox  succession  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  our  democratic  party  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

On  this  state  of  facts,  the  only  question  that  can  arise  is,  are  the  demo- 
crats of  Massachusetts  competent  to  select  their  own  representatives  in 
a  national  council  of  the  party,  or  does  this  convention  think  it  just  and 
wise  to  take  them  under  guardianship,  and  appoint,  to  represent  them,  a 
man  whose  ideas  are  all  abhorrent  to  theirs,  and  who  w^ould  be  repudi- 
ated by  them  wdth  as  entire  unanimity  as  I  have  been  elected  ?  The 
person  who  desires  impudently  to  thrust  himself  into  my  seat,  in  defi- 
ance of  this  whole  democratic  party  of  the  district,  was  sent  here  by 
some  twenty-five  or  thirty  persons,  collected  at  a  tavern  in  Salem,  who 
had  previously  abandoned  the  democratic  party  by  voting  against  its 
regular  nominations,  —  several  of  them  in  repeated  instances,  and  for  a 
variety  of  offices.  I  offered,  before  your  committee,  to  prove  that  at 
that  meeting  were  whigs,  who  had  voted  the  whig  ticket  for  several 
years ;  free  sellers,  who  had  voted  the  free  soil  ticket  for  several  years ; 
persons  calling  themselves  democrats,  who  generally  voted  some  other 
ticket  than  the  regular  democratic  ticket ;  persons  hired  to  attend,  and 
paid  in  money  for  their  services,  —  one  or  more  of  each  of  the  foregoing 
classes  ;  that  the  expenses  of  the  organization  of  that  new  party  w^ere 
defrayed  by  the  whig  party  of  the  district ;  and  that  the  persons  so  got 
together  were  much  divided  in  their  choice  of  a  delegate.  Your  com- 
mittee decided  that  all  these  facts  were  irrelevant  to  the  issue,  and  re- 
fused to  hear  the  testimony. 

It  is  impossible  to  argue  a  case  which  is  already  as  plain  as  argument 
can  make  it.  I  represent  the  whole  democratic  party  of  the  only  demo- 
cratic district  in  my  State.  Do  you  wish  to  outrage  them,  and  with 
them  several  hundred  thousand  democrats  of  the  North,  who  think  and 
feel  as  they  do  upon  the  question  which  gentlemen  all  around  me  avow 
in  conversation  to  be  the  only  ground  of  this  extraordinary  proceeding  ? 
If  you  wish  to  exclude  from  the  democratic  party  all  those  who  think  in 
common  with  my  constituents  on  the  fugitive  law,  do  you  know  certainly 


826  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

whether  there  is  any  one  State  in  the  North  in  which  such  an  exclusion 
would  not  leave  the  democratic  party  in  a  minority  ?  If  disapprobation 
of  the  compromises  is  the  reason  of  disfranchising  a  district  in  Massa- 
chusetts, while  the  same  committee,  by  the  same  chairman,  reports  that 
those  who  disapprove  the  compromises  in  Georgia  are  the  true  demo- 
cratic party  in  that  State,  will  the  convention  put  their  principles  of  ac- 
tion on  the  record,  that  south  of  a  certain  line  men  may  think  as  they 
please,  but  that  north  of  that  line  the  two  thirds  of  the  white  inhabitants 
of  the  United  States  shall  think  as  the  one  third  south  of  that  line  shall 
dictate  to  them  ? 

To  assign  one  cause  for  an  action,  when,  in  fact,  you  are  influenced 
by  another  which  is  totally  different,  is  mere  duplicity  and  cowardice. 
Nobody  but  an  idiot  will  pretend  that  there  is  any  question  of  organiza- 
tion in  this  case.  Avow,  then,  and  place  on  the  record  when  you  act, 
the  true  motives  of  your  action.  I  cannot  look  upon  this  attempt  except 
as  another  experiment  to  measure  the  extent  of  northern  servility;  to 
see  how  far  the  North  will  cower  before  an  insolent  demand  to  make 
independence  of  opinion,  on  questions  upon  which  we  always  differed,  a 
ground  of  proscription.  Unless 'New  England  believes  George  Cabot, 
author  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  of  1793,  and  president  of  the  Hartford 
Convention,  to  be  a  democrat,  and  Matthew  Lyon,  of  Vermont,  and 
Joseph  Bradley  Varnum,  of  Massachusetts,  who  denounced  that  bill  to 
be  federalists,  the  report  of  your  committee  impugns  his  political  ortho- 
doxy. I  ask  of  the  convention,  first,  to  do  what  every  man  who  hears 
me  knows  to  be  just  in  this  case  ;  next,  if  you  determine  to  do  a  great 
wrong,  do  it  not  like  cowards,  but  like  men.  Avow  your  act,  and  place 
your  reasons  for  it  on  the  record,  and  let  the  world  know  the  ground  on 
which  you  mean  to  stand. 

Such  were  the  proceedings  of  the  Baltimore  Convention, 
branding  their  authors  with  a  burning  and  ineffaceable  shame, 
and  attaching  to  the  democratic  party,  because  associated  with 
the  nomination  of  its  highest  candidates,  the  standing  reproach 
of  subserviency  to  slavery  fanatics.  This  ostracism  of  Mr. 
Rantoul,  who  stood  in  the  very  front  rank  of  the  great  men  of 
the  American  democracy,  and  compared  with  whom,  his  tra- 
ducers  and  enemies  in  the  convention,  were,  for  any  high  service 
they  had  rendered,  or  were  capable  of  rendering  the  country 
entirely  unknown,  and,  in  their  own  States,  if  not  destitute  of 
influence,  neither  deserving,  nor  possessing,  the  confidence  of 
the  people, —  his  ostracism  by  such  men,  or  any  men,  calling 


OF   ROBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  827 

themselves  democrats,  doubtless  took  him  by  surprise,  as  well 
as  aroused  his  indignation,  and  that  most  of  all,  for  their  not 
allowing  him  to  speak  a  word  in  explanation  of  his  position,  or 
in  vindication  of  the  right  of  his  constituents  to  his  services  as 
a  member. 

And  what  \^fas  his  course  after  this  affair  ?  What  but  the 
exercise  of  a  noble  forbearance,  a  generous  magnanimity  ?  In- 
stead of  remaining  in  Baltimore  to  encourage  discord  in  the 
convention,  or  to  organize  opposition  to  its  action  in  reference 
to  the  great  objects  for  which  it  was  called,  Mr.  Rantoul  re- 
paired immediately  to  Washington,  and  resumed  his  arduous 
labors  as  representative.  His  heart  and  soul,  and  indefatigable 
efforts  were  devoted  to  the  service  of  his  constituents  and  his 
country.  The  tariff  and  the  fisheries  were  subjects  upon  which 
he  intended  to  speak,  and  on  which  he  had  perfected  all  the 
details  of  preparation,  before  his  last  illness.  Soon  after  his 
return  to  AVashington,  however,  he  felt  it  due  to  himself  and 
to  humanity,  that  the  country  should  understand  that  no  pro- 
ceedings of  conventions  could  prevent  him  doing  his  own  think- 
ing, or  uttering  his  free  thoughts.  On  June  11,  he  delivered 
his  admirable  speech  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  fugitive 
slave  law.  Private  business  afterwards  called  him  to  Illinois, 
whither  his  lady  accompanied  him,  and  on  his  return  to  Wash- 
ington he  stopped  two  or  three  days  in  Beverly,  most  unexpect- 
edly to  his  friends,  and  without  any  previous  intention  of  so 
doing  on  his  own  part.  News  of  his  unlooked  for  arrival  flew 
with  the  rapidity  of  thought  through  District  No.  Two,  when  he 
was  besieged  with  requests  to  meet  his  constituents  somewhere 
on  the  5th,  (the  4th  of  Jaly  being  Sunday).  Exhausted  by 
the  fatigue  of  his  long  journey,  and  his  time  at  home  com- 
pletely occupied,  he,  however,  consented  to  meet  his  constitu- 
ents in  Salem,  on  the  5th.  Of  his  reception  there,  the  follow- 
ing is  from  the  "  Bay  State,"  of  July  8,  1852. 

In  answer  to  the  call  of  the  re^^alarly  constituted  democratic  district 
committee,  the  democrats  of  the  second  district  assembled  in  Mechanic 
Hall,  Salem,  on  Monday,  the  5th  inst.,  "  to  confer  Avith  each  other  upon 
the  present  aspect  of  political  affairs,  and  especially  those  of  the  second 
district,"  and  with  the  understanding  that  the  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr., 


828  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

representative   to  congress   from  tlie  district,  would   be   present  and 
address  the  meeting. 

The  notice  of  the  meeting  had  been  short,  and  many  of  the  neighbor- 
ing cities  and  towns  had  made  arrangements  to  celebrate  the  '  glorious 
fourth'  on  the  same  day;  yet  such  was  the  desire  to  see  and  hear  Mr. 
Rantoul,  that  before  the  appointed  time,  three  o'clock,  P.M.,  the  people 
came  into  Salem  as  the  waves  come  when  the  sea  rushes  to  the  shore  on 
a  full  tide  and  a  strong  breeze. 

As  Mr.  Rantoul  left  his  home  in  Beverly  and  approached  the  hall 
in  Salem,  the  booming  of  cannon  announced  his  coming.  One  hundred 
guns,  with  their  deep-toned  notes,  echoed  on  the  sea  and  the  land,  in 
honor  of  the  man  who  had  been  true  to  his  constituents  in  congress, 
and  true  to  his  party  and  to  truth  as  their  delegate  to  the  national  con- 
vention. 

Mechanic  Hall  is  the  largest  public  building  in  the  county,  holding 
two  thousand  people  or  more.  On  this  occasion  it  was  crowded  with  as 
enthusiastic  an  assemblage  as  the  eye  of  man  ever  rested  upon. 

On  taking  the  chair,  the  president  addressed  the  meeting  in  some 
brief  and  pertinent  remarks.  A  committee  having  been  appointed  for 
that  purpose, — Mr.  Eantoul  being  present  in  the  ante-room,  —  conducted 
that  gentleman  to  the  hall.  On  entering  it,  he  was  greeted  with  cheers 
upon  cheers  by  the  vast  assembly  ;  hats  and  handkerchiefs  waved,  and 
huzzas  upon  huzzas  rung  out,  deep,  loud,  and  long,  in  a  manner  which 
was  never  beat  on  any  occasion.  Mr.  Rantoul  had  reason  to  be,  and 
undoubtedly  was,  as  gratified  with  his  reception  as  his  constituents  were 
proud  of  him,  and  sincere  and  hearty  in  their  welcome.  It  was  no  half- 
way business.  There  was  a  fresh,  hearty  outbursting,  from  honest 
hearts,  of  love  and  admiration  for  one  having  a  heart  large  enough  for 
humanity,  and  a  head  clear  enough  and  great  enough  to  establish  a 
reputation  as  one  of  the  first  of  American  statesmen. 

When  order  was  restored,  George  P.  Burnham,  Esq.  of  Melrose, 
rose  and  offered  the  following  resolutions,  which  were,  at  the  close  of  the 
meeting,  adopted:  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  democracy  of  the  Second  Congressional  District 
of  Massachusetts  hail  with  the  highest  satisfaction  the  nominations  of 
the  late  convention  at  Baltimore,  and  we  pledge  ourselves  to  give  to 
Franklin  Pierce  and  William  R.  King,  the  democratic  nominees,  our 
warmest,  our  heartiest,  and  our  undivided  support  at  the  election  in 
November  next. 

'^Resolved,  That  the  occasion  which  now  calls  us  together  is  one 
of  peculiar  pleasure,  inasmuch  as  the  opportunity  is  thus  afforded  us  to 
exchange  congratulations  with  one  of   the  most  favored  and  honored 


OF  ROBERT   RANTOUL,  JR.  829 

sons  of  New  England,  —  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  —  the  tried  and  faithful 
supporter  of  democratic  principles,  and  the  able  congressional  represent- 
ative from  this  district. 

^^  Resolved,  That  as  democrats,  educated  in  the  true  faith,  we  know 
no  authority  in  our  political  creed  beyond  that  which  is  conferred  by  the 
people  themselves  ;  and  in  our  political  organization,  we  recognize  but 
one  course  of  conduct  in  reference  to  our  candidates,  to  wit  —  the  uniform 
support  of  all  regular  nominations. 

^^  Resolved,  That  inasmuch  as  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  of  Beverly,  was 
the  delegate  of  the  democratic  party  in  the  second  district  of  Massa- 
chusetts, to  the  Baltimore  Convention  of  1852,  nominated  by  the  whole 
party,  in  due  form,  and  through  the  regular  constituted  authority,  and 
was  duly  elected  to  represent  said  party  and  said  district  —  in  that  body 
—  therefore  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  action  of  said  convention  in  rejecting  the  right- 
fully chosen  delegate  from  the  second  district,  (and  also  his  substitute, 
Hon.  George  N.  Dike,  of  Stoneham,)  was  a  gross  violation  of  one  of  the  fun- 
damental principles  upon  which  our  party  is  based.  And,  while  we  as- 
sert that  this  act  of  the  convention  is  without  parallel,  defence,  or  pre- 
cedent, we  are  compelled  to  denounce  it  as  impolitic  and  ungenerous, 
and  deserving  of  the  severest  censure  of  every  democrat  throughout  the 
land. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  in  times  past  we  have  supported  no  man  for  pub- 
lic office  who  has  not  been  regularly  nominated  by  recognized  authority, 
and  who  has  thus  been  presented  properly  for  our  suffrages,  —  so,  as  de- 
mocrats, we  will  hereafter  support  no  man  in  this  district  other  than  the 
nominee  of  the  regularly  organized  democratic  party  thereof. 

"  Resolved,  That  our  confidence  in  the  integrity  and  thorough  demo- 
cracy of  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.  is  firm  and  unimpaired.  That  we 
are  proud  to  greet  him  on  this  occasion,  and  embrace  this  opportunity 
to  express  our  hearty  and  unqualified  approval  and  indorsement  of  his 
public  career,  —  and  especially  his  course  in  the  congress  of  the  United 
States,  during  the  present  session.  And,  while  we  thank  him  for  his 
zeal  and  devotedness  to  our  cause,  we  cordially  bear  witness  to  the 
ability  and  ardor  which  has  characterized  his  acts  in  furtherance  of  de- 
mocratic truth  and  equal  rights  upon  the  floor  of  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  States." 

After  the  reading  of  the  resolutions,  Mr.  Rantoul  took  the  stand. 
Again  did  the  enthusiasm  of  the  immense  audience  break  out  in  a  storm 
of  cheers.  He  commenced  and  continued  for  about  one  hour  and  a 
half  in  a  speech  of  great  eloquence  and  power. 

70 


830  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

At  namerous  county  and  district  conventions,  and  town 
meetings,  where  the  nominations  of  the  Baltimore  Convention 
were  ratified  with  enthusiasm,  addresses  were  made  and  reso- 
lutions passed,  w^hich  rebuked,  with  deserved  indignation  and 
contempt,  the  action  of  that  convention  in  relation  to  Mr. 
Rantoul.  The  democracy  of  Massachusetts  deemed  themselves 
insulted,  in  his  person,  when  his  demand  to  be  heard,  and 
when  by  every  rule  of  justice,  as  well  as  parliamentary  usage, 
he  had  the  clearest  right  to  be  heard,  in  vindication  of  his 
claim  to  a  seat  in  the  convention,  —  was  met  by  the  denial  of 
that  right.  It  was  deeply  felt  at  the  North,  deeply  felt  every- 
where, that  a  more  just  demand  w^as  never  made,  than  that 
of  Mr.  Rantoul,  for  a  hearing,  before  the  convention  decided 
against  him.  The  insolent  arrogance  of  injustice,  "  clothed 
with  a  little  brief  authority,"  was  never  carried  further,  than 
by  the  men,  who,  in  the  bitterness  of  their  malice,  had  for 
months  been  plotting  against  him,  and  now  consummated  their 
crime  against  liberty,  by  refusing  a  request,  which  no  court  of 
justice  in  a  civilized  country  can  deny  to  the  greatest  male- 
factor,—  namely,  to  be  heard  in  his  own  defence.  It  is  for  this 
that  the  proceedings  of  the  Baltimore  Convention  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Rantoul  will  always  be  remembered  only  to  be  execrated. 
Neither  the  design  of  this  work  nor  the  space  in  it  admits  the 
numerous  addresses  and  resolutions  so  strongly  expressive  of 
the  indignant  sentiments  of  freemen,  which  those  proceedings 
called  forth,  should  be  transferred  to  these  pages.  The  style 
of  them  is  sufficiently  illustrated  by  the  following  resolutions. 
The  democrats  of  Worcester  assembled  in  large  numbers  at 
the  City  Hall,  on  Wednesday  evening,  June  16,  1852,  and  — 

"  Resolved^  That  the  rejection,  by  the  national  convention,  of 
Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  (the  regularly  elected  delegate  of  the 
four  thousand  democrats  of  the  second  district  in  this  Com- 
monwealth,) was  an  act  in  violation  of  a  fundamental  rule  of 
party  organization.  Yet  as  we  believe  that  the  convention 
decided  the  case  under  a  misapprehension  of  the  facts;  and 
furthermore,  that  it  is  eminently  a  matter  for  the  party  at  home 
to  settle  among  themselves,  that  distinguished  democrat  may 
commit  his  claims  to  the  continued  confidence  and  regard  of 


OF   ROBERT    RANTOUL,   JR.  831 

the  democracy  of  Massachusetts,  to  that  sober  judgment  of 
the  people  that  will  sustain  the  right  while  it  condemns  the 
wrong." 

The  democrats  of  Norfolk  county,  at  their  mass  ratification 
meeting  at  Quincy,  with  similar  spirit  — 

"  Resolved^  That  we,  in  common  with  the  democracy  of 
Massachusetts,  adhere  to  that  foundation  of  our  principles,  that 
all  power  emanates  from,  and  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people  ; 
and  we  recognize  the  right  of  no  national  convention  to  decide 
whom  the  democrats  of  any  district  shall  elect  to  represent 
them  in  convention,  or  in  congress  ;  and  that  honor  and  praise 
belong  to  those  delegates  from  this  State  who  nobly  stood  by 
the  democracy  of  the  second  district,  and  supported  the  claims 
of  their  regularly  elected  and  distinguished  delegate  to  his  seat 
in  the  national  democratic  convention." 

Indeed,  there  was  but  one  sentiment  on  this  subject  known 
to  the  intelligent  and  the  free  throughout  the  country,  whether 
north  or  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line. 


SPEECH  AT  THE  DEMOCRATIC  DISTRICT  COIYEXTIO:^^ 

HELD  AT  SALEM,  JULY  5,  1852. 

Mrt.  President,  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen  :  —  It  is  with  great  pleas- 
ure that  I  have  this  opportunity  of  meeting  once  more  so  many  old  and 
tried  democratic  friends,  who  have  stood  by  me  so  long,  and  who,  from 
what  I  have  heard  since  I  entered  this  hall,  I  believe  will  do  me  the  justice 
to  say  that  I  have  always  stood  by  them.  No  newly  manufactured  demo- 
crats, boasting  of  newlyfangled  dogmas  with  which  they  seek  to  supplant 
the  ancient  faith  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  of  the  rights  of 
Massachusetts,  and  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  no  bringers- 
in  of  damnable  heresies  into  the  pure  church  of  the  gospel  of  freedom, 
do  I  see  before  me  ;  but  wherever  I  turn  my  eyes  I  behold  men  proved 
and  tried  in  adverse  as  in  prosperous  fortunes,  veteran  followers  of 
Elbridge  Gerry  and  of  Samuel  Adams,  of  Jefferson,  and  Madison,  and 
Jackson,  unterriiied  when  adversity  frowned  darkest,  invincible  and  in- 
corruptible by  the  seductions  of  success  and  power.  Everywhere  in  this 
throng,  almost  too  vast  for  the  ample  dimensions  of  this  noble  structure, 


832  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

do  I  recognize  the  well  known  countenances  of  the  men,  and  the  sons  of 
the  men,  (for  I  can  now  remember  a  great  way  back,)  whom  I  met  here 
in  this  city,  in  March,  1834,  when  the  high-toned  maxims  of  the  British 
monarchy  were  proclaimed  as  the  oracles  of  American  statesmen,  when 
aristocracy  and  federalism  gathered  all  their  forces,  when  gloom  brooded 
over  the  democratic  party,  and  the  tempest  burst  upon  us.  I  remember 
well  those  times.  When  that  squall  struck  the  ship  of  State,  the  fair- 
weather  sailors,  the  fresh-water  navigators,  did  not  keep  their  stand  upon 
the  deck.  They  had  not  got  their  sea-legs  on.  It  was  for  us  then,  my 
friends,  to  breast  the  storm.  We  looked  the  wind  in  the  eye.  We  en- 
countered with  unblanched  cheek  that  terrible  crisis,  and  swerved  not 
for  a  moment  from  any  point  of  duty.  It  is  not  for  the  land-lubbers  who 
skulked  below  till  the  hour  of  danger  was  over,  to  undertake  to  give  us 
lessons  of  practical  seamanship. 

There  is  nothing  so  Vvdiolesome,  there  is  nothing  so  favorable  to  a 
healthful  development  of  our  free  democratic  institutions  as  an  occasional 
recurrence  to  the  fundamental  principles  on  which  those  institutions  are 
based.  This  day  and  this  place  are  peculiarly  fitted  for  such  recurrence. 
The  anniversary  which  calls  together  this  day  the  millions  of  our  fellow- 
countrymen,  naturally  suggests  the  consideration  of  those  principles,  and 
of  the  history  of  their  establishment,  nowhere  more  appropriate,  more 
gratifying,  more  instructive,  than  within  the  limits  of  this  Commonwealth. 
For,  let  me  say,  it  is  the  State  of  Massachusetts  to  which  freedom,  a 
generous,  a  broad  idea  of  freedom,  first  took  root  upon  this  continent. 
Why,  my  friends,  in  the  year  1620,  when  the  Pilgrims  had  reached  our 
shores,  not  when  they  had  first  landed,  but  before  they  first  landed,  on 
the  11th  of  November,  what  was  their  first  act?  It  was  to  combine 
themselves  into  a  civil  body  politic,  and  they  drew  up  a  social  compact 
which  was  the  first  true  social  compact  since  the  world  was  made. 

It  was  the  fathers  of  Plymouth  colony,  the  oldest  portion  of  Massa- 
chusetts, who,  on  that  day,  before  tiiey  first  landed  in  1G20,  laid  the  foun- 
dations deep  and  strong  upon  which  we  have  built.  Let  us  trust  in  God 
that  we  build  not  stubble,  but  true  and  solid  stone.  How  was  it  in 
Salem  ?  Here  our  fathers  began  before  they  crossed  to  this  side  of  the 
ocean.  The  men  who  founded  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  by  the 
settlement  of  Salem,  Saltonstall  and  others,  refused  to  come  here  until 
the  charter  had  been  transferred  wholly  to  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  In 
August,  1629,  they  declared  that  all  the  powers  of  an  active  government 
should  be  transferred  to  this  side  of  the  ocean  before  they  went  on  ship- 
board;  and  they  went  on  to  exercise  powers  in  1634,  which,  to  use  the 
words  of  Chalmers,  could  only  be  justified  by  "  those  principles  of  inde- 
pendence which  sprang  up  among  them,  and  have  at  all  times  governed 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  833 

tlieir  actions."  He  charges  it  upon  them  that  they  came  here  intending 
to  establish  the  principles  of  free  government  in  Massachusetts  Bay ; 
and  I  doubt  not  they  did  so  intend.  We,  then,  stand  on  holy  ground. 
Their  early  acts  our  fathers  did  not  afterwards  belie.  In  1638,  they 
refused  to  return  the  patent  to  England,  disobeying  the  peremptory 
mandate  of  the  court.  But  some  "  bad  minds  —  yea,  and  some  weak 
ones,"  said  they,  "  would  think  it  lawful,  if  not  necessary,  to  accept  a 
general  governorr  These  were  the  beginnings  of  independence  and 
liberty  in  Massachusetts. 

The  world  is  by  this  time  aware  what  beneficial  genius  inspires  Amer- 
ican progress,  and  what  miracles  she  has  wrought  already,  and  what  she 
promises  to  achieve  hereafter,  transforming  altogether  the  apparent 
destiny  of  the  human  race.  A  hundred  years  before  the  event  which 
we  celebrate,  it  seemed  that  the  toiling  millions  of  men  were  doomed 
forever  to  bear  the  burden  of  hereditary  masters,  and  that  tyrants  were 
born  booted  and  spurred  to  ride  them  "  by  the  grace  of  God."  Now,  no 
sane  man  believes  in  any  other  "•  finality  "  than  the  universal  emancipa- 
tion of  every  soul  from  the  dominion  of  another.  The  question  is  no 
longer,  will  it  come,  but  only  how  will  it  come  ;  how  with  the  least  delay, 
the  least  suffering,  the  least  bloodshed,  and  the  greatest  good  to  all.  It 
is  the  leaven  of  American  doctrine  and  example,  fermenting  in  the  heart 
of  the  old  world,  that  has  brought  about  this  change. 

At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  less  than  one  third  of  a  mil- 
lion of  humble  colonists  lined  our  Atlantic  seaboard.  Seventy-six  years 
later,  their  descendants,  still  less  than  three  millions  in  number,  declared 
themselves  an  independent  nation.  Now,  after  an  equal  lapse  of  time, 
twenty-five  millions  inherit  the  fruit  of  the  great  deeds  of  the  founders 
of  our  nation,  a  population  more  numerous  than  that  of  the  island  of 
Great  Britain  ;  more  intelligent,  and  possessing  more  of  the  means  of 
comfort  and  enjoyment  than  any  equal  population  on  the  globe.  Look 
forward  for  another  period  of  seventy-six  years,  and  they  will  have  mul- 
tiplied to  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  souls,  and  will  display  more 
wealth  and  power  on  land  and  on  the  sea,  and  will  exert  a  greater  influ- 
ence on  the  world,  than  Great  Britain  and  France  combined.  It  is  this 
spectacle  of  growing  greatness  to  which  all  eyes  are  turned,  and  towards 
which,  should  our  virtue  be  as  rare  as  oar  felicity,  all  hearts  will  be 
attracted. 

I  have  intimated  to  you  how  independence  and  liberty  originated  in 
Massachusetts.  And  the  Union,  where  did  that  begin?  In  1G43,  a 
union  was  formed  between  this  and  the  neighboring  colonies.  In  1775, 
the  colonists  met  through  their  delegates  to  carry  on  resistance  to  Great 
Britain.     Chalmers,  writing  soon  after  that  time,  says  that  this  Union  of 

70* 


834  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

1775  was  but  the  duplicate  of  1643,  and  that  "both  originated  from 
Massachusetts,  forever  fruitful  in  projects  for  independence." 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  quote  history  further  to  show  you  where 
American  independence  began.  It  began  here,  in  Massachusetts,  —  and 
perhaps  I  might  say,  with  the  early  settlers  of  this  city  of  Salem.  Amer- 
ican independence  commenced  here  in  Massachusetts.  It  was  effected 
here.  They  were  Massachusetts  men  that  developed  the  idea,  the  great 
plan  of  resistance  to  the  colossal  power  of  a  British  empire.  How  soon, 
think  you,  did  the  independence  of  these  colonies  occur  to  any  man  in 
the  United  States,  and  who  was  the  man  to  whom  it  occurred  ?  One 
hundred  years  ago  or  thereabouts,  John  Adams,  writing  a  letter,  when 
he  was  a  boy  as  you  might  call  him,  for  he  was  then  in  his  tender  years, 
almost  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
gave  his  opinion  that  in  one  hundred  years  the  population  of  the  colonies 
would  be  equal  to  that  of  Great  Britain.  If  he  had  been  selecting  the 
precise  year  in  which  this  equality  would  occur,  he  could  not  have  made 
a  nearer  approximation.  At  the  time  he  mentioned,  the  population  was 
about  the  same  as  that  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  shipping  was  a  little 
larger  than  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  together.  There  was  the 
mature  sagacity  of  a  young  and  vigorous  Massachusetts  mind.  For  it  was 
John  Adams,  also,  who,  writing  in  1754,  said  that  sooner  or  later  these 
united  colonies  would  become  a  great  and  independent  nation,  —  powerful 
on  the  land  by  their  union,  and  more  powerful  upon  the  sea  than  either 
Great  Britain  or  France.  Why,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  of  mortal 
man,  that  he  should  foresee  the  future  as  did  John  Adams. 

You  ail  know  who  introduced  among  the  members  of  the  congress  the 
idea  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  you  know,  too,  by  whose 
influence  it  was  that  that  idea  of  a  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
strengthened  and  prevailed.  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  wrote  the  Declara- 
tion, has  said  of  John  Adams,  that  he  was  "  the  Colossus  on  the  floor 
who  sustained  it  in  debate." 

I  have  alluded  to  these  subjects,  because  they  show  us  where  we  have 
stood.  Massachusetts  men  have  stood  in  the  fore-front  of  the  battle  of 
freedom.  And  the  question  is  for  Massachusetts  men,  Shall  Massachu- 
setts continue  to  stand  where  she  has  always  stood,  —  first  and  foremost 
in  the  van  of  freedom,  confronting  all  assaults,  —  defying,  whether  by 
direct  onset  or  by  the  power  of  corruption,  —  defying  all  attacks,  either 
open  or  secret  ?  Shall  she  lead  the  van  in  the  battle  of  liberty,  as  she 
has  been  wont  to  do  for  more  than  two  hundred  years  past  ? 

Massachusetts  was  not  content  that  she  had  championed  upon  the  floor 
of  congress,  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Massachusetts  did  the 
hard  work  wftich  wrought  out  the  realization  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  835 

penclence  ;  did  what  made  it  to  be  acknowledged  a  fact  by  all  tlie  nations 
of  the  earth.  In  that  work  Massachusetts  had  the  greatest  share.  It 
was  God's  blessed  beneficence  to  the  colonies  that  the  w^ar  broke  out 
wliere  it  did.  It  broke  out  in  Massachusetts,  because  there  was  the 
right  place  for  it.  If  Providence  had  permitted  it  to  break  out  some- 
where else,  the  result  might  not  have  been  what  it  was.  It  broke  out 
here,  —  at  the  old  north  bridge  in  Salem ;  there  was  the  earliest  resist- 
ance. At  Lexington,  American  blood  was  shed.  At  the  old  north 
bridge  in  Concord,  British  blood  was  shed.  The  battle  of  Bunker  Hill 
inaugurated  American  independence,  and  gave  men  courage  to  main- 
tain American  liberty.  Our  fathers  saw  that  British  troops  were  not 
invincible  ;  this  was  demonstrated  by  Yankee  farmers.  And  who  better 
than  they  were  fitted  to  demonstrate  it  ?  IIow  many  Americans  fought 
in  the  revolutionary  contest?  288,134  in  all!  IIow  many  of  these  were 
from  New  England?  147, G94  !  More  than  half  of  all  the  regulars  and 
militia  were  New  England  men,  of  whom  Massachusetts  furnished 
83,162.  And  of  the  naval  force,  New  England  furnished  nearly  the 
whole,  —  aye,  Essex  county  nearly  the  whole  ;  and  yet  the  work  on  our 
own  soil  and  waters  was  not  all  that  New  England  men  did.  We  made 
short  work  of  it  on  New  England  ground ;  and  afterwards  had  to  do 
somebody's  else  fighting. 

You  know  that  on  the  same  day  on  which  St.  Patrick  drove  the  rep- 
tiles out  of  Ireland,  —  and  a  very  good  work  he  did  too,  —  on  that  self- 
same day  of  the  year,  Gen.  Washington  drove  the  red-coats  out  of 
Boston,  and  they  no  more  ventured  to  come  back  again,  than  the  reptiles 
have  to  the  green  Emerald  Isle  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  After 
St.  Patrick's  day  and  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  there  was  very  little  to 
do  in  Massachusetts  so  far  as  the  war  was  concerned,  but  it  went  further 
south ;  to  New  York,  through  the  Jerseys  to  Philadelphia,  until,  by  and 
by,  it  reached  the  Carolinas,  where  there  was  much  trouble.  Corn- 
wallis  drove  everybody  before  him.  What  was  to  be  done?  They 
sent  on  a  Rhode  Island  blacksmith.  General  Greene,  and  then  the  work 
was  done.  Hamilton  wrote  to  AVashington,  ''  Send  on  Greene,  and  my 
head  upon  the  result."  Greene  knew  how  to  strike  hard  blows  until  the 
work  was  accomplished. 

You  may  think  I  am  giving  the  story  from  one-sided  views,  but  I 
will  give  you  South  Carolina  authority.  Robert  Barnwell,  in  a  discus- 
sion that  arose  in  regard  to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  January  17,  1788,  said,  "  I  see  not  a  man  who  does  not 
know  that  the  shackles  of  the  South  were  broken  asunder  by  the  arms  of 
the  North."  That  is  what  I  call  belonging  to  a  national  party.  Slavery, 
I  thank  God,  is  sectional.     I  said  so  in  this  hall  before  I  went  to  con- 


836  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

gress,  at  your  request.  I  say  so  now  again.  Slavery,  I  tliank  God,  is 
sectional,  and  liberty  is  national. 

The  liberty  that  was  given  to  the  Carolinas  in  tlie  latter  part  of  the 
revolutionary  war,  was  bestowed  upon  them  by  strong  Yankee  arms,  and 
stout  Yankee  hearts ;  and  they  acknowledged  it  was  so. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  want  to  get  rid  of  certain  sectional  feelings  that 
exist  now-a-days.  There  are  sectional  ideas  belonging  not  to  this  part 
of  the  United  States ;  by  no  means !  belonging  to  another  part  of  the 
United  States,  which  some  gentlemen  propose  to  force  down  our  throats. 
But  they  are  not  the  natural  food  of  northern  true  American  democrats. 
They  are  poison  to  our  natures.  There  is  but  one  course  by  which  a 
great  nation  like  this  can  be  kept  together ;  and  that  is,  that  if  there  be 
in  any  part  of  this  great  nation,  institutions  repugnant  to  the  hearts  and 
the  feelings  of  another  portion,  and  that  the  larger  portion  of  this  Union, 
those  institutions  must  be  kept  where  they  are.  They  are  not  to  be 
brought  here.  I  do  not  go  into  South  Carolina  and  tell  the  South  Caro- 
lina planter  what  he  shall  do  with  his  slaves,  or  what  he  shall  not  do,  or 
say,  or  think,  about  the  institution  of  slavery.  Nor  shall  he  come  here. 
Pie  shall  not  come  here  and  tell  me  what  I  shall  do  about  the  institution 
of  slavery.  And  if  he  does  come  here  to  tell  me  what  I  shall  do,  say, 
or  think  about  the  institution  of  slavery,  what  I  propose  to  do  is,  to  send 
him  back  again. 

And  so  I  propose  to  get  rid  of  sectional  parties,  sectional  feelings,  and  sec- 
tional plans.  I  propose  that  the  government  of  the  United  States  shall  act 
upon  those  interests  and  those  opinions  which  are  national,  and  not  upon 
those  which  are  sectional.  We  have  great  interests.  We  have  interests  com- 
mon to  this  whole  nation.  Yv^e  have  interests  intrusted  to  the  general  gov- 
ernment, upon  which  I  can  meet  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina,  and 
we  can  reason  out  the  best  disposition  to  be  made  of  these  subjects.  We 
can  go  together  for  the  interests  of  this  great  nation.  Upon  those  interests 
which  are  common  to  South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts,  and  which  have 
been  committed  to  the  general  government,  let  the  general  government 
act.  It  was  not  made  to  act  on  sectional  interests,  and  they  were  not 
committed  to  it.  It  is  as  capable  of  demonstration  as  any  problem  in 
Euclid,  and  no  man  who  assisted  in  forming  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  ever  dreamed  at  that  time  that  the  general  government 
was  to  act  concerning  slavery  as  it  has  acted.  If  any  political  problem 
was  ever  capable  of  an  answer,  and  that  answer  capable  of  a  demon- 
stration, it  is,  whether  the  convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  intended  that  the  government  of  the  United  States 
should  legislate  as  it  has  legislated  on  human  slavery.  There  is  but  one 
answer.     I  know  that  what  I  say  here  will  be  read  in  other  parts  of  the 


OF  EGBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  837 

country,  —  even  in  Florida  and  Alabama.  I  say,  then,  that  I  would  be 
glad  to  meet  that  logician  who  will  take  ground  against  the  proposition 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not  grant  one  iota  of 
power  to  congress  to  meddle  with  the  subject  of  fugitives  from  service 
or  labor. 

Well,  then,  are  there  great  and  general  principles  that  will  cover  this 
question,  and  apply  to  other  questions  also  ?  If  there  be,  it  is  well  to 
examine  them,  and  try  this  question  by  the  test  of  our  system.  If  not, 
we  must  study  this  out  as  an  exceptional  case.  I  think  there  are  doc- 
trines lying  at  the  base  of  the  American  system  which  lie  also  at  the 
base  of  this  question,  and  which  are  doctrines  that  you  and  I  have 
believed  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the  very  base  of  great  democratic 
principles,  as  they  have  been  understood  and  proclaimed  by  Thomas 
Jefferson  himself.  And  what  are  those  doctrines  ?  It  is  of  no  use  to 
tell  me  that  the  democratic  party  occasionally  belies  its  own  doctrines. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  tell  me  that  it  sometimes  does  foolish  things. 
There  never  was  a  party  that  did  not  occasionally  belie  its  own  doctrines, 
and  sometimes  do  foolish  things,  because  parties  are  made  up  of  men, 
and  men  are  not  infallible.  I  look  at  the  great  principles  which  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  our  parties  since  we  had  a  government ;  and  I  say  the 
corner-stone  of  the  democratic  system  of  politics,  as  it  was  laid  down  by 
Jefferson  in  1791,  is  now  the  corner-stone  of  the  democratic  system  of 
politics.  Thomas  Jefferson,  in  1791,  declared  that  the  corner-stone  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  in  the  10th  article  of  the 
amendments,  which  says  that  "  all  powers  not  expressly  delegated  to 
the  general  government  by  the  Constitution  are  reserved  to  the  States 
or  the  people."  We  are  obliged  to  look  jealously  to  the  action  of  the 
general  government  concerning  those  powers  which  are  not  delegated 
to  it.  If  we  do  that,  and  act  up  to  that,  then  we  are  democrats.  If 
not,  then  we  belong  to  the  opposite  party,  call  it  by  whatever  name  you 
please. 

I  have  not  yet  learned  that  the  way  to  find  out  the  democratic  track 
is  to  look  for  measures  which  Mr.  Clay  introduced,  which  Mr,  Webster 
advocated,  and  which  Mr.  Fillmore  brings  his  official  influence  to  sup- 
port and  carry  through  congress,  and  which  the  whig  president  claims 
as  his  policy.  I  do  not  look  there  for  democratic  measures.  But  I  look 
back  to  the  old  democratic  principles.  In  Baltimore  platforms  I  make 
a  distinction.  The  firm  old  white  oak  timbers,  the  seasoned  planks  that 
have  stood  and  weathered  the  storm  through  many  a  contest,  are  one 
thing.  Any  trumpery  that  may  be  temporarily  put  on,  and  then 
stripped  off  again,  I  do  not  regard.  Let  us  look  at  the  old  main  tim- 
bers :  — 


838  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

^^  Resolved,  That  the  federal  government  is  one  of  limited  powers 
derived  solely  from  the  Constitution,  and  the  grants  of  power  therein 
ought  to  be  strictly  construed  by  all  the  departments  and  agents  of  the 
government,  and  that  it  is  inexpedient  and  dangerous  to  exercise  doubt- 
ful constitutional  powers." 

This  is  the  first  definition  of  democratic  doctrine  as  it  has  stood  for  a 
great  many  years.  It  is  the  old  platform.  It  is  the  thing  which  if 
carried  out  to  all  its  consequences  leads  to  a  true  result.  Carry  that  out 
to  its  legitimate  consequences  and  I  am  content.  I  look  a  little  further, 
and  see  that  this  year  two  additions  have  been  made.  One  is  the 
indorsement  of  certain  members  of  congress,  and  the  other  is  the  fol- 
lowing: — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  democratic  party  will  faithfully  abide  by  and 
uphold  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolu- 
tions of  1798  and  '99,  and  in  the  report  of  Mr.  Madison  to  the  Virginia 
legislature  in  1799  ;  that  it  adopts  those  principles  as  constituting  one 
of  the  main  foundations  of  its  political  creed,  and  is  resolved  to  carry 
them  out  in  their  obvious  meaning  and  import." 

I  am  satisfied  with  that.  What  did  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  reso- 
lutions determine  ?  They  determined  that  precisely  such  measures  as 
those  which  these  wise  gentlemen  in  Baltimore  concluded  to  indorse 
were  prohibited  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  it 
was  an  usurpation  of  power  by  the  government  to  pass  them. 

The  alien  and  sedition  laws,  —  why  were  they  unconstitutional  ?  First, 
because  there  was  no  grant  of  power  in  the  Constitution  to  congress  to 
pass  them.  But  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire  said  they  were 
constitutional.  And  why?  Not  because  they  could  find  any  grant  of 
power  in  the  Constitution.  It  was  iynpUed  fower.  And  New  Hamp- 
shire now  gives  it  up  and  admits  that  they  are  unconstitutional,  although 
by  her  legislature  she  had  once  unanimously  declared  that  they  were 
constitutional. 

The  next  reason  why  the  ahen  law  w^as  unconstitutional  is,  because  it 
undertook  to  give  the  right  to  carry  a  man  out  of  the  State  in  which  he 
was  found,  without  the  trial  by  jury.  Have  you  not  sometimes  heard 
it  said  that  a  colored  man  could  not  have  a  trial  by  jury  because  he  was 
not  a  citizen  ?  You  reply,  ''  Massachusetts  has  made  him  a  citizen." 
"0,"  the  response  comes  to  you,  "he  is  not  the  kind  of  citizen  intended 
to  be  protected  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  Mark  the 
parallel  between  these  two  cases.  Mr.  Jefferson  said,  "  These  alien  and 
sedition  laws  are  unconstitutional.  You  cannot  take  a  man  away  from 
Massachusetts  without  a  trial  by  jury  to  determine  whether  he  has  the 
right  to  remain  there."     Wliat  is  the  answer  to  Mr.  Jefferson  ?     "  O, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  839 

he  is  an  alien  and  therefore  not  a  citizen,  and  the  Constitution  was  not 
made  for  ahens  but  for  citizens  only."  Now  the  Constitution  on  the 
one  hand  does  not  say  any  thing  about  an  alien,  or  on  the  other  hand 
any  thing  about  a  colored  j^erson.  It  says,  "  no  person."  And  is  not 
the  alien  a  "  person  ?  "  And  is  not  the  colored  man  a  "  person  ?  "  That 
reply  did  not  go  down  with  Thomas  Jefferson.  An  alien  is  a  "  person," 
and  a  colored  man  is  a  "person." 

First,  there  was  no  power  in  the  Constitution  to  pass  this  law.  And 
then,  even  if  there  w^ere  such  a  power,  the  Constitution  expressly  says, 
"  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  his  right  to  life  and  liberty,  or  property, 
without  trial  by  jury." 

When  the  Baltimore  resolutions  say  they  are  going  to  carry  out  fairly 
the  doctrine  which  demonstrates  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  alien  and 
sedition  laws,  I  am  waiting  to  see  them  do  it. 

The  ideas  that  I  am  advancing  to  you  are  not  new.  They  are  the  old 
doctrines  of  the  old  democrats  of  New  England.  'When  George  Cabot 
of  Beverly,  who  never  was  a  democrat  that  I  ever  heard,  and  who  ailer- 
wards  presided  at  the  Hartford  Convention,  drafted  the  fugitive  slave 
law  of  1793,  did  he  intend  a  democratic  act?  What  happened  when 
that  law  first  came  up  for  discussion  in  congress  ?  Soon  after  the  pas- 
sage of  that  law,  free  men  of  color  were  seized  in  Delaware  and  sold  as 
slaves ;  or,  at  least,  it  was  charged  that  free  men  of  color  were  seized 
in  Delaware  and  sold  as  slaves ;  or,  at  least,  it  was  charged  that  free 
men  of  color  were  seized  in  Delaware  and  sold  into  slavery  in  States 
further  south.  The  legislature  of  Delaware  remonstrated  against  it. 
I  have  told  you  the  ground  which  Jefferson  took  in  regard  to  the  right 
of  trial  by  jury.  The  democrats  of  New  England  took  the  same  ground. 
I  dare  say  you  all  know  how  few  democrats  from  New  England  there 
were  then  in  congress.  Old  Mat  Lyon  w^as  one.  He  was  the  man  wdio 
was  fined  under  the  sedition  law,  and  whose  fine  Jefferson  remitted.  A 
great  deal  was  said  about  Jefferson's  giving  up  the  money  that  belonged 
to  the  treasury  of  the  United  States.  But  he  said  the  law  was  uncon- 
stitutional ;  and  that  money  which  had  unconstitutionally  entered  the 
treasury  was  not  constitutionally  in  it.  Mr.  Lyon  spoke  of  that  law  very 
much  in  the  same  style  as  I  have  attempted  to  speak  of  this  one. 

There  was  another  democratic  member,  Joseph  Bradley  Varnum,  who 
was  sent  to  congress  from  Dracut,  in  this  very  neighborhood,  though 
not  in  this  congressional  district.  He  made  one  of  the  few  speeches 
which  were  made  in  that  debate,  declaring  that  the  congress  of  the 
United  States  could  not  take  the  right  of  any  man  to  liberty,  without  a 
trial  by  jury.  He  maintained  that  a  man,  white  or  colored,  was  consti- 
tutionally entitled  to  his  trial  by  jury.     That  was  the  ground  that  was 


840  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

tnken  at  tliat  time  in  this  part  of  New  England  by  our  stauncliest  demo- 
crats. The  president  of  the  Hartford  Convention,  George  Cabot,  and 
other  staunch  federalists,  sided  with  Mr.  Fillmore  and  the  staunchest 
whigs  of  the  present  day. 

Who  was  the  foremost  democrat  in  congress  at  that  day,  the  man  of 
the  clearest  and  most  logical  mind,  the  man  who  pushed  his  doctrines  to 
their  legitimate  conclusions  ?  It  was  Albert  Gallatin.  He  took  grounds 
which  I  should  be.  ready  to  take  now.  What  was  the  answer  of  southern 
men  ?  "  You  will  shake  the  security  of  property  at  the  South."  "  When/' 
replied  Mr.  Gallatin,  "  the  supreme  court  of  Massachusetts  says  that 
there  can  be  no  slave  in  Massachusetts,  and  that  shakes  the  security  of 
property  at  the  South,  has  she  the  power  to  do  it?  When  Pennsylva- 
nia passes  an  act  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  within  her  borders,  can  she 
not  do  it,  because  it  shakes  the  security  of  southern  property  ?  "  He- 
scoiited  such  doctrines  then,  as  he  would  now  scout  them,  if  he  could 
come  back  from  his  grave. 

I  am,  then,  following  in  the  beaten  track  of  the  old  leaders  in  democ- 
racy, of  those  who  made  the  Constitution,  and  understood  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  knew  that  this  was  a  government  of  limited  powers. 

Why  have  we  met  here  to  celebrate  this  day  ?  What  is  it  that  we 
celebrate?  What  have  we  gained  by  being  separated  from  Great 
Britain  ?  What  was  it  that  made  our  fathers  desire  independence  ?  I 
must  quote  Chalmers  once  more.  He  said,  that  long  before  the  declara- 
tion of  independence,  "  these  men  of  Massachusetts  could  not  bear  to 
be  governed  by  men  living  three  thousand  miles  off."  Even  if  you  sup- 
pose that  those  men  might  have  been  the  best  in  the  world,  was  it  not 
better  to  be  governed  by  persons  at  home  ?  It  was  the  desire  of  local 
self-government  that  caused  the  separation  from  Great  Britain.'  Local 
self-government  is  the  great  principle  at  the  foundation  of  all  our  insti- 
tutions now.  What  is  the  difference  between  us  and  France  ?  I  will 
tell  you.  Here  government  is  localized ;  it  is  brought  home  to  every 
man's  door ;  the  school  district  is  here,  and  the  committee  manages  the 
school,  and  the  United  States  do  not  do  it.  Each  town  manages  its  own 
affairs.  We,  in  our  local  corporations,  and  not  the  United  States,  make 
our  own  roads  ;  the  State  legislate  on  domestic  concerns.  But  in  France 
the  power  is  centralized,  —  Paris  is  France.  If  a  bridge  is  to  be 
repaired  at  Marseilles,  it  is  done  by  an  authority  emanated  from  Paris. 
If  the  president  desires  only  such  men  as  are  of  a  certain  politics,  then 
those  of  that  political  faith  only  can  obtain  the  public  employments. 
These  central  influences  prevent  the  possession  of  such  true  hberty  as 
we  have  organized.  In  this  country,  on  the  contrary,  we  localize  the 
powers  of  the  government,  and  distribute  them  through  a  great  many 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  841 

cliannels.  It  would  not  be  possible  to  have  our  liberty  under  sucli  a 
system  as  exists  in  France.  There  would  be  nothing  strong  enough  to 
resist  the  power  of  the  general  government;  the  general  government 
would  do  v/hat  it  pleased  without  opposition.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  we 
have  State  powers,  county  powers,  city  powers,  town  powers,  and  they 
all  manage  their  own  affairs ;  and  this  right  to  manage  our  own  affairs 
is  the  greatest  and  the  dearest  of  our  privileges  which  we  obtained  when 
we  secured  our  independence. 

This  day,  sacred  to  the  achievement  of  independence  originally,  is  the 
day  on  which  to  determine  that  we  will  carry  out  the  principle  of  self- 
government;  the  principle  that  Massachusetts  is  a  sovereign,  indepen- 
dent State ;  that  Massachusetts  has  the  power  to  protect  the  liberty  not 
only  of  every  son  of  hers,  but  of  every  alien  guest  of  hers,  whether  he 
came  from  Ireland,  from  Germany,  or  whether  he  came  from  another 
State  in  tliis  Union  ;  whether  his  color  be  white,  or  yellow,  or  black. 

Having  said,  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  great  principles  that  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  the  democratic  party  settle  these  questions  relating  to 
slavery  as  they  settle  all  other  questions  of  our  politics,  that  there  is  a 
system,  the  only  course  is  to  adhere  to  that  system,  and  carry  out  all 
these  principles  which  we  profess. 

Now  comes  on  again  one  of  those  periodical  struggles  between  the 
two  great  parties  in  this  country  ;  because  permanently  there  are  but  two 
parties.  Questions  arise  occasionally  which  create  new  parties,  having, 
however,  in  numbers  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  whole,  and  being  of 
very  brief  duration.  But  looking  at  the  life  of  a  nation,  there  can  be- 
but  two  great  parties.  The  one  is  desirous  to  take  the  most  care  of  lib- 
erty, and  does  so  by  strictly  construing  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  The  other  desires  to  take  the  most  care  of  property,  and  does 
so  by  loosely  construing  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  That  is 
the  fundamental  difference  between  the  two  parties.  I  do  not  say  the 
wdiig  party  does  not  sometimes  think  of  liberty,  but  they  make  it  subor- 
dinate to  property.  I  do  not  say  the  democratic  party  does  not  some- 
times think  of  property,  but  as  a  general  thing  it  is  liberty  first  and 
property  afterwards.  The  man  who  thinks  he  is  a  democrat,  and  seeks 
to  produce  that  state  of  society  which  builds  up  great  accumulations  of 
property  in  few  hands,  who  attempts  to  use  the  general  government  for 
that  purpose,  and  dares  to  sacrifice  liberty,  (whether  in  the  person  of 
his  white  brother,  or  his  colored  brother,  I  care  not,)  who  is  willing  to 
sacrifice  or  endanger  liberty  because  it  will  make  a  tenth  of  a  cent's  dif- 
ference in  the  price  of  cotton  goods,  is  no  democrat. 

A  question  arises,  then,  and  it  is  a  pretty  important  one,  (though  I  do 
not  know  as  it  will  trouble  you  to  decide  it,  and  it  certainly  will  nofe 

71 


842  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

trouble  me,)  and  that  is,  what  course  ought  we,  as  democrats,  to  take  in 
the  coming  presidential  contest  ? 

Let  me  allude  to  the  Baltimore  Convention,  in  which  you  w^ere  all 
interested.  I  do  not  speak  of  my  own  interest.  That  is  a  small  matter. 
But  it  so  happens  I  stood  there  representing  the  rights  of  the  Second 
Congressional  District,  and  also  representing,  in  part,  the  rights  of  the 
sovereign  and  independent  State  of  Massachusetts.  You  all  know  that 
a  fraud,  a  gross  and  base  fraud,  was  perpetrated  upon  the  convention.  I 
do  not  say  that  that  convention,  wdth  their  eyes  open,  and  knowing  what 
they  were  doing,  meant  to  insult  this  district.  I  say  that  a  very  large 
part  of  them  were  imposed  upon.  Some  few,  I  believe,  meant  to  out- 
rage this  district.  Others,  and  a  larger  number,  were  imposed  upon  by 
frauds  industriously  circulated  among  them. 

Now,  does  that  outrage,  perpetrated  upon  this  district, — does  that 
denial  to  this  district  of  its  rights,  —  does  the  denial  to  the  State  of  Mas- 
sachusetts of  its  rights,  —  alter  our  position  with  regard  to  the  great 
democratic  party  ?  It  does  seem  to  me  that  if  I  go  to  a  convention,  and 
take  part  in  the  doings  of  that  convention,  and  do  not  withdraw  from  it, 
I  may  be  supposed  to  be  bound  by  that  convention.  If  I  am  not  there, 
and  not  represented  there,  then  I  am  not  bound  by  it.  I  am  not  at 
all  bound  by  anything  that  has  been  done  in  the  Baltimore  Convention. 

The  action  of  the  convention  places  me  in  the  attitude  of  a  looker- 
on.  What  ought  I  to  do  ?  Here  is  a  presidential  election  coming  on. 
I  have  already  told  you  what  are  the  great  political  issues  involved  in 
this  contest,  as  in  every  other.  The  fugitive  slave  law,  as  between  the 
two  great  parties,  is  not  an  issue.  For  they  are,  in  that  respect,  pre- 
cisely alike.  The  democrats,  on  account  of  that  plank  in  their  platform, 
say  you  must  vote  against  the  wliigs.  The  whigs,  on  account  of  the 
same  plank  in  their  platform,  say  you  must  vote  against  the  democrats. 
And  two  negatives,  we  used  to  learn  in  our  boyhood,  are  equivalent  to 
an  affirmative,  and  nullify  each  other.  Both  parties  lay  down  some- 
thing as  a  part  of  a  platform  against  which  I  enter  my  protest,  here  and 
everywhere  else. 

But  the  question  comes,  is  any  one  else  to  be  president,  except  one  of 
the  two  leading  candidates  ?  Some  of  you,  my  friends,  may  dislike  the 
fact,  but  it  is  none  the  less  true.  Two  great  parties  have  determined 
upon  their  course  of  conduct.  They  have  brought  forward  their  candi- 
dates, and  one  or  the  other  must  surely  be  elected.  I  do  not  act  upon 
abstractions  ;  and  as  a  practical  man  I  am  bound  to  act  practically,  so 
far  as  results  are  concerned.  There  is  but  one  alternative,  between  the 
two  possibilities  of  Avhich  I  am  at  liberty  to  choose.  One  or  the  other 
of  two  men  is  to  be  president  of  the  United  States.     I  mean,  supposing 


OF  EGBERT  EANTOUL,  JR.  843 

tliey  both  live;  I  mean,  supposing  there  be  no  extraordinary  and  unfore- 
seen concurrence  of  circumstances.  I  mean,  according  to  all  human 
probability,  one  or  the  other  of  them  will  be  the  next  president.  And 
the  question  is  for  me,  which  ought  I  to  aid  to  elevate  to  that  position  ? 

But  some  will  say  this  district  has  been  insulted.  That  does  not 
change  the  nature  of  the  principles  at  stake.  Suppose  your  representa- 
tive had  been  assassinated  !  Even  that  would  not  change  the  nature  of 
the  principles  at  issue. 

If  the  democratic  party  succeeds,  one  set  of  principles  will  prevail. 
Suppose  the  other  succeeds,  I  hardly  know  what  they  will  do.  When 
they  put  forward  platforms  they  put  into  them  principles  for  which  they 
might  almost  be  indicted  for  larceny.  They  present  us  a  sort  of  semi- 
democratic  faith  softened  down,  which  I  don't  exactly  relish.  It  is  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  whig  party  to  creep  into  democratic  guises, 
and  carry  off  a  portion  of  the  democracy  whose  principles  are  not  fixed 
and  defined. 

I  trust  that  the  democracy  of  Essex  are  not  to  be  led  away  by  any 
such  doctrines  as  those.  We  are  none  the  less  bound  to  stand  by  our 
ov;n  well  defined  principles  because  we  have  been  badly  treated  by  men 
acting  mostly  under  the  imposition  of  others.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
vote  against  principles  that  I  know  to  be  sound,  because  my  district  has 
been  insulted,  because  I  have  been  wrongfully  treated,  because  Massa- 
chusetts has  been  maltreated.  I  am  bound  to  follow  out  the  doctrines 
which  I  believe  to  be  true,  however  unpleasantly  certain  transactions 
connected  with  the  action  of  my  party  may  strike  me  or  may  strike  my 
friends. 

There  is,  I  say,  therefore,  no  alternative.  Gentlemen  may  say,  (for  it 
is  an  idea  that  arises  in  some  minds,)  "  I  will  not  vote  for  the  man  with 
whom  I  disagree."  Suppose  we  carry  that  doctrine  out  in  all  our  rela- 
tions. Would  it  ever  happen  that  we  should  choose  any  man  for  any 
oflice  from  one  end  of  the  Union  to  the  other?  I  find  one  man  who 
diflfers  from  me  on  the  Maine  liquor  law,  and  on  nothing  else.  I  find 
another  man  who  agrees  with  me  on  every  thing  else  except  the  common 
school  system.  I  find  another  who  disagrees  with  me  about  laying  out 
a  road,  but  agreeing  on  other  points.  There  is  another  man  who  agrees 
generally  with  my  views,  but  who  does  not  like  a  certain  man  who  has 
been  appointed  to  office.  Must  I  withhold  political  fellowship  from  all  these 
men  ?  There  is  but  one  way  to  carry  out  a  great  system  of  measures, 
and  that  is  to  follow  it  up,  to  strike  blow  after  blow,  and  by  and  by  you 
will  come  out  right. 

In  a  war,  it  sometimes  becomes  necessary  to  bombard  a  city,  and  a 
person  may  be  killed  whom  you  may  have  no  reason  to  injure.     In  many 


844  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND   WKITINGS 

a  battle  you  must  either  risk  sliooting  your  friends  or  shoot  nobody  ;- 
the  rule  is  to  blaze  away.  It  is  just  so  in  the  confused  battles  of 
politics. 

You  know  when  the  Hindoos  thought  it  religion  not  to  eat  any  animal 
food,  it  was  very  easy  for  them  not  to  partake  of  the  larger  and  even 
the  smaller  animals.  But  soon  an  Englishman  brought  a  microscope  to 
them,  by  means  of  which  they  discovered  animalcula3  in  a  single  drop  of 
^vater,  and  in  every  article  of  food  ;  they  began  to  think,  therefore,  that 
their  religion  was  impracticable. 

You  cannot  carry  on  a  great  movement  and  have  every  iota  of  your 
choice  realized.  And  I  do  not  confine  this  to  little  and  unimportant 
•affairs.  I  say  there  are  high  and  important  affairs  managed  very  differ- 
ently from  what  I  desire.  But  I  cannot,  therefore,  cut  myself  loose, 
and  say  I  am  opposed  to  you,  Sir,  because  you  are  against  me  in  com- 
mon schools ;  and  I  "will  not  vote  for  you,  because  you  are  against  me 
on  the  Maine  law^ ;  or  for  you,  because  you  are  opposed  to  me  on  build- 
ing a  certain  road.  But  I  must  take  the  policy  which  is  to  do  good  in 
the  long  run.  If  I  do  not,  my  action  on  one  day  is  nullified  by  my 
action  on  another  day.  A  straightforward  course,  then,  in  this  district, 
is  as  clearly  our  duty  now  as  at  any  former  time. 

A  Voice.     AYhy  were  you  rejected  from  the  Baltimore  Convention  ? 

Mr.  Rantoul.  The  question  which  the  gentleman  asks  is  a  very 
proper  one.  I  am  perfectly  ready  to  state.  I  ^vent  by  the  unanimous 
choice  of  the  democracy  to  the  Baltimore  Convention.  There  a  commit- 
tee on  credentials  was  appointed.  Before  that  committee  of  the  con- 
Tention  I  appeared.  There  were  contested  seats  in  Vermont,  Georgia, 
Maine,  and  Massachusetts.  I  found  my  seat  claimed  by  anotlier  person. 
I  showed  to  the  committee  the  certificate  of  the  meeting  at  which  I  was 
unanimously  elected.  I  showed  them  the  proof  that  that  meeting  was 
regularly  called  by  the  regular  democratic  committee.  I  show^ed  them 
that  that  committee  was  regularly  chosen,  unanimously,  at  a  regular  con- 
vention of  the  wdiole  party.  I  showed  them  that  Mr.  Lord  was  chosen 
by  a  small  party,  first  organized  in  1851,  of  those  democrats  opposed  to 
my  election  as  a  member  of  congress.  And  there  I  rested  my  case. 
Mr.  Lord  set  forth  by  a  printed  statement  that  I  had  declined  a  regular 
democratic  nomination,  and  that  I  had  accepted  the  nomination  of  the 
free  soilers.  As  regards  that  statement,  I  told  the  committee  what  you 
all  know  to  be  true.  The  chairman  of  the  committee  w^as  Edm«nd 
Burke  of  Xew  Hampshire.  He  held  me  strictly  to  their  rules  of  order. 
One  of  those  w^as,  that  each  of  the  contestants  should  be  allowed  fifteen 
minutes.  Kow,  a  great  deal  can  be  said  in  fifteen  minutes,  but  I  had 
scarcely  commenced  before  a  member  of  the  committee  put  me  a  ques- 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  845 

tion  -wliicli  it  was  necessary  to  answer ;  then  as  soon  as  I  returned  to 
my  line  of  argument  I  was  asked  another  question.  These  questions  I 
could  not  well  refuse  to  answer ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  a  large 
part  of  my  fifteen  minutes  was  taken  up  in  asking  and  answering  ques- 
tions. Then  the  majority  of  the  committee  did  not  wish  to  hear  more, 
although  the  debate  upon  the  subject  among  the  committee  continued 
through  a  large  part  of  the  day.  Yet  I  could,  according  to  the  rules, 
say  nothing  more. 

A  circumstance,  however,  occurred,  which  the  member  who  intro- 
duced it  said  would  influence  his  vote,  and  which,  perhaps,  influenced 
the  votes  of  others.  The  question  was  put  to  me  by  a  member  of  the 
committee,  pretty  nearly  in  these  words  :  "  If  Mr.  Rantoul  takes  his 
seat  in  this  convention  to  represent  the  Second  Congressional  District 
in  Massachusetts,  I  wish  to  know  whether  he  will  agree  to  the  resolu- 
tions that  may  pass  the  convention?"  Now  I  never  saw  the  convention 
in  my  life,  to  the  resolutions  of  which  I  would  agree  before  I  saw  them. 
And  I  answered  instantly,  that  I  suffered  no  convention  to  do  my  think- 
ing for  me.  I  do  it  for  myself.  And  I  suppose,  although  the  cup  was 
full  before,  that  that  was  the  drop  M'hicli  caused  it  to  run  over. 

A  Voice.  I  want  the  names  of  the  men  that  are  the  cause  of  your 
rejection. 

Mr.  IvAXTOUL.  There  are  two:  Edmund  Burke,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, and  B.  F.  Hallett,  of  Boston.  I  am  not  going  to  say  any  thing  very 
severe  about  them.  I  only  hope  they  will  live  long  enough  to  repent  and 
be  ashamed  of  their  part  in  the  transaction.  I  have  not  alluded  to  them 
before,  because  I  have  too  much  respect  for  this  audience  to  take  up 
their  time  v/ith  what  B.  F.  Hallett  or  Edmund  Burke  may  do.  AYe 
come  here  on  the  anniversary  of  American  independence  to  talk  about 
principles  of  infinitely  more  consequence  than  a  whole  army  of  B.  F. 
Ilalletts.  For  that  reason  I  have  not  mentioned  that  man's  name 
before  ;  but  I  was  perfectly  ready,  when  called  upon,  to  say  what  I  think 
was  his  part  in  this  matter. 

I  say  that  the  great  principles  that  have  led  this  nation  on  to  glory,  — 
the  principles  that  have  made  us  a  free  people  when  we  were  colonies, 
—  the  principles  that  have  made  us  independent  when  we  ceased  to  be 
colonies,  —  the  principles  that  have  governed  this  country,  —  have  been 
democratic  principles.  If  this  is  a  great  and  glorious  nation,  the  demo- 
cratic party,  which  has  been  in  power  for  most  of  the  time  since  this 
nation  had  an  existence,  has  made  it  great  and  glorious.  If  there  is  any 
thing  that  has  made  us  great  and  glorious,  it  is,  then,  the  administration 
of  the  democratic  principles.  These  principles  have  made  us  what  we 
are, —  the  first  nation  in  the  world  in  intelligence,  virtue,  and  happiness, 

71* 


846  MEMOIRS  OF  EOBEUT  IIANTOUL,  JR. 

—  and  being  very  soon  to  mate  us  the  first  nation  in  numbers  and  in 
power,  and  a  light  to  all  other  nations,  —  these  principles,  I  maintain, 
must  not  be  departed  from. 

We  must  stand  by  our  principles.  We  must  overlook  all  little  per- 
sonal matters;  they  are  too  small,  —  they  are  too  trivial  to  interrupt 
our  course.  We  must  look  upon  ourselves  as  constituent  parts  of  a 
great,  a  mighty,  a  growing  nation,  —  and  follow  out  that  which  is  right, 
just,  and  proper  for  a  nation,  as  best  we  may,  encountering  and  over- 
coming obstacles,  and  not  always  doing  all  that  is  abstractly  right, 
because  we  have  not  the  power  to  do  so,  but  not,  therefore,  neglecting  to 
do  the  good  which  is  in  our  power. 

When  I  walk  hence  to  Beverly,  I  may  wish  to  go  in  a  straight  line ; 
I  shall  then  walk  into  the  sea.  When  I  go  out  of  this  hall,  I  wish  to 
go  in  a  straight  line ;  I  shall  then  knock  my  head  against  a  post.  I 
must,  then,  avoid  the  post  and  avoid  the  sea.  I  look  at  the  end  to  be 
attained,  at  the  object  to  be  secured,  viz. :  the  true  democratic  adminis- 
tration of  the  government  of  the  United  States.  I  will  try  to  make  it 
democratic  first,  and  then  I  will  try  to  make  it  do  what  is  right. 

I  do  not  know,  then,  that  I  need  to  go  further  on  this  day  into  any 
question  of  political  detail.  I  wall  make  one  single  remark.  My  term 
in  the  present  session  of  congress  not  having  yet  expired,  and  as  I  am 
now  obliged  to  return,  if  my  friends  will  do  me  the  favor  to  meet  me  at 
some  time  between  this  and  November  next,  then  I  will  take  the  oppor- 
tunity to  explain  my  application  of  these  great  principles  to  the  leading 
questions  of  public  policy  as  they  occur. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

MR.  RAXTOUL'S  SUDDEN  ILLNESS  AND  DEATH.— EVERYWHERE  BY  THE 
LEADING  MEN  OF  THE  COUNTRY  MOURNED  AS  A  PUBLIC  LOSS.  — HOW 
THE  TIDINGS  OF  IT  WERE  RECEIVED  IN  HIS  NATIVE  STATE. 

Unseen  by  the  human  eye,  with  silent  foot,  the  hour  drew 
near,  which  was  to  terminate  the  labors  of  this  active  and 
able  friend  of  his  country  and  of  human  liberty.  Of  the  great 
men  who  in  1852,  were  summoned  to  "  put  on  immortality," 
Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  in  all  the  elements  of  moral  worth,  intellec- 
tual activity,  practical  usefulness,  and  beneficence  to  mankind, 
was  one  of  the  greatest.  His  life  was  a  scene  of  incessant 
labor  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  justice,  and  humanity.  Of  every 
subject  to  which  he  directed  his  attention,  gaining  with  unpar- 
alleled facility  a  profound  knowledge,  a  thorough  mastery,  he 
devoted  his  acquirements,  with  an  honest  and  inflexible  purpose 
to  advance  the  welfare  of  society,  yet  he  sounded  no  trumpet 
before  him.  He  went  forward  modestly,  yet  firmly,  doing  his 
duty  with  a  deportment  and  exterior  perfectly  unpretending. 
His  manners  were  gentle,  quiet,  and  unostentatious.  In  per- 
sonal appearance  of  medium  height,  with  a  frame  well  formed, 
but  rather  delicate  than  robust,  his  hair  originally  black,  but 
fast  becoming  gray,  his  face  slightly  pale,  favoring  the  brilliancy 
of  his  dark  luminous  eyes,  his  lips,  gracefully  cut  and  very 
expressive,  his  head  moulded  most  happily  for  the  development 
of  a  sound  and  energetic  intellect,  with  a  temperament  prompt- 
ing to  incessant  activity,  Mr.  Rantoul,  so  full  was  he  of  mental 
vitality,  seemed  one  of  those  persons  to  be  thought  of  only  as 
living. 


848  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

His  death,  in  an  uncommon  degree,  took  every  one  by  sur- 
prise, —  not  from  its  suddenness  so  much  as  what  seemed  its 
unsuitableness  to  a  nature  so  full  of  undying  life.  The  electric 
shock  which  ran  through  the  community,  conveying  the  sad 
intelligence,  went  through  the  hearts  also  of  thousands  who  had 
personally  known  him,  and  of  hundreds  of  thousands  to  whom 
his  name  was  familiar.  Few  men  have  been  called  from  the 
scenes  of  American  civil  life  whose  death  caused  more  unaf- 
fected sorrow  and  tender  grief.  Many  a  stalwart,  broad-chested 
farmer,  sunburnt  sailor,  paler  but  not  less  energetic  mechanic, 
many  a  stranger,  who  knew  him  only  from  his  works,  his  faith- 
ful and  eloquent  advocacy  of  those  great  principles  of  liberty 
and  justice  on  which  depend  the  culture,  the  civilization,  and 
the  happiness  of  mankind,  have  individually  sought  his  grave, 
and  there  shed  silent  tears  over  his  remains.  Oh  I  what 
^'  storied  urn  or  monumental  bust"  could  so  honor  his  men:iory  ? 

The  fatal  character  of  his  illness  was  scarcely  discovered 
iDcfore  it  had  passed  beyond  remedy.  Beginning  in  a  slight 
eruption  upon  a  single  point  of  his  forehead,  hardly  noticeable 
•to  himself  but  for  the  irritation  which  wearing  his  hat  occa- 
sioned it,  he  considered  himself  well  on  Monday,  August  2d, 
and  it  was  not  till  Wednesday,  the  4th,  that  erysipelas  devel- 
oped itself,  and  he  was  persuaded  to  receive  medical  advice. 
He  was  the  less  ready  to  do  this,  from  his  holding  decidedly 
the  opinion  that  nature  in  most  cases  of  disease  needs  but  the 
fair  play  which  abstinence  gives,  —  a  rule  much  more  to  be 
commended  to  the  intemperate  than  to  the  habitually  abstemi- 
ous. He  still  pursued  to  its  completion  his  preparation  of  a 
speech  on  the  fisheries,  —  a  subject  in  which  the  whole  country, 
and  his  constituents  especially,  felt  a  deep  interest,  and  of  which 
he  possessed  more  thorough  and  accurate  knowledge  than  any 
other  man  in  congress.  Even  so  late  as  Thursday  morning,  the 
earnest  remonstrances  of  his  friends,  only,  could  prevent  him 
leaving  his  lodgings  for  the  house  of  representatives.  On  this 
day,  August  5,  far  from  feeling  himself  in  any  danger,  he  yet 
allowed  his  family  to  be  informed  of  his  indisposition  by  tele- 
graphic despatch  ;  and  it  was  not  till  Friday  evening  that  his 
xiisease  manifested  its  alarming  and  malignant  character.  He 
became  much  worse ;  but  on  Saturday,  even  after  Mrs.  Ean- 


OF   EGBERT  JIANTOUL,  JR.  849 

tonl's  arrival,  hopes  were  indulged  of  a  favorable  change  in  his 
disease.  He  conversed  with  her  at  intervals,  and  expressed,  in 
the  most  affectionate  manner,  his  extreme  satisfaction  that  she 
could  be  present  with  him,  constantly  holding  her  by  the  hand, 
and  carrying  it,  after  he  had  lost  the  power  of  speech,  from  his 
lips  to  her  cheek,  thus  indicating  the  full  strength  of  the  intel- 
lect and  delicacy  of  affection  which  had  ever  distinguished  him. 
He  gradually  sank,  however,  and  at  half-past  ten  o'clock  on  the 
evening  of  this  day,  August  7,  1852,  quietly  breathed  his  last. 

Mr.  Rantoul  left  but  two  children.  The  eldest,  Robert  S., 
was  born  June  2,  1832,  and  Charles  W.,  born  April  24,  1839. 
Their  course  in  life,  full  of  promise,  though  clouded  by  the  early 
loss  of  their  paternal  counsellor  and  guide,  yet  consoled  by  the 
aff'ection  and  directed  by  the  judgment  of  her,  whose  words  of 
love  first  awakened  in  their  minds  the  sentiments  of  duty,  will 
be  watched  with  deep  interest,  and  cheered  by  the  warm  sym- 
pathy of  numerous  friends,  to  whom  their  father's  voice  yet 
speaketh.  His  elevation  of  moral  sentiment,  his  spotless  integ- 
rity, his  inflexible  attachment  to  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
justice,  his  brilliant,  effective,  and  unremitting  advocacy  of  the 
democratic  cause,  his  heart  and  voice  always  with  and  for  the 
people  instead  of  party,  have  left  a  glorious  legacy  to  his  family 
and  his  country.  Massachusetts  shall  yet  do  honor  to  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  her  sons,  and  the  democracy  of  the 
Union,  from  generation  to  generation,  shall  lay  upon  his  grave 
fresh  laurels  and  the  benedictions  of  the  free. 

"  But  earthly  honors  are  nothing  to  him  now  ;  nor  do  we  look 
back  on  those  which  he  has  received  with  half  the  satisfaction 
which  we  feel  in  contemplating  those  qualities  of  mind  and 
heart,  which  caused  them  to  be  worthily  bestowed  upon  him. 
As  to  be,  rather  than  to  seem,  was  the  one  aim  of  his  life,  so  it 
consoles  us  rather  to  remember  what  he  was,  than  what  the 
world  esteemed  him  to  be,  however  he  may  have  been  ranked 
in  the  world's  opinion,  or  whatever  guerdon  the  world  may  have 
had  in  store  for  him."  —  [Eulogy  on  Judge  Woodbury.) 

AVith  these  simple  words  of  affectionate  homage  to  great 
moral  and  intellectual  eminence,  —  a  tribute  so  perfectly  appli- 
cable to  its  lamented  author,  although  written  for  his  friend,  — 
this  work  might  appropriately  close.     But  as  there  are  those 


850  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

who  will  be  interested  in  the  proceedings  of  congress  in  relation 
to  ^Ir.  RantouFs  death,  and  who  would  not  fail  to  know  the 
touching  manner  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  Beverly,  the  place 
of  his  nativity  and  his  home,  and  the  public  generally,  unitedly 
and  affectionately  expressed  their  sympathy  with  his  family  in 
their  sorrow,  it  is  thought  that  some  of  these  details  should  be 
here  recorded. 

In  congress,  Mr.  RantouPs  death  was  announced  to  the  house 
by  Hon.  Horace  Mann,  and  to  the  senate  by  Hon.  Charles 
Sumner,  of  the  Massachusetts  delegation,  in  terms  eloquently 
expressive  of  the  loss  sustained  by  the  whole  country.  Mr. 
Mann  said  :  — 

Mr.  Speaker,  —  I  rise  to  perform  the  melancholy  service  of  announc- 
ing the  death  of  the  Hon.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  late  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  delegation  in  this  house,  who  expired  at  his  lodgings,  in 
this  city,  on  Saturday  evening  last,  at  half-past  ten  o'clock. 

After  referring  to  the  disease  which  was  the  supposed  cause 
of  his  sudden  death,  and  bringing  into  view  some  points  of  his 
biography  already  familiar  to  the  reader,  the  eloquent  gentleman 
continued :  — 

Mr.  Rantoul's  mind  was  singularly  keen  and  acute.  Yet  he  did  not 
use  his  keenness  and  acumen  as  they  are  so  often  used,  to  cut  and 
pierce  at  random,  but  to  strike  the  joint  and  trace  out  the  marrow  of 
whatever  subject  he  dissected.  The  working  of  his  faculties  was  rather 
judicial  than  forensic.  Logic  predominated  over  rhetoric.  Words  were 
his  counters,  not  his  coin.  The  spectator  w^as  less  struck  by  the  glitter 
of  his  battle-axe  than  by  the  precision  of  its  blow.  He  was  of  too  kindly 
a  nature  to  generate  much  satire ;  yet  against  oppression  and  fraud  he 
could  be  severe.  Either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  he  recognized  the 
great  truth  that  no  moral  being  can  see  virtue  and  vice  as  they  are,  and 
the  eternal  antagonism  between  them,  and  love  the  former  without  hating 
the  latter.  He  who  thinks  it  is  his  duty  to  look  complacently  upon 
wrong,  mistakes  torpidity  of  conscience  for  charity. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  attainments  were  all  in  harmony  wdth  his  original  cast 
of  mind,  —  not  showy,  but  solid  ;  not  gathered  for  ostentation,  but  for 
use.  There  w^as  depth  enough  in  his  stream  of  thought  to  make  a  score 
of  brawling  rivulets.  In  promiscuous  company,  wdiile  the  conversation 
roamed  and  floated  over  the  levities  of  literature  or  the  frivolities  of  his- 


851 

torj,  I  liave  known  liim  to  sit  by  the  hour  almost  dumb  ;  but  when  the 
conversation  struck  into  the  depth  and  heart  of  things,  when  it  discussed 
the  great  events  that  join  and  articulate  the  history  and  fortunes  of  man- 
kind, then  suddenly  it  became  his  turn  to  shine  ;  and  he  would  set  forth 
his  principles,  and  march  up  his  close  battalia  of  facts  and  arguments  for 
their  support,  till  the  rash  disputant  who  encountered  him  would  require 
a  library  of  books  and  months  of  time  to  study  up  to  his  positions. 

But,  Sir,  I  will  not  pursue  these  remarks,  each  sentence  of  which  is  a 
fresh  remembrancer  of  our  loss.  In  the  vigor  of  his  manhood  ;  his  dis- 
cix)lined  faculties  all  ready  and  eager  for  effort ;  his  stores  of  knowledge 
wonderfully  full ;  his  fame  already  bright  and  high,  though  not  yet  cul- 
minated, he  has  been  suddenly  stricken  down.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
proclaims  to  us  the  vanity  and  worthlessness  of  life ;  for  that  is  a  doc- 
trine I  do  not  believe  ;  but  do  not  its  admonitions  strike  us  with  a  voice 
"  loud  on  the  heart  as  thunder  on  the  ear,"  proclaiming  that  it  is  only 
those  acts  of  duty  and  benevolence  which  survive  the  actor,  and  whose 
effects  go  on  widening  and  deepening  in  an  unending  progression  of 
beneficence  after  we  have  departed,  that  can  give  true  dignity  and 
beauty  and  nobleness  to  our  transitory  existence  upon  earth?  If,  as  I 
believe,  death  is  but  an  event  in  life,  our  Book  of  Judgment,  our  rewards 
and  penalties  in  another  world,  may  at  least  partly  consist  in  our  behold- 
ing the  consequences,  then  fated  and  inexorable,  of  our  former  conduct. 

While  remembering  the  widow  and  the  orphan  sons  of  the  deceased, 
there  is  a  venerable  form  in  that  group  of  family  mourners  who  must 
not  be  forgotten.  Mr.  Rantoul,  the  senior,  is  a  gentleman  of  more  than 
threescore  and  ten  years,  of  great  worth  and  excellence  of  private  char- 
acter, for  many  years  a  member  of  one  branch  or  the  other  of  our  State 
legislature,  and  universally  respected.  Of  his  eight  children,  six  have 
now  gone  before  him.  Our  friend,  my  colleague,  was  his  only  surviving 
son.  In  such  a  case,  truly,  it  may  be  said,  "  't  is  the  survivor  dies."  A 
lone  and  solitary  parent,  bereft  of  his  children,  has  been  compared  to  an 
aged  tree,  stripped  of  its  foliage  and  its  limbs,  and  casting  its  shade  by 
its  trunk,  and  not  by  its  branches, — 

"  Trunco,  non  froudibus  cfHcit  umbram." 

Oh,  may  the  Spirit  of  God  descend  with  healing,  when  this  last  arrow 

pierces  that  aged  heart ! 

Mr.  vSpeaker,  I  move  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolutions  :  — 
JResolved,   That  this  house   has    received  with   deep    sensibility  the 

announcement  of  the  death  of  lion.  Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  a  member  of 

this  house  from  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 


852  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

Bcsohed,  That  this  house  tenders  to  tlie  family  of  the  deceased  the 
expression  of  its  sympatliy  on  this  affecting  event ;  and,  as  a  testimony 
of  respect  for  his  memory,  the  members  and  officers  of  this  house  will 
wear  the  usual  badge  of  mourning  for  thirty  days. 

jRcsoIrcd,  That  the  clerk  of  this  house  be  directed  to  communicate  a 
copy  of  these  proceedings  to  the  family  of  the  deceased,  and  also  to  the 
senate. 

Besohed,  That,  as  a  further  testimony  of  respect  for  the  deceased, 
this  house  do  now  adjourn. 

In  the  senate  a  message  was  received  from  the  house  of  rep- 
resentatives, giving  information  of  Mr.  Rantoiil's  death  and  the 
resolutions  of  the  house  read,  when  Mr.  Senator  Sumner  rose 
and  said :  — 

Mr.  President,  —  By  formal  message  of  the  house  of  representatives 
we  now  learn  that  one  of  our  associates  in  the  public  councils  has  died. 
Only  a  few  brief  days,  —  I  had  almost  said  hours,  —  have  passed  since 
he  v/as  in  his  accustomed  seat.  Now  he  has  gone  from  us  forever. 
*****  During  a  brief  period  he  held  a  seat  in  this  body.  Finally 
in  1851,  by  the  choice  of  his  native  district,  remarkable  for  its  intelli- 
gence and  public  spirit,  he  became  a  representative  in  the  other  branch 
of  the  national  legislature.  *  *  *  *  *  He  was  a  reformer.  In  the  war- 
fare with  evil  he  w^as  enlisted  early  and  openly  as  a  soldier  for  life.  As 
such,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  encounter  opposition,  to  bear  obloquy,  and  to 
brave  enmity.  His  conscience,  pure  as  goodness,  sustained  him  in  every 
trial,  even  that  sharpest  of  all,  the  desertion  of  friends.  And  yet  while 
earnest  in  his  cause,  his  zeal  was  tempered  beyond  that  of  the  common 
reformer.  *****  Determined  and  tranquil  in  his  own  convictions, 
he  had  the  grace  to  respect  the  convictions  of  others.  *  *  *  *  Some  of 
his  most  devoted  labors,  commencing  in  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts, 
were  for  the  abolition  of  capital  punishment.  Perhaps  no  person  since 
that  consummate  jurist,  Edward  Livingston,  has  done  so  much  by 
reports,  articles,  letters,  and  speeches,  to  commend  this  reform  to  the 
country.  With  its  final  triumph,  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  his  name 
will  be  indissolubly  connected.  *****  In  becoming  harmony  with 
these  noble  causes  was  the  purity  of  his  private  life.  Here  he  w^as 
blameless.  In  manners  he  was  modest,  simple,  and  retiring.  In  con- 
versation he  was  disposed  to  listen  rather  than  to  speak,  though  all  were 
well  pleased  when  he  broke  silence  and  in  apt  language  declared  his 
glowing  thoughts.  But  in  the  public  assembly,  before  the  people,  or  in 
the  legislative  hall,  he  was  bold  and  triumphant.     As  a  debater,  he 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  853 

rarely  met  his  peer.  Fluent,  rapid,  earnest,  sharp,  incisive,  his  words 
at  times  came  forth  like  a  flashing  cimeter.  Few  could  stand  against 
him.  lie  always  understood  his  subject ;  and  then,  clear,  logical,  and 
determined,  seeing  his  point  before  him,  pressed  forward  with  unrelent- 
ing power.  Ilis  speeches  on  formal  occasions  were  enriched  by  study, 
and  contain  passages  of  beauty.  But  he  was  most  truly  at  home  in  deal- 
ing with  practical  questions  arising  from  the  practical  exigencies  of  life. 

Few  had  studied  public  affairs  more  minutely  or  intelligently.  As  a 
constant  and  effective  member  of  the  democratic  party,  he  had  become 
conspicuous  by  championship  of  its  doctrines  on  the  currency  and  free 
trade.  These  he  often  discussed  from  the  amplitude  of  his  knowledge  ; 
and  his  overflowing  familiarity  with  facts,  statistics,  and  the  principles  of 
political  economy,  poured  upon  them  a  luminous  flood.  But  there  was 
no  topic  within  the  wide  range  of  our  national  concerns  which  did  not 
occupy  his  thoughts.  The  resources  and  needs  of  the  West  were  all 
known  to  him  ;  and  the  western  interests  were  near  his  heart.  As  the 
pioneer,  resting  from  his  daily  labors,  learns  the  death  of  Rantoul,  he 
will  feel  a  personal  grief.  The  fishermen  on  the  distant  eastern  coast, 
many  of  whom  are  dwellers  in  his  district,  will  sympathize  with  the 
pioneer.  As  these  hardy  children  of  the  sea,  returning  in  their  small 
craft  from  their  late  adventures,  hear  the  sad  tidings,  they  too  will  feel 
that  they  have  lost  a  friend.  And  well  they  may.  During  his  last  fit- 
ful hours  of  life,  while  reason  still  struggled  against  disease,  he  was 
anxious  for  their  welfare.  The  speech  which  in  their  behalf  he  had 
hoped  soon  to  make  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  was  then  chasing  through 
his  mind.  Finally,  in  broken  utterance,  he  gave  to  them  some  of  his; 
latest  earthly  thoughts.  *  *  * 

At  last  he  stands  face  to  face  in  Ilis  presence  whose  service  is  perfect 
freedom.  He  has  gone  before  ;  you  and  I,  Sir,  and  all  of  us  must  follow 
soon.  God  grant  that  we  may  go  wdth  equal  consciousness  of  duty 
done.     I  beg  leave  to  offer  the  following  resolutions : 

liesoh'ed,  unanimously.  That  the  senate  mourns  the  death  of  Hon. 
Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  late  member  of  the  house  of  representatives,  from 
Massachusetts,  and  tenders  to  his  relatives  a  sincere  sympathy  in  this 
afflicting  bereavement. 

Resolved^  As  a  mark  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the  deceased,  that 
the  senate  do  now  adjourn. 

The  resolutions  were  adopted  and  the  senate  adjourned. 

The  legislature  of  Massachusetts  passed  resolutions  of  con- 
dolence and  sympathy  which  the  governor  duly  presented  to 
the  family  of  the  deceased.     The  city  of  Salem,  besides  pass- 

72 


854  MEMOIRS,  SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

ing  resolutions  expressive  of  respect  for  his  purity  of  character, 
his  great  talents  and  worth  as  a  man  and  a  statesman,  voted  to 
attend  his  funeral  by  her  constituted  authorities.  The  senti- 
ments of  deeply-felt  regard  and  sympathy,  were  spontaneously 
expressed  by  resolutions  in  the  cities  of  Lynn,  Charlestown, 
Lowell,  Worcester,  and  other  towns,  either  by  the  local  authori- 
ties, or  by  numerous  associations  of  individuals  who  mourned 
his  death. 

The  town  of  Beverly,  the  place  of  his  nativity  and  his  home, 
without  distinction  of  sect  or  party,  unanimously  passed  and 
carried  into  effect  the  following  resolutions  :  — 

Resolved,  That  while  we  desire  to  acquiesce  humbly  in  the  decree  of 
Providence  which  has  called  from  this  life,  and  from  a  sphere  of  exten- 
sive and  highly  valued  influence,  our  late  eminent  representative,  fellow- 
citizen,  and  friend,  we  would  testify  our  strong  conviction  of  his  great 
talents  and  worth,  and  of  the  irreparable  public  and  private  loss  which 
has  been  sustained. 

Resolved,  That  in  our  poignant  grief  we  will  not  overlook  the  pecu- 
liar and  sweet  solace  we  may  find  in  dwelling  on  the  useful  direction  he 
ever  sought  to  give  to  his  great  powers,  and  on  the  uprightness,  purity, 
and  amiableness  by  which  his  character  was  marked  and  adorned. 

Resolved,  That  by  the  impulse  he  powerfully  assisted  to  lend  to  the 
cause  of  education,  temperance,  and  humanity,  he  is  entitled  to  a  high 
rank  among  the  moral  reformers  of  the  age,  and  as  such  will  be  long  and 
gratefully  remembered. 

Resolved,  That  while  we  would  tenderly  refrain  from  lifting  the  veil 
which  his  death  has  thrown  over  the  domestic  circle,  we  respectfully 
offer  to  his  family  and  relatives  our  most  heartfelt  sympathy,  and  freely 
mingle  our  tears  wdth  theirs,  over  the  bier  of  one  whom  our  whole  com- 
munity mourns  as  a  friend,  and  who  was  so  widely  and  warmly  regarded 
and  beloved. 

Resolved,  That  we  would  respectfully  recommend  that  all  places  of 
business  be  closed  on  the  afternoon  of  the  funeral,  that  the  whole  com- 
munity unite  with  the  family  of  the  deceased  in  showing  their  respt^ct 
for  the  dead.  Voted,  that  the  secretary  be  requested  to  present  a  co])y 
of  the  resolutions  to  the  family  of  the  deceased. 

To  show  the  opinion  entertained  of  Mr.  Rantoul's  political 
course  by  an  impartial  observer  of  Massachusetts  politics, 
whose  political  affinities  were  opposed  to  those  of  Mr.  Rantoul, 
we  make  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  received  from 
■Wendell  Phillips,  Esq.  :  — 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  855 

*****  Mr.  Rantoul's  death  was  a  national  loss.  He  was  not 
only  one  of  the  ablest,  if  not  the  very  ablest  man  in  the  democratic 
party,  but  for  honesty  as  well  as  intellect  his  name  deserves  to  be  writ- 
ten near  that  of  William  Leggett.  At  the  moment  of  his  death  he  was 
the  key  of  New  England  politics,  the  only  man  of  whom  it  could  be 
hoped  that  he  was  willing  and  able  to  change  the  democratic  ranks  here 
from  a  party  of  spoils  to  a  party  of  progress. 

For  the  sake  of  his  own  fame,  his  early  death  is  especially  to  be 
lamented,  as  his  character  and  services  had  just  begun  to  be  appreciated. 
I  was  bred  a  whig,  and  well  remember  my  early  and  strong  prejudices 
against  him.  Some  of  his  friends  have  never  appeared  to  me  to  do  him 
fall  justice.  He  was  one  of  those  politicians,  rare  in  any  land,  hardly 
to  be  spoken  of  in  the  plural  number,  in  America,  who  sacrifice  their 
ambition  to  their  ideas.  Conscious,  as  he  must  have  been  of  great 
powers  and  evidently  ambitious  of  high  position,  he  became  a  democrat 
in  3fassachiisefts,  where  his  party  was  in  a  hopeless  minority,  and  when 
to  favor  free  trade  and  oppose  banks  was  looked  upon  as  little  short  of 
insanity.  Having  thus  cut  himself  off  from  all  but  strict  party  support, 
he  alienated  his  political  friends  by  a  frank  advocacy  of  the  temperance 
cause,  which,  it  is  not  unjust  to  say,  has  never  been  a  favorite  with  the 
democratic  party  here.  Plainly  told,  by  its  leaders  in  1838,  that  if  he 
supported  the  "  fifteen  gallon "  law,  he  did  it  at  his  peril;  he  neither 
relented  nor  kept  silent,  but  by  his  zeal,  provoked  an  opposition  so 
malignant  and  undying  that  in  every  emergency  afterward,  to  the  very 
last  year  of  his  life,  it  made  a  point  of  thwarting  him,  and  was  often  able, 
by  the  command  of  a  few  hundred  votes,  to  defeat  his  election. 

There  was  one  elemicnt  of  jMassachusetts  favor  left  which  a  prudent 
politician  would  have  been  careful  to  secure,  —  the  good  opinion  of  the 
orthodox  sects.  These,  again,  Mr.  Rantoul  alienated  by  his  untiring 
advocacy  of  the  abolition  of  capital  punishment.  They  had  looked 
coldly  and  with  some  suspicion  on  his  liberal  views  while  a  member  of 
the  Board  of  Education ;  and  any  common  politician,  however  desirous  to 
ameliorate  penal  legislation,  would  have  contented  himself  with  one 
frank  expression  of  his  feelings  and  then  have  dropped  the  unwelcome 
subject.  But  Mr.  Rantoul  incurred  the  hostility  of  the  strongest  and 
most  unforgiving  of  sects,  by  his  unwavering,  enthusiastic,  outspoken 
opposition  to  the  gallows  ;  whether  in  the  legislature  or  out  of  it ;  be- 
fore legislative  committees ;  through  the  press  and  in  conventions,  — 
often  making  opportunities  where  he  did  not  find  them. 

Surely,  judged  as  a  politician,  this  man  gave  fair  evidence  of  prefer- 
ring his  convictions  to  his  interests.  One  might  be  a  democrat  in  a  whig 
State,  solely  from  far-sighted  policy,  and  at  best  that  is  only  to  wear  the 


856  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES   AND  WRITINGS 

badge  of  one  party  in  defiance  of  others.  But  to  be  a  temperance,  gal- 
lows-hating democrat  in  an  orthodox  State,  and  a  rum-democratic  party, 
ought  to  gain  a  politician  the  credit  of  following  principle  regardless  of  loss. 
On  the  question  of  slavery  I  always  wished  he  had  been  more  radi- 
cal ;  had  shown  a  more  profound  sjmpatliy  with  humanity  and  deeper 
principle.  But  thus  much  must  be  allowed  ;  living  in  a  district  strongly 
anti-slavery,  he  never  made  hollow  pledges  to  gain  votes,  and  when  he 
had  once  uttered  a  sentiment  or  made  a  pledge,  no  one  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  watch  him  :  certain  that  he  would  more  than  fulfil  his  promise, 
and  that  in  the  position  he  had  taken,  or  in  advance  of  it,  you  would  be 
sure  to  find  him,  no  matter  how  long  your  absence.  In  our  political 
arena  these  are  rare  merits. 

The  following  paragraphs  are  extracts  from  an  account  of 
his  funeral,  and  the  sentiments  of  the  press  :  — 

OBSEQUIES    AT  BEVERLY  IN   COMMEMORATION   OF   HON.   ROB- 
ERT  RANTOUL,   JR. 
[From   the    Commonwealth.] 

Yesterday  (Tuesday)  was  a  sad  day  for  the  old  and  honored  town  of 
Beverly.  The  mournful  and  unexpected  decease  of  her  favorite  son, 
Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  under  circumstances  of  such  painful  character,  was 
well  calculated  to  call  out  the  warmest  tribute  of  respect  to  his  memory, 
as  well  as  poignant  sorrow  for  his  loss,  even  were  there  not  associated 
with  his  person  all  that  should  make  his  name  revered  as  a  neighbor, 
citizen,  townsman,  and  representative.  Indeed,  never  before  have  we 
witnessed  so  unmistakable  a  feeling  of  heartfelt  regret  at  the  death  of 
a  public  man  as  was  afforded  at  the  funeral  ceremonies  of  the  able  and 
distinguished  representative  of  the  Second  Congressional  District.  Other 
men  may  have  stood  higher  on  the  roll  of  fame,  —  other  funeral  pa- 
geants may  have  been  more  august  and  imposing,  —  but  never  was  there 
the  man  or  the  occasion  that  called  out  truer  or  more  deep-seated  emo- 
tions of  regret  and  sorrow  than  those  which  attended  this  testimonial  of 
respect  from  his  old  companions,  towns-people,  and  friends. 

At  an  early  hour  in  the  day,  all  the  stores,  offices,  banks,  and  other 
places  of  business  were  closed.  The  stroke  of  the  artisan  became 
hushed.  Dwellings  and  shops  vied  in  the  display  of  the  sombre  habili- 
ments of  mourning.  The  shipping  at  the  wharves  hung  their  colors 
at  half-mast  in  commemoration  of  him  whose  eloquent  words  oft  had 
been  uttered  in  their  behalf.  All  over  the  village,  little  knots  of  men 
might  be  seen  in  impressive  conversation  upon  the  sad  event  which  had 
not  only  befallen  the  town,  but  the  State  and  nation.     Within  doors, 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  857 

nought  was  scarce  spoken  but  what  pertamed  to  the  deep  affliction 
which  moved  the  whole  community.  Old  and  young,  male  and  female, 
the  school-attendant  and  the  retired  business-man,  the  mechanic  and  the 
member  of  the  profession,  all  seemed  equally  to  feel  the  common  loss. 
One  deep,  universal,  all-pervading  sentiment  of  sorrow  influenced  the 
thoughts  and  controlled  the  action  of  the  entire  population.  Not  the 
least  shade  of  a  partisan  cast  was  observable  during  the  whole  obsequies. 

At  intervals  during  the  day,  the  bells  of  the  several  churches  gave 
out  their  funeral  peal.  The  town-hall  was  robed  in  double  festoons  of 
black.  The  post-oince  was  closed,  and  tastefully  symbolized.  The 
Citizens'  Reading  Room  also  gave  its  indication  of  the  loss  to  the  re- 
public of  literature  and  letters  by  suitable  drapery.  The  merchants 
and  traders  added  to  the  general  testimonials  of  the  worth  of  the  man 
who  had  departed. 

At  the  First  Unitarian  Church,  where  the  services  were  held,  the 
arrangements  were  equally  appropriate  and  becoming.  In  the  vestibule, 
in  full  sight  of  all  who  entered  or  departed,  was  placed  all  that  remained 
of  the  eminent  legislator  and  statesman,  enclosed  in  one  of  Fiske's 
metallic  coffins,  tastefully  decorated  with  fragrant  flowers.  This  testi- 
monial was  in  keeping  with  the  pure  taste  of  the  deceased,  who  was 
extremely  fond  of  flowers  and  shrubs.  Upon  the  plate  was  the  simple 
inscription  :  — 

ROBERT    R  A  N  T  0  U  L ,    JR., 

BORN,    AUGUST   13,    1805  ; 
DIED,    AUGUST    7,    1852. 

In  the  meantime,  the  various  societies,  associations,  and  companies, 
together  with  the  school  children  and  citizens  generally  of  the  town,  and 
the  members  of  the  bars  of  Essex  and  Suffolk  counties,  met  in  diflTcrent 
apartments  of  the  town-hall,  and  were  formed  m  procession  for  attend- 
ance on  the  services  of  the  church. 

Arrived  at  the  church,  the  doors  were  thrown  open,  when  the  pro- 
cession and  the  public  generally  entered,  filling  in  a  few  moments  every 
seat  and  standing-place,  including  the  aisles  and  pulpit-area. 

The  solemn  services  were  commenced  by  a  mournfully  appropriate 
voluntary  on  the  organ,  executed  with  much  accuracy  and  feeling.  The 
pastor  of  the  church,  (being  the  one  at  which  the  deceased  regularly 
attended  when  at  home,)  Rev.  C.  T.  Thayer,  then  read  with  emotion  the 
hymn,  commencing, 

"  Friend  after  friend  departs," 

which  was  sung  with  marked  solemnity  by  a  well-trained  choir. 

Rev.  Dr.  James  W.  Thompson,  of  Salem,  followed  in  the  following 

72* 


858  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

beautifully-appropriate  remarks,  to  which  a  breathless  attention  was 
given  :  — 

"  The  Lord  is  in  his  holy  temple  ;  let  all  the  earth  keep  silence  before 
him."  "  A  voice  comes  to  us  from  heaven,  Be  still,  and  know  that  I  am 
God."  "  How  unsearchable  are  his  judgments  and  his  ways  past  find- 
ing out."  "  For  of  him,  and  through  him,  and  to  him,  are  all  things : 
to  whom  be  glory  forever  ! " 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way, 
His  wonders  to  perform  ; 
He  plants  his  footsteps  in  the  sea, 
And  rides  upon  the  storm," 

FiiiENDS  AND  Brethren,  —  It  is  on  no  ordinary  occasion  that  we 
are  here  convened.  The  general  suspension  of  common  pursuits  —  the 
stillness  that  reigns  around  this  multitudinous  assembly  —  the  mournful 
strains  of  the  choir  to  which  we  have  just  listened  —  the  sadness  expressed 
in  every  countenance  —  the  sighs  that  escape  from  heavy-laden  hearts 
—  the  strangers  who  have  taken  their  seats  amongst  us,  as  if  drawn 
hither  by  powerful  sympathies  —  the  neighboring  city  present  by  her 
chief  magistrate  and  his  official  associates  —  and  the  congress  of  the 
nation  by  its  delegated  representatives,  —  all  indicate  that  it  is  for  an 
unusual  purpose  that  these  doors  are  opened  to-day ;  that  some  extraor- 
dinary event  has  occurred,  deeply  and  widely  felt ;  that  some  mysterious 
dispensation  from  the  great  Lord  of  life  has  turned  our  harp  to  mourn- 
ing and  our  organ  into  the  voice  of  them  that  weep,  and  instead  of 
the  garments  of  praise,  has  filled  us  with  the  spirit  of  heaviness.  And 
so  indeed  is  it.  We  are  assembled  amid  deeper  solemnities  than  those 
which  pervade  even  the  house  of  God  in  the  sacred  season  of  worship. 
A  bereaved  family  mourning  that  its  stay  and  staff  is  taken  away,  —  an 
afflicted  community  sorrowing  that  a  brilliant  jewel  and  ornament  of 
beauty  hath  been  plucked  from  its  crown,  —  a  saddened  nation  lament- 
ing that  one  of  its  polished  and  stately  pillars  hath  crumbled  into  dust, 
• — are  gathered  together  here,  as  the  fittest  place  for  such  a  purpose,  to 
give  expression  to  their  grief,  and  implore  the  solaces  of  religion  !  AYe 
are  here  but  for  a  few  moments.  Like  our  life,  our  stay  must  be  short ; 
for  we  are  pilgrims  moving  onward  to  another  resting-place.  We  only 
pause  in  this  house  of  God  to  renew  our  strength  from  its  provisions, 
and  to  slake  our  thirst  at  that  river  which  flows  fast  by  the  heavenly 
oracles,  and  then  pass  on  to  that  other  house,  which  is  equally  with  this, 
the  gate  of  heaven,  —  where  time  and  eternity  meet  and  mingle,  and 
mortality  is  swallowed  up  of  life.  We  stop  here  at  the  cross  on  our 
way  to  the  sepulchre,  to  kindle  our  faith  by  looking  on  Him  who  died 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  859 

that  we  might  live,  and  who  left  the  world  to  prepare  a  place  for  all 
who  do  the  will  of  his  Father. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  duty  assigned  to  me  in  these  sad  solemnities  to 
relate  the  history  or  delineate  the  character  of  the  distinguished  friend 
whose  obsequies  we  celebrate.  It  is  not  for  me  to  speak  of  his  genius 
—  of  his  varied  and  extraordinary  attainments  —  of  his  unsurpassed  in- 
dustry —  of  his  comprehensive  and  philanthropic  statesmanship  —  of 
the  steady  inclinations  and  aims  of  his  heart  towards  whatever  might 
improve  the  condition,  promote  the  welfare,  and  elevate  the  character  of 
his  fellow  men  —  of  the  simplicity  and  modesty  with  which  he  bore  the 
honors  of  eminent  station  —  of  the  purity  of  his  private  life  —  of  the 
affectionateness  of  his  nature,  which  made  him  almost  the  idol  of  his 
domestic  circle,  —  treasured  fruit  of  that  almond-tree  which  blossomed 
while  he  was  yet  young,  the  joy  of  sisters,  the  pride  of  sons,  dear  to  her 
who  shared  his  bosom  confidences,  and  who  participated  to  the  full  in 
the  satisfactions  of  his  renown,  —  so  dear  that  it  "  cannot  be  valued  with 
the  gold  of  Ophir,  with  the  precious  onyx,  or  the  sapphire.  The  gold 
and  the  crystal  cannot  equal  it,  and  the  exchange  of  it  shall  not  be  for 
jewels  of  fine  gold."  We  come  but  to  bury  him  !  Yet,  not  this,  till  by 
meditation  and  prayer  we  have  consecrated  his  death  to  the  uses  of  our 
spiritual  life,  till  from  this  page  of  the  book  of  Providence  we  have 
read  and  applied  the  touching  and  all-concerning  lesson  of  life's  uncer- 
tainty, and  the  fragility  of  our  mortal  hopes,  till  we  have  sought  instruc- 
tion in  divine  things  from  the  book  of  Revelation,  till  we  have  bowed 
our  heads  together  in  meek  devotion  and  humble  prayer  before  the 
Mighty  Father,  who,  for  our  profit  doth  chasten  us  that  we  might  be  par- 
takers of  his  holiness.  Then,  we  bury  him  !  Yet  not  Jiim,  but  only 
that  garment  of  flesh  in  which  his  immortal  being  was  clothed,  and 
which,  formed  of  the  earth,  returns  of  right  to  the  dust,  from  which  it 
came,  —  not  him,  for  the  soul  which  is  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
cannot  see  death  ;  it  bears  the  image  of  God's  eternity  ;  it  lives  forever  ! 

"  Eternal  process  moving  on, 
From  state  to  state  the  spirit  walks ; 
And  these  arc  but  the  shattered  stalks 
Or  ruined  chrysalis  of  one." 

And  how  fit  is  it,  my  friends,  that  we  should  engage  in  this  service 
here  !  For  with  the  congregation  worshipping  at  this  altar  our  departed 
brother  was  joined  in  the  highest  of  human  relations.  And  here,  at 
this  hallowed  shrine,  where  his  infancy  was  consecrated  in  the  name  of 
the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  whither  his 
youthful  feet  were  led  by  the  hand  of  parental  affection,  we  may  trust 
his  manly  heart  was  accustomed  to  ofifer  acceptable  sacrifices  to  that 


860  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES,  AND  WRITINGS 

Infinite  One  who  hath  now  removed  him  from  the  toils  and  ambitions, 
the  duties  and  trusts,  the  hopes  and  responsibilities,  the  joys  and  sor- 
rows of  this  present  evil  vrorld  to  the  unknown  and  unimagined  realities 
of  the  world  that  is  unseen  and  eternal ! 

And  most  kindly  is  it  ordered  that  these  sad  rites  should  be  performed 
in  this  tov;n,  where  our  friend  first  saw  the  light,  where  was  his  cher- 
ished hoyne,  where  so  many  of  the  companions  of  his  earlier  and  of  his 
maturer  life  still  dwell,  where  but  one  sentiment  pervades  all  bosoms  in 
view  of  his  departure,  and  where  his  name  and  fame  will  be  sure  to  be 
kept  as  a  rich  legacy  from  generation  to  generation  !  Members  of  this 
congregation  !  Inhabitants  of  this  town  !  —  is  it  not  some  alleviation  to 
your  sorrow,  that  he  died  at  the  post  of  duty  and  in  the  midst  of  his 
highest  usefulness  ?  Is  it  not  a  peculiar  felicity  gilding  the  darkness  of 
this  dispensation  that  he  was  not  called  away  till  by  his  most  recent  pub- 
lic acts  he  had  made  the  cause  of  freedom  and  humanity  eternally  his 
debtor  ? 

My  brethren,  you  needed  not  this  occasion  to  remind  you  that  death 
is  always  a  solemn  event,  that  ^\Q,  cannot  tell  what  a  day  may  bring 
forth,  and  that  no  man  is  surer  of  to-morrow  than  the  weakest  of  his 
brethren.  For  how  often,  alas  !  has  this  lesson  been  read  to  us!  Sud- 
den death  is  by  no  means  God's  strange  work.  How  does  it  behoove  us, 
then,  to  be  watchful,  since  we  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  when 
the  Son  of  Man  cometh !  Yet,  let  Him  come  when  He  may,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  death  is,  in  all  cases,  wisely  ordained.  We  live  in  the  reli- 
gion not  only  of  the  Kedeemer,  but  of  the  Comforter.  We  live  in  the 
light  of  a  Gospel  which  has  stripped  from  death  many  of  his  terrors, 
which  assures  us  of  a  hereafter,  which  teaches  that  man  is  of  kindred 
nature  with  God,  being  his  offspring,  which  bridges  over  the  dark  gulf 
that  separates  the  seen  from  the  unseen,  and  unites  us  by  faith  with 
that  great  multitude  which  no  man  can  number  who  stand  before 
the  throne  and  before  the  Lamb  clothed  in  white  robes  and  palms 
in  their  hands,  and  whose  joyful  song  forever  is,  "  Salvation  to 
our  God  which  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb ! "  With 
the  consolations  of  this  religion  may  you  all  be  comforted  !  And  may 
the  affecting  admonitions  of  this  occasion  be  wisely  improved  by  us  all ! 
May  they  reach  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  this  land  with  a  sanctifying 
influence !  May  they  touch  the  high  places  of  authority  with  a  tender 
sensibility !  And  may  they  lead  all  who  hear  them  with  awakened  con- 
sciences and  religious  fear  to  consecrate  themselves  to  duty  and  to  God? 

This  address  was  followed  by  the  reading,  by  the  eloquent  divine,  of 
several  passages  of  Scripture,  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  occasion. 


OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR.  861 

The  services  were  continued  bj  an  earnest  and  deeply  toucliing,  as 
well  as  peculiarly  appropriate  prayer  from  Rev.  Mr.  Thayer,  who  most 
tenderly  sought  to  assuage  the  grief  of  the  mourning  relatives  and 
friends,  through  the  interposition  of  Providence,  by  reason  of  the  loss 
that  had  befallen  them.  His  supplications  were  alike  truly  devotional, 
chaste,  and  heart-soothing,  yet  permeated  throughout  with  a  heavenly 
faith  in  the  wisdom  of  God,  strengthened  by  Divine  assurances,  in  this 
mysterious  dispensation. 

The  G02d  hymn  of  the  Unitarian  Collection,  commencing  — 

"  Unveil  thy  bosom,  faithful  tomb, 
Take  this  new  tribute  to  thy  trust, 
And  give  these  sacred  relics  room 
To  seek  a  slumber  in  thy  dust,"  — 

was  then  sung  most  appropriately  by  the  choir,  followed  by  a  Benedic- 
tion from  the  pastor,  when  the  church  services  closed. 


SENTIMENTS  OF  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS. 

[From  the  Boston  Times.] 

*  *  *  Mr.  Rantoul  was  one  of  the  first  orators  of  the  day.  ITis 
rapidity  of  thought  found  in  his  utterance  a  worthy  organ.  No  man 
among  our  public  speakers  could  say  so  much  in  so  short  a  time  ;  and  but 
for  the  singular  clearness  of  his  ideas,  and  the  purity  of  his  language,  he 
would  have  defied  the  art  of  the  reporter.  His  logic  was  convincing  as  it 
was  acute  ;  without  being  subtle,  he  accomplished  with  it  far  more  than 
is  often  gained  by  the  subtlest  of  logicians.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
original  of  orators  and  writers,  and  at  the  same  time  his  acquirements 
were  prodigious,  and  always  at  command  ;  and  when  used,  were  not 
coupled  with  that  pedantry  which  comes  from  the  weakness  of  mental 
assimilation  in  too  many  great  readers.  His  mind  was  like  a  vast  and 
well  ari'anged  library,  which  could  be  drawn  upon  at  any  moment  for 
the  facts  desired,  apparently  without  labor.  He  was  familiar  not  only 
with  the  literature  of  classical  antiquity,  and  that  of  England,  but  also 
with  the  writings  of  the  great  masters  of  the  French,  Italian,  German, 
and  Spanish  languages.  In  the  departments  of  history  and  political 
science  he  was  unrivalled  for  knowledge,  and  we  do  not  believe  that  he 
has  in  these  respects  left  behind  him  any  equal. 

Mr.  Rantoul  was  a  strong  friend  to  all  the  liberal  ideas  and  move- 
ments of  the  day.     His   arguments   in   support  of  the  abolition  of  the 


862  MEMOIRS,   SPEECHES  AND  WRITINGS 

barbarism  of  hanging  are  among  the  most  vahiable  contributions  to  tlie 
political  literature  of  the  country.  lie  urged  this  question  upon  the 
public  mind  with  great  force,  and  the  practical  uprooting  of  the  gallows 
in  Massachusetts,  at  the  last  session  of  the  legislature,  was  in  no  small 
degree  the  result  of  his  powerful  and  benevolent  exercises.  He  was  a 
strong  friend  of  education,  in  behalf  of  which  he  both  wrote  and  spoke 
much.  Of  temperance  he  was  a  consistent  and  bold  advocate.  He  was 
an  ardent  advocate  of  freedom  of  trade,  long  before  that  doctrine  had 
become  so  popular  as  it  now  is,  either  in  this  country  or  England.  What- 
ever difference  of  opinion  may  exist  on  the  policy  of  some  of  his  latest 
speeches  on  a  subject  that  has  excited  much  attention,  no  one  not  steeled 
against  the  voice  of  reason  can  doubt  either  of  the  ability  therein  dis- 
played, or  the  purity  of  the  motives  by  which  the  orator  Vv'as  actuated 
in  delivering  them. 

Both  as  a  public  man  and  as  a  private  citizen,  Mr.  Rantoul's  charac- 
ter was  beyond  reproach.  He  was  eminently  pure  in  all  the  relations  of 
life,  and  the  breath  of  calumny  was  never  directed  against  him. 
Depressed  as  his  relatives  and  friends  are  by  his  untimely  death,  they 
are  consoled  by  the  reflection  that  his  virtues  must  have  made  the 
approach  of  the  awful  hour  one  of  comparative  calm  to  him.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  one  of  the  perplexities  that  are  so  constantly  besetting 
us  in  this  life,  that  one  so  endowed  for  good,  and  whose  career  had  been 
spotless,  should  be  removed  from  a  world  which  by  his  labors  and  exam- 
ple he  was  so  well  calculated  to  benefit,  far  before  he  had  accomplished 
the  end  of  his  being,  and  when  he  was  apparently  about  to  be  placed  at 
the  head  of  that  new  class  of  statesmen  to  whom  the  guidance  and  direc- 
tion of  the  country's  affairs  are  soon  to  be  consigned.  . 

[From  the  Xewburyport  Union.] 

Robert  Rantoul,  Jr.,  is  dead !  How  terribly  does  this  annuncia- 
tion strike  upon  our  minds !  That  he,  learned,  liberal,  eloquent,  great 
as  but  few  men  in  the  nation  are  or  have  been  great,  —  beloved  by  his 
friends  and  respected  by  all,  —  is  no  more.  Yet  such  is  the  declaration 
of  the  telegraphic  despatch  which  was  not  altogether  unexpected,  from 
the  report  of  his  condition  given  on  Saturday.  The  District  that  he  so 
ably  represented,  —  the  State  that  he  honored  by  his  great  powers  of 
mind,  and  the  Nation  in  whose  service  he  labored,  and  for  whose  good  his 
patriotic  heart  was  ever  ready  to  yield  its  all,  —  will  mourn  his  fall,  ere 
he  had  reached  his  prime,  —  being  but  forty-seven  years  of  age,  —  as  a 
loss  not  easily  to  be  retrieved. 

Mr.  Rantoul  was  not  alone  a  statesman,  great  in  his  abilities ;  but  he 


863 

was  a  man,  sympathizing  in  the  tenderness  of  his  soul  with  every  fellow 
man,  and  nobly  acting  with  that  energy  and  spirit  which  were  his  pecu- 
liar characteristics,  for  the  well-being  of  the  race;  —  for  the  elevation 
of  the  down-trodden  masses,  —  for  the  extension  of  liberty  to  the 
enslaved  and  wronged,  —  for  the  education  of  the  ignorant,  that  they 
might  rise  to  life  and  hope  ;  and  for  the  general  promotion  of  these  vir- 
tues that  were  conducive  to  man's  highest  happiness.  Hence,  in  his 
life,  we  found  him  the  advocate  of  common  school  education,  —  the  tem- 
perance movement,  the  prison  discipline  reform,  and  the  enemy  of  the 
gallows,  —  of  unequal  and  tyrannical  legislation  in  the  North,  and  those 
hideous  features  that  despotism  has  assumed  in  the  South.  Yet  his  was 
not  heated  passion,  rioting  against  law  and  order  and  society  ;  but  the 
deductions  of  sound  reason,  —  the  calculations  of  cool  philosophy,  —  the 
thoughts  of  a  noble  mind,  and  the  action  of  a  true  patriot.  When  all 
else  of  the  man  shall  be  blotted  from  memory,  —  when  his  duties  as  a 
State  legislator,  to  the  performance  of  which  he  brought  such  rare  abili- 
ties, shall  be  forgotten,  —  when  his  wisdom  as  a  public  officer  shall  be 
faded  and  gone,  —  his  eminence  as  a  speaker  be  no  longer  remembered, 
and  his  brief,  but  excellent  career  in  congress  be  lost  in  the  accumulated 
annals  of  that  body,  then  will  live  the  results  of  the  actions  of  his  great 
and  philanthropic  heart,  blessing  mankind  in  the  social  and  benevolent 
movements  with  which  he  sympathized  and  acted.  Peace  to  him !  Let 
him  rest  in  peace,  and  the  flowers  bloom  over  his  grave,  for  life's  battle, 
though  short,  has  been  well  fought,  and  he  has  gone  to  his  reward. 

[From  the  Taunton  Democrat.] 

Mr.  Rantoul  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  the  legal  profession.  As  a 
forensic  speaker,  he  had  few  equals,  and  scarcely  a  superior.  Both  in 
professional  and  political  debate,  he  acquired  a  high  reputation  as  a  bold 
and  original  thinker,  an  acute  reasoner,  and  accomplished  orator.  Ilis 
style  of  oratory  was  singularly  attractive,  —  rapid,  flowing,  nervous, 
keen,  and  graceful,  formed  after  no  model,  and  governed  by  no  law  but 
its  own  inspiration.  He  was  equally  in  his  element,  whether  at  the  bar 
or  in  the  forum,  —  before  the  people  or  in  the  halls  of  legislation.  His 
theme,  whether  it  was  a  dry  question  of  law,  to  be  solved  by  researches 
among  the  cobwebs  of  legal  commentaries  and  dusty  records  ;  a  walk  in 
the  flowery  path  of  literature  ;  the  pursuit  of  history  ;  the  investigation 
of  a  commercial  })roblem,  or  the  theory  of  trade,  was  ever  more  the 
plaything  than  the  task  of  his  peculiar  powers. 

His  was  one  of  the  progressive  minds  of  the  age.  To  the  cause  of  free 
education,  he  gave  his  earliest  influence  and  support ;  to  temperance,  his 
voice  and  his  example.     Of  the  abolition  of  the  death  penalty,  it  may  be 


864  MEMOIRS  OF  ROBERT  RANTOUL,  JR. 

said,  that  he  was  its  ablest  advocate,  and  that  he  died,  like  John  Quincy 
Adams,  clothed  in  the  armor  of  uncompromising  hostility  to  what  he 
deemed  the  encroachments  of  the  institution  of  southern  slavery.  Upon 
the  latter  subject  alone,  he  refused  to  obey  the  behests  of  his  party,  pre- 
ferring the  sacrifice  of  his  political  position  to  the  surrender  of  his  own 
judgment  upon  a  single  question  of  constitutional  law. 

Mr.  Rantoul's  career  and  services  require  no  eulogy.  His  varied 
acquisitions  from  every  field  of  learning, -combined  to  blend  in  his  char- 
acter the  highest  attributes  of  the  statesman,  scholar,  and  philanthro{)ist. 
Whatever  may  bj  said  of  his  influence,  we  ask,  where  was  his  equal  in 
the  body  of  which  he  was  a  member  ?  His  works  are  his  best  eulogium. 
Jle  leaves  behind  him  the  record  of  a  laborious  and  bhimeless  life  ;  and 
the  death  of  such  a  man  is  at  any  time  a  calamity  to  his  country.  At 
this  crisis  in  his  own  career,  it  is  a  misfortune  to  his  fame.  He  has 
fallen  in  the  midst  of  conflict,  not  before  an  earthly  antagonist,  but  by  an 
unseen  hand. 

"  The  silken  chord  is  loosed,  —  the  golden  bowl  is  broken." 

A  star  in  its  brightness  has  suddenly  grown  dim,  and  the  grave  closes 
over  the  ashes  of  one  stricken  down  in  the  vigor  of  his  years,  and  before 
the  fulness  of  his  fame.  His  death  is  no  common  loss  ;  to  his  family,  a 
loss  ive  cannot  realize;  to  his  constituents,  which  none  can  supply  ;  and 
to  his  party  and  his  country,  a  deprivation  like  the  deaths  of  Silas  Wright 
and  Levi  Woodbury,  tenfold  more  afliicting  for  the  suddenness  of  its 
occurrence. 

He  is  gone  !  The  struggles,  the  rivalries,  and  the  triumphs  of  party 
•with  him  are  over.  The  praise  or  censure  of  men  are  nothing  to  him 
now.  He  has  bid  farewell  to  the  scenes  of  his  early  toils,  and  the  last 
goal  of  his  ambition,  forever  !  Alas  !  for  the  lesson  of  human  greatness  I 
Honor  is  fleeting;  fame  is  a  shadow;  the  bi'ightest  laurels  wither  upon 
the  brows  of  men  ;  and  the  prizes  of  life  crumble  to  ashes  within  our 
grasp  ! 


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